Exploring Student Skill Learning: A Case for Investigating Subjective Experience

Doctoral dissertations reflect academic specialization in physical education in terms of both graduate programs and authors' future academic orientations. This research project examined specialization as reflected in virtually all of the dissertations written in physical education between 1964 and 1983. Through sequential matching of listings in Dissertation Abstracts Interntioml, Completed Research in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, and American Doctoral Dissertations, abstracts of 5,344 physical education dissertations were identified and subsequently coded. Selected results included the following: (a) functional effects was the most common academic specialty, (b) the distribution of dissertations among specializations across time changed minimally, (c) the most common academic specialty for DA, EdD, and PED degrees was program development, but the most common specialty for PhD degrees was functional effects, and (d) there was no association between specialties and doctoral program prestige. The results are discussed within the context of the field of physical education in higher education.     

Post-secular schooling: freedom through faith or diversity in community

Post-secularism and neo-liberalism have converged in education policy and theory to generate a new enthusiasm for faith schools, along with criticism of the publicly-funded common or community school. However, in a post-secular social context, where religious and spiritual pluralism exponentially increases, and belief positions are both polarised and syncretised, the democratic notion of the common or community school appears even more crucial to address community understanding. There need to be strong reasons, therefore, for abandoning the common or community school in favour of faith schools. This article presents a critique of recent key philosophical defences of the public funding of faith schools, put forward by Richard Pring and Harry Brighouse, and by the Christian educationalist, Trevor Cooling. It also gives support to Michael Fielding and Peter Moss’ arguments for radicalising and reforming the common school, to enable it to be a community for understanding in an increasingly challenging post-secular environment.     

What teachers need to know about the struggle for self-determination (conscientization) and self-regulation: adults with disabilities speak about their education experiences

The purpose of this paper is to help teachers better understand the struggles that people with disabilities experience in attaining their educational goals and to encourage the development of teaching and learning strategies that help to respect and facilitate the struggle itself. The authors share the generative themes that emerged using a critical pedagogy approach (dialogic interviews) to elicit the voices of adults with disabilities speaking about their public school experiences. In discussing the implications for teachers, the authors show the intersections of educational psychology's concept self-regulation and critical pedagogy's concept conscientization and special education’ s concept self-determination. Why the ‘struggle’ itself is important (from the perspectives provided by conscientization, self-regulation, and self determination) is discussed.The major question is whether or not teachers can structure the awareness process that results in learners becoming aware enough to verbalize, “I have difficulties”. What do teachers do to stimulate the metacognitive thinking processes that makes it possible for students with disabilities to think, “I can monitor myself!”? How can teachers capture the power of the conscientization experience that leads students with disabilities to experience the generative will power “to use the powers that I have to make a difference in my life's situation?” How do adults with disabilities come to these kinds of awareness and how can teachers help facilitate the awareness?     

The relationship between shoulder alignment and elbow joint angle in cricket fast-medium bowlers

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between shoulder alignment and elbow angle during the delivery action of fast-medium bowlers. The elbow and upper trunk alignment were recorded for 13 high-performance bowlers (mean age 20 years) using a 12-camera Vicon motion analysis system operating at 250 Hz. The three highest velocity trials for "good" and "short" length deliveries were analysed. Results showed that bowlers with a more front-on shoulder alignment at back-foot impact and when the upper arm was horizontal to the ground experienced a significantly greater elbow flexion--extension range when compared with those who had a more side-on orientation at the same point in the delivery action. Bowlers with greater shoulder counter-rotation also recorded higher elbow flexion and subsequently extension during the period from upper arm horizontal to ball release. Shoulder alignment and elbow angles were similar for "short" and "good" length deliveries. It was concluded that bowlers with a more front-on shoulder orientation at back-foot impact demonstrated a higher elbow extension from upper arm horizontal to ball release and are therefore more likely to infringe International Cricket Council elbow tolerance levels, compared with those who adopt a more side-on shoulder orientation at back-foot impact.     

Language adaptations: Award-winning children’s literature in basal textbook readers

One frequent complaint about basal readers is that, when they adapt high-quality literature, they make pointless simplifications that significantly detract from the value of the original stories. This article reports a study of adaptations of award-winning stories for three grade levels. The results suggest strongly that, at least during the past fifteen years, these complaints are unjustified. Jacqueline C. Comas is assistant professor of education at the University of Florida in Gainesville where she teaches courses in language arts and children's literature. She is a former classroom teacher, has served as a reading consultant, a reading/language arts supervisor, and has worked with textbook adoption committees for the improvement of instructional materials since the late 1970s.