Cyprus' Accession to the European Union and Educational Change: a critique

Cyprus will soon become a member of the European Union. The negotiations for its the access have ended and as from next year it will represent one of the countries that will expand the EU. The member countries of the EU have progressed in the field of education, they have high requirements from their schools and offer quality education (although there is no homogeneity amongst their educational systems). Therefore, the future accession of Cyprus to the EU raises many questions regarding the situation of its education system in comparison to the other Members. With a focus on change, this article studies the situation that prevails in Cyprus and examines the different barriers that hamper the development of its educational system. The authors then discuss a number of ways to achieve educational change.     

Becoming a Counselor: A Longitudinal Study of Student Cognitive Development

This study investigated the cognitive development of counseling students during their training program. Results suggest a need to emphasize student cognitive development as strongly as skills development in graduate programs.     

Moral Development and Empathy in Counseling

Of interest to counselor educators are variables associated with helper empathy. The authors investigated the relationship between empathy and moral development. Students enrolled in a facilitative skills development course completed a measure of moral development before making their first counseling audiotape. After approximately 12 weeks of skills training, they were subsequently rated for their demonstration of empathic understanding to client statements on an analog videotape and on a counseling audiotape made for their course evaluation. Empathy ratings of their responses to the analog videotape correlated .61 (p < .001) with moral development scores and .35 (p < .05) with supervisory empathy ratings of their final audiotape and moral development scores. Implications for counselor education are discussed.     

THE DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF AN OCCUPATIONAL INVENTORY

An occupational inventory was developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education for consideration as part of the state assessment project. This instrument measures 7tb grade student knowledge of the world of work. The summary phase of field testing involving 255 students revealed a reliability of .828 and a standard error of measurement of 2.60.     

Opting for Science and Technology!

This study focuses on the shortage of graduates in science/technology in the Netherlands. First, the potential reserves of students in science/technology are mapped. Second, the effects of measures to mobilise the reserves are investigated in terms of size and cost effectiveness. Efforts aimed at solving the enormous shortage of higher education graduates in science and technology in the Netherlands should start by evaluating what is available in this area. Research shows that the country's vast resources include considerable reserves of science and technology talent. These reserves comprise students who, although having met the entry requirements, ultimately did not opt for a technical or science study programme. Several measures could mobilise these reserves; some are presented in this article along with the influence they are estimated to have. Although the effect of these measures seems to be substantial, they leave much to be desired in terms of cost effectiveness. Moreover, they are still simulations, and the measures have not (yet) been tested in practice. Therefore, additional (experimental) research on such policy measures continues to be desirable.     

Exercise,plasma catecholamine concentrations and decision-making performance of soccer players on a soccer-specific test

The main aim of this study was to compare the decision-making performance of college soccer players on a soccer-specific, tachistoscopically presented test, at rest and while exercising at their adrenaline threshold and at their maximum power output. These were determined following an incremental test to exhaustion on a cycle ergometer. After the initial maximum power test, participants (n= 9) were allowed 10 habituation trials on the soccer decision-making test. Participants' decision-making performance was tested at rest, while cycling at a power output that had previously been determined to elicit their adrenaline threshold and while cycling at maximum power output. Accuracy and speed of decision were the dependent variables. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance showed no significant effect of exercise on accuracy, and showed speed of decision to be significantly affected by exercise. Tukey post-hoc tests showed that speed of decision at rest was significantly slower than in the other two conditions, which did not differ significantly from one another. Based on allocatable resources theories of arousal and performance, we conclude that the adrenaline threshold may be indicative of increases in the resources available to the individual. Furthermore, we considered that exercise at maximum power output may only induce a moderate rather than a high level of arousal.     

Measurement error in short-term power testing in young people

The aim of this study was to examine the consistency or reproducibility of measuring cycling peak power in children and adults. Twenty-seven pre-pubertal girls and boys and 27 female and male physical education students (age 9.8±0.5 and 24.4±4.3 years, respectively; mean±s) participated in the study. All participants performed five tests over 15 days and underwent a habituation session before the study. Each test included four sprints against four different braking forces. We found that braking forces of 7.5% of body weight in children and 10% of body weight in adults were too high for most of the participants to elicit maximal cycling power. Unlike the children, the physical education students improved their performance between session 1 and session 2 (1025±219 vs 1069±243 W; P<0.001). Therefore, to obtain reproducible measures of cycling peak power, a habituation session including a complete test protocol (i.e. warm-up plus three sprints) is highly recommended. When the protocol included three sprints in children and at least two sprints in adults, measurement of cycling peak power was found to be highly reliable (test-retest coefficient of variation ～3%). Finally, to avoid performance fluctuations, especially over several consecutive evaluations (e.g. longitudinal studies), it is necessary to maintain high motivation in children.