Are parental concerns about children's inactivity warranted, and are they associated with a supportive home environment?

This paper explores parental concern about children's activity levels and whether parents who are concerned about their child's activity provide a supportive environment. A sample of 615 parents of 5-6-year-old children and 947 parents of 10-12-year-old children completed a questionnaire. Just over 50% of parents reported they were concerned their child was not getting enough activity. Children of concerned parents were less active than those whose parents were not concerned. These findings suggest that parents who are concerned about their child's physical activity levels provided a less supportive environment for physical activity than parents who are not concerned. The challenge for public health will be to harness parental concerns and translate them into action.     

Relationship between toy and material use and the occurrence of social interactive behaviors by normally developing preschool children

The purpose of this naturalistic study was to identify the kinds of social behaviors that normally developing preschool children exhibit while manipulating various toys and materials found in most preschool settings. One hundred fifteen 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds in four day-care centers were observed during free play periods. Thirty-eight available toys and play materials were rated as to whether they were used in an Isolate, Parallel, Sharing/Cooperative, or Physical Assistance context. The resulting data on toy/material use are discussed in terms of selecting physical stimuli in social behavior modification efforts that clearly set the occasion for positive social interaction.     

The activity context of preschool children's social interactions: A comparison of high and low social interactors

The purpose of this observational study of the activity context in which preschool children engaged in positive social interactions was to produce a data source that could be used to assist in the identification of socially withdrawn children, and to select efficient training contexts in which to develop the social behavior repertoire of withdrawn youngsters. Eleven high-rate and 10 low-rate social interactors, ranging in age from 36 to 72 months, were observed for 12 10-minute sessions across a 3-month period. Six activity contexts were coded by trained observers: Observer, Isolate, Parallel, Game, Cooperative, and Fantasy. The results indicated that: (a) Low-rate children engaged in significantly more Isolate and Observer activity than did high-rate children. (b) High-rate children engaged in significantly more Cooperative and Fantasy activity than did low-rate children. (c) There were no significant differences between groups for Game and Parallel activities. Results are discussed in terms of the concurrent validity between frequency of interaction measures and the activity context data, the developmental progression of social skills acquisition, and the selection of treatment contexts for withdrawn children.     

Maturity-associated variation in sport-specific skills of youth soccer players aged 13-15 years

The aim of this study was to estimate the contribution of experience, body size and maturity status to variation in sport-specific skills of adolescent soccer players. The participants were 69 players aged 13.2-15.1 years from three clubs that competed in the highest division for their age group. Height and body mass were measured and stage of pubic hair development was assessed at clinical examination. Years of experience in football was obtained at interview. Six football skill tests were administered: ball control with the body, ball control with the head, dribbling with a pass, dribbling speed, shooting accuracy and passing accuracy. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to estimate the relative contributions of age, stage of sexual maturity, height, body mass and years of formal training in soccer to the six skill tests. Age, experience, body size and stage of puberty contributed significantly but in different combinations to the variance in four of the six skill tests: dribbling with a pass (21%; age, stage of maturity), ball control with the head (14%; stage of maturity, height, body height x body mass interaction), ball control with the body (13%; stage of maturity, years of training) and shooting accuracy (8%; stage of maturity, height; borderline significance, P = 0.06). There were no significant predictors for the tests of dribbling speed and passing accuracy. In conclusion, age, experience, body size and stage of puberty contributed relatively little to variation in performance in four of the six soccer-specific skill tests in adolescent footballers aged 13-15 years.     

Introduction to Reference Sources in the Health Sciences: an interview with Jo Anne Boorkman, Jeffrey T. Huber and Fred W. Roper. Interview by Elizabeth Connor

Few works serve as solid a framework for the field of health sciences librarianship or provide as many insights and detailed knowledge as Introduction to Reference Sources in the Health Sciences. Now in its fourth edition, the book's editors and contributors represent an impressive range of experience, expertise, and subject knowledge appreciated by practicing librarians in a variety of settings and by students of health sciences librarianship. Jo Anne Boorkman, Jeffrey T. Huber, and Fred W. Roper answered a series of questions about the latest edition of this seminal work, and offered opinions about reference works, services, and librarians.     

SCISTER act: delivering training in information skills for social-care professionals

PURPOSE: To develop and evaluate a programme of information skills training for social-care practitioners and health-care librarians. SETTING: Two one-day training courses run separately for 13 social-care practitioners and 10 health-care librarians in the Trent geographic region within Northern England. METHODOLOGY: Qualitative and quantitative feedback collected through questionnaires supplemented by participant observation. RESULTS: While generally feedback was favourable, the courses were overly ambitious. More training sessions of shorter duration would offer participants opportunities to practise and use the skills they have acquired. Social-care practitioners responded more positively to skills associated with appraising qualitative research than with randomised controlled trials. Librarians appreciated the opportunity to learn about unfamiliar social-care resources. Both practitioners and health-care librarians reported that they acquired skills to support evidence-based social care as a result of the training intervention. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Involvement of a multi-disciplinary team and support from a social-care information provider maximized the impact of this experimental training intervention.     

Development of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers' Professional Knowledge and Identity in Working with Information and Communication Technology

This paper describes the workundertaken in a course in communication andinformation technology in a pre-service programfor secondary school mathematics teachers. Thiscourse aimed to help pre-service teachersdevelop a positive attitude regarding ICT anduse it confidently. It focused on theexploration of educational software and of theInternet's potential as a means of research andproduction of web sites. We discuss how thepre-service mathematics teachers evaluate theirwork concerning their commitment, difficultiesthey found, learning they identified, andpersonal relationship. We also analyse theeffects of the course on the development oftheir professional knowledge and identity.