Effects of rule changes on physical demands and shot characteristics of elite-standard men’s squash and implications for training

The physical demands and rally characteristics of elite-standard men’s squash have not been well documented since recent rule changes (scoring and tin height). This information is needed to design optimal training drills for physical conditioning provided here based on an analysis of movement and shot information. Matches at the 2010 (n = 14) and 2011 (n = 27) Rowe British Grand Prix were analysed. Rallies were split into four ball-in-play duration categories using the 25th (short), 75th (medium), 95th percentiles (long) and maximum values. Cohen’s d and chi-squared tests of independence evaluated effects of rally and rule changes on patterns of play. The proportion of long, middle and short shots was related to the duration of the rally with more shots played in the middle and front of the court in short rallies (phi = 0.12). The frequencies of shots played from different areas of the court have not changed after the adoption of new rules but there is less time available to return shots that reflect the attacking nature of match play for elite-standard men players. Aspiring and current elite-standard players need to condition themselves to improve their ability to cope with these demands using the ghosting patterns presented that mimic demands of modern match play.     

Public speaking as cultural ideal: Internationalizing the public speaking curriculum

Institutes of higher education around the world respond to the challenge of globalization by internationalizing their curricula. We argue that adding an element of cultural reflection to curriculum design is an important step toward internationalization. We use ethnographic analysis to highlight the cultural gap between Anglo-American and non-Anglo interpretations of public speaking. We begin by reconstructing the Anglo cultural ideal of public speaking from a historical overview of the evolution of the public speaking textbook (Sproule, J.M. [2012]. Inventing public speaking: Rhetoric and the speech book, 1730–1930. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 15, 563–608.). Then, we review alternative cultural models of public speaking. Finally, we identify directions for future research and curriculum design.     

Toys and Materials as Setting Events for the Social Interaction of Preschool Children with Special Needs

The present study compared the effects of social and isolate toys as setting events on the social interactions of 2 pre-school-aged children with special education needs in a setting that approximated a regular pre-school environment. A single subject alternating treatment design was used for 3 days a week over a 7 week period. Findings of this study showed there was no consistent overall difference between social and isolate toys. This was in contrast to previous studies that have found differences in interaction patterns across conditions. There were also two unanticipated findings from the study. While there was no evidence of an overall difference between social and isolate toys, there was some evidence of an interaction. Students with special education needs tended to interact more with each other when using isolate toys and tended to interact more with regular peers when using social toys. Further, it was also found that particular toys from both social and isolate classifications were consistently associated with social interaction across both subjects while other toys were not associated with social interaction. This raises questions about the validity of traditional classifications of toys and materials. The use of toys to promote social interaction is a potentially valuable technique but this study raises questions that indicate a need for further research.     

The relationship between student engagement with online content and achievement in a blended learning anatomy course

Blended learning has become increasingly common in higher education. Recent findings suggest that blended learning achieves better student outcomes than traditional face‐to‐face teaching in gross anatomy courses. While face‐to‐face content is perceived as important to learning there is less evidence for the significance of online content in improving student outcomes. Students enrolled in a second‐year anatomy course from the physiotherapy (PT), exercise physiology (EP), and exercise science (ES) programs across two campuses were included (n = 500). A structural equation model was used to evaluate the relationship of prior student ability (represented by grade in prerequisite anatomy course) and final course grade and whether the relationship was mediated by program, campus or engagement with the online elements of the learning management system (LMS; proportion of documents and video segments viewed and number of interactions with discussion forums). PT students obtained higher grades and were more likely to engage with online course materials than EP and ES students. Prerequisite grade made a direct contribution to course final grade (P < 0.001) but was also mediated by engagement with LMS videos and discussion forums (P < 0.001). Student learning outcomes in a blended anatomy course can be predicted the by level of engagement with online content. Anat Sci Educ 11: 471–477. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Integration of ICT within a project-based learning environment

An enormous challenge is presented to engineering educators by the rapidly changing world of information and communication technologies (ICT). It is essential that students acquire high-quality ICT experience before emerging into the real world of employment. The overall impact of ICT on teaching and learning at the current time, however, is largely through the conversion of conventional lecture notes to static documents, which are made available to students on the web. Project-based learning, by comparison, can provide students with the opportunity to work with emerging technologies and also gain important industrial experience. The first part of this paper presents a summary of the challenges that ICT presents third-level institutions through an examination of the pedagogical issues (and solutions) that arise from a move from traditional lectures to projectbased teaching. This introductory material is followed by the main bulk of the paper, i.e. two case studies. The first is an account of a short project, which involved the evaluation of commercially available undergraduate teaching material provided on CD-ROM. The second case study describes a more substantial project that began life at undergraduate level in collaboration with an indigenous Irish company involved in software development. This project involved the design and development of an online retailing prototype, which was subsequently developed further and launched as a commercial venture.     

Study techniques differentially influence the delayed judgment-of-learning accuracy of adolescent children and college-aged adults

The ways in which adult learners study information influences their judgment-of-learning (JOL) accuracy (e.g., Koriat et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131(2), 147-162, 2002). The present study extends this investigation to adolescent children to determine whether developing learners’ metacognitive monitoring is similarly influenced by different study techniques. In two experiments, we examined JOL accuracy in adolescent children (ages 11 to 12) and college-aged adults. Across both experiments, we employed a standard delayed-JOL paradigm in which three groups of participants, differing in type of study technique, encoded weakly-related word pairs. One group studied the word pairs twice (study practice). A second group studied with the instruction to generate a word that linked the two members of the word pair together (elaborative encoding). The final group studied word pairs and then took an immediate cued-recall test with feedback (retrieval practice). In children and adults, retrieval practice led to better JOL accuracy as compared to study practice. Children differed from adults in how elaborative encoding influenced JOL accuracy. For adults, elaborative encoding resulted in better JOL accuracy than study practice; however, for children, JOL accuracy did not differ between the two groups. Our results suggest that encoding processes influence delayed-JOL accuracy in both age-groups.     

What happens to precocious readers' performance by the age of eleven?

This paper reports on the progress made by a small group of fourteen 11‐year‐old children who had been originally identified as being precocious readers before they started primary school at the age of five. The data enable comparisons to be made with the performance of the children when they were younger so that a six‐year longitudinal analysis can be made. The children who began school as precocious readers continued to make progress in reading accuracy, rate and comprehension, thereby maintaining their superior performance relative to a comparison group. However, their progress appeared to follow the same developmental trajectory as that of the comparison group. Measures of phonological awareness showed that there are long‐term, stable individual differences that correlated with all measures of reading. The children who were reading precociously early showed significantly higher levels of phonological awareness than the comparison children. In addition, they showed the same levels of performance on this task as a further group of high achieving young adults. A positive effect of being able to read at precociously early age was identified in the significantly higher levels of receptive vocabulary found amongst these children. The analyses indicated that rises in receptive vocabulary resulted from reading performance rather than the other way round.     

Relations between drawing cubes and copying line diagrams of cubes in 7- to 10-year-old children

Previous research has suggested both links and differences between children's copying of line diagrams and their drawings of solid objects. If the diagram represents a familiar object, children make more errors than when copying a diagram of a nonobject or unfamiliar object, as if they are drawing from their representation of the object rather than copying the surface features of the diagram. However, copying a diagram yields fewer and different types of errors than drawing the equivalent solid, which suggests a different process. In Experiment 1 (n = 72), possible relations between copying and drawing are investigated by asking children to draw a solid cube, then to copy or trace a line diagram of the cube in oblique projection, and finally to draw the solid again. Copying was better than drawing, and there was positive transfer to a subsequent drawing. Tracing was very accurate, but transfer to drawing did not occur, possibly because of the automatic nature of tracing. In Experiment 2 (n = 120) different groups received versions of the copying task that differed in the extent to which temporal order of line copying was structured. Asking children to copy the lines in a systematic order led to improved copies, but this performance did not carry over to a subsequent drawing of the solid. In contrast, when temporal ordering of line copying was not manipulated, there was positive transfer from copying to the subsequent drawing. In Experiment 3 (n = 80), provision of structure that emphasized faces by color-groupings of lines or coloring faces led to improved copies and did not hinder transfer to drawing the solid. Experiment 4 (n = 90) showed that in a solid drawing task emphasis on faces but not edges produced a positive effect, both on the immediate drawing and on a subsequent drawing of a plain cube. We conclude that emphasis on order of line copying improves performance in a copying task because in that case line-to-line matching is an important element of the skill, whereas this does not aid drawing of the solid object, in which the focus is primarily on representation of faces and their interrelations.