A basic model of integration of ICT by teachers: competence and use

The process to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT), where teachers play a decisive role, is complex. The objective of this study is to build a basic model that connects teachers’ ICT technological and pedagogical competences with the use of these technological resources by teachers (both personal-professional use and use with students). The model also considers how personal and contextual factors influence this relationship. A secondary analysis study was used, whose sample included 1095 male and female Primary, Secondary and Higher Education teachers from the Valencian Community (east Spain). Information was collected with a questionnaire from two survey design studies. Using an MIMIC model, teachers’ integration of ICT was optimally modeled. This model shows a complex relation between competence and use. Technological competences influence pedagogical competences and personal-professional use, while pedagogical competences influence personal-professional use and use in class. Use in class is influenced by both pedagogical competences and personal-professional use. Personal and contextual factors influenced the four dimensions of use and competence. This basic model of the relationship between teachers’ ICT competences and using these educational resources helps us to understand the complex process of integrating ICT into classrooms. Therefore, this model is a key element to guide teacher training in ICT.     

Influences of population size and density on birthplace effects

Contextual influences on talent development (e.g., birthplace effects) have become a topic of interest for sport scientists. Birthplace effects occur when being born in a certain city size leads to participation or performance advantages, typically for those born in smaller or mid-sized cities. The purpose of this study was to investigate birthplace effects in Portuguese volleyball players by analysing city size, as well as population density – an important but infrequently used variable. Participants included 4062 volleyball players (M_age = 33), 53.2% of whom were men. Using Portuguese national census data from 1981, we compared participants (within each sex) across five population categories. In addition, we used ANOVAs to study expertise and population density. Results indicated that men and women athletes born in districts of 200,000–399,999 were 2.4 times more likely to attain elite volleyball status, while all other districts decreased the odds of expert development. For men, being born in high-density areas resulted in less chance of achieving expertise, whereas there were no differences for women. The results suggest that athletes’ infrastructure and social structure play an important role in talent development, and that these structures are influenced by total population and population density, respectively.     

Making Sense of Disaster Through Rhetorical Homologies: Extending Walter Benjamin’s Unique/Copy Binary to Post-Katrina Tours

Over a decade after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, publics continue to come to terms with the tragedy. Isabelle Cossart, owner of “Tours by Isabelle” and survivor of the hurricane, began offering disaster tours of the affected areas after taking note of people’s desire to see the damage and contemplate its effects. Public accounts of Cossart’s business suggest that people make sense of disasters symbolically via tourism. Cossart’s post-Katrina disaster tours belong to a wider form concerning disastrous events springing from anxiety over how to respond, followed by agency-driven strategies for coping. This discursive dichotomy of disaster/agency is grounded in a homologous discourse of uniqueness versus copy in Walter Benjamin’s essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Through publicly available information on “Tours by Isabelle,” this article compares subcategories of disaster, Cossart’s tours, and works of art, and explores how people make sense of disaster symbolically.     

The relationship of task self-efficacy and role efficacy beliefs to role performance in Spanish youth soccer

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between role efficacy and role performance after controlling for the effects of task self-efficacy. Two hundred and ninety-five Spanish youth soccer players from 20 teams completed self-report measures of task self-efficacy, role efficacy and role performance at the mid-point of a competitive season. The 20 team coaches also provided ratings of each of their players' role performances at mid-season. Consistent with hypotheses, bivariate correlations showed task self-efficacy and role efficacy were positively related to role performance ratings. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that role efficacy contributed significantly to the prediction of athletes' ratings of role performance after controlling for task self-efficacy. Role efficacy also explained significant variation in the prediction of coach ratings; however, the effects were less dramatic and inconsistent. Our results support self-efficacy theory and reinforce the value of assessing efficacy beliefs representing behaviours carried out both independently and interdependently for the prediction of role performance within team environments. Future research directions are proposed.     

Reaching in-service primary teachers with research innovations: the role of dissemination events in stimulating download activity

Education researchers want to influence classroom practice, but in-service primary teachers are hard to reach. Thus, many researchers disseminate their innovations online. Dissemination by event may be a more effective means, but little is known about its relative value in a dissemination strategy, nor potential influence upon research innovation downloads.This quantitative study analysed the influence of dissemination events on downloads of a research innovation called the TAPS Pyramid over one year. The location, size and date for dissemination events were mapped against location data for downloads during the same time period. Downloads were significantly higher in regions where dissemination events were held and positively correlated with dissemination event frequency. Event size was not found to be significant.By demonstrating the value of dissemination events in stimulating downloads of educational research innovations online, these results also show the centrality of social learning opportunities to a successful bimodal dissemination strategy.     

A Mathematics Teachers’ Perspective and its Relationship to Practice

In this paper we try to characterize the pedagogical approaches that mathematics teachers are developing to meet the challenges posed by education reforms. A key aspect is the identification of the perspectives that underlie those pedagogical approaches, using the term perspective to include a broad pedagogical structure composed of multiple conceptions that are related to some aspects of a teacher’s practice. Through the study of the practice of a secondary mathematics teacher, we try to explore how his/her pedagogical approaches on mathematics, mathematics learning, and mathematics teaching are related to the relational architecture that is established in the classroom during the development of an instructional unit of similarity at a secondary school level, and we examine if that relationship can be explained in terms of the underlying perspective. The results of the study have shown the characteristics of that relationship, and the important role that the teacher’s knowledge of the students’ difficulties plays both in making decisions and in developing the teachers’ actions.     

The interplay between structure and agency in the enactment of STEM policy

In their paper, Hoeg and Bencze argue that current STEM curriculum guidelines prioritise the training of a workforce in detriment of a democratically grounded education for citizenship. We agree that there is an insufficient questioning about which type of citizenship STEM curricula would favour and wish to contribute to this debate by (1) problematising different meanings and aspects of citizenship in different models of democracy and (2) exploring the dialectical nature of structure and agency in the discursive construction of educational (policy) discourse. We also discuss results from recent empirical research about teachers’ ideas on citizenship education in order to challenge views that assume a linearity between educational policy and its enactment.     

On the use of extended TAM to assess students' acceptance and intent to use third‐generation learning management systems

Service‐oriented e‐learning platforms can be considered as a third generation of learning management systems (LMSs). As opposed to the previous generations, consisting of ad hoc solutions and traditional LMS, this new technology contemplates e‐learning systems as services that can be integrated into different learning scenarios. This paper shows that the flexibility of these systems allows building personal learning environments and proposes the use of an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) to assess the acceptance and intention to use a third generation of LMS. To fit and validate the service‐oriented e‐learning platforms acceptance model, structural equation modeling and path analysis have been implemented. The results point out that the intention to use this third‐generation LMS is determined by the gadgets and container design, both of which are structural elements of this technology. Finally, it is also shown that previous experience does not determine the use intention of this technology.     

Academic anxieties: which type contributes the most to low achievement in methodological courses?

Students’ academic achievement in courses with a high mathematical content can be affected by their levels of trait, math and test anxiety. In this study, 180 university students were assessed on these types of anxiety and the relationships between them and students’ performance were evaluated. Higher levels of math anxiety were related to a low academic achievement, but a high level of test anxiety was related only to an increase in the number of errors. Moreover, although women reported higher levels of trait, math and test anxiety than their male peers, their academic achievement was similar. We conclude that math anxiety is the main emotional factor that can affect students’ performance in these courses and some proposals to help highly math-anxious students are discussed.     

Differences in maturity,morphological and physical attributes between players selected to the primary and secondary teams of a Portuguese Basketball elite academy

The present study aims (i) to compare the maturational, morphological and fitness attributes of young basketball players of primary and secondary teams of an elite basketball academy, and (ii) to identify the set of morphological and fitness attributes which better discriminate the players from the two teams. A total of 116 male basketball players of an elite basketball academy were divided into primary (team A) and secondary (team B) teams in two age groups (U-14 and U-16). All the players were evaluated during two consecutive seasons and data related to players’ practice experience, maturational, morphological and fitness attributes were collected at the beginning of the competition period. The results of the study suggest that: (i) in both age categories, team A players were older, more mature, bigger in size and had greater fitness profiles than team B players; (ii) stature and abdominal resistance were identified as discriminant attributes for youth basketball player performance; (iii) aerobic capacity for U-14 and agility for U-16 were identified as specific discriminant attributes for performance in youth basketball. Coaches are recommended to avoid premature talent identification and provide players with opportunities to progress through the talent pathway, at least until U-16 age category.