A faster running speed is associated with a greater body weight loss in 100-km ultra-marathoners

In 219 recreational male runners, we investigated changes in body mass, total body water, haematocrit, plasma sodium concentration ([Na(+)]), and urine specific gravity as well as fluid intake during a 100-km ultra-marathon. The athletes lost 1.9 kg (s = 1.4) of body mass, equal to 2.5% (s = 1.8) of body mass (P < 0.001), 0.7 kg (s = 1.0) of predicted skeletal muscle mass (P < 0.001), 0.2 kg (s = 1.3) of predicted fat mass (P < 0.05), and 0.9 L (s = 1.6) of predicted total body water (P < 0.001). Haematocrit decreased (P < 0.001), urine specific gravity (P < 0.001), plasma volume (P < 0.05), and plasma [Na(+)] (P < 0.05) all increased. Change in body mass was related to running speed (r = -0.16, P < 0.05), change in plasma volume was associated with change in plasma [Na(+)] (r = -0.28, P < 0.0001), and change in body mass was related to both change in plasma [Na(+)] (r = -0.36) and change in plasma volume (r = 0.31) (P < 0.0001). The athletes consumed 0.65 L (s = 0.27) fluid per hour. Fluid intake was related to both running speed (r = 0.42, P < 0.0001) and change in body mass (r = 0.23, P = 0.0006), but not post-race plasma [Na(+)] or change in plasma [Na(+)] (P > 0.05). In conclusion, faster runners lost more body mass, runners lost more body mass when they drank less fluid, and faster runners drank more fluid than slower runners.     

The Very Best of Me: Longitudinal Associations of Perfectionism and Identity Processes in Adolescence

Personality and identity formation are intricately linked in adolescent development. The personality disposition of perfectionism has been associated with identity processes, but their longitudinal interplay in adolescence has not yet been investigated. This four-wave study, with 5- to 6-month intervals between each wave (N = 744 Caucasian adolescents, M_age = 15.2 years, 55% girls), examined associations between perfectionism (self-oriented and socially prescribed) and identity processes in the domain of future plans. Self-oriented perfectionism predicted increases in commitment making, identification with commitment, and exploration in depth. Socially prescribed perfectionism showed bidirectional positive relations with ruminative exploration. Exploration in depth predicted increases in socially prescribed perfectionism. Findings suggest that perfectionism is an important personality disposition in adolescent identity formation unfolding over time.     

Informational capital and the transition to university: First‐in‐family students' experiences in Austrian higher education

The agenda for widening participation in higher education has led to increasing numbers of students with a broader range of education and family backgrounds. However, transitioning to the university landscape remains a highly complex negotiation process, especially for first‐in‐family students, who cannot draw on previous experience from higher education in their families. Gaining access to informational capital—a combination of cultural and social capital—plays a crucial role in managing education transitions. We draw on rich empirical data obtained from 26 autobiographical narrative interviews with first‐in‐family university students in Austria to investigate how transitions to university are affected by informational capital. We also explore how access to informational capital was influenced by (1) institutional practices, such as initiatives to support students, especially first‐year students; and (2) cultural fit—the extent to which a student's cultural capital corresponded with the dominant cultural capital in the field of their chosen discipline or higher education establishment. Our findings show that gaining access to informational capital was strongly affected by the institutional practices at universities within the different disciplines, thus highlighting the importance of higher education institutions in supporting their students during transition processes. We conclude with policy implications for how higher education institutions can assist first‐in‐family students to succeed at university.     

Framework for Empirical Research on Science Teaching and Learning

In view of the research on education—and subject-related education in particular—that has been conducted in recent years, it would seem useful to describe the current state and future trends of research on science teaching and learning. In the present article, research findings are described, the deficits of science education are analyzed, and medium- and long-term research goals are specified from the perspective of an interdisciplinary cooperative effort between specialists in the fields of empirical educational research; the psychology of learning and instruction; and biology, chemistry, and physics education. Revised and supplemented version of Fischer, H. E., Klemm, K., Leutner, D., Sumfleth, E., Tiemann, R., and Wirth, J. (2003). Naturwissenschaftsdidaktische Lehr-Lernforschung: Defizite und Desiderata [Natural science-didactical learning research: Deficits and desiderata]. Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften, 9, 179–208.     

Motivation and activity

Motivation is one of the most psychological topics of this science. It constitutes the very nature of what psychology is about — namely, how people regulate multiple interactions within the world, including themselves. Motivation was and is interpreted very differently, depending on the various theoretical and methodological positions. In this paper the perspective of the so-called socio-cultural or cultural-historical school which was founded by Vygotsky, Lurya, Leontyev and their co-workers will be described with the aim to reveal a number of ideas that might be useful even for research on motivation in our days. However, it is impossible to give a complete picutre of the theoretical and methodological positions of this rich and ramified tradition line here. Thus, the following explanations will be confined to one central part of it, namely the elaborated activity theory, above all, the work of Alexej Leontyev. In this paper, first the concept of activity and then the concept of motivation will be outlined in its theoretical framework. These will subsequently be made concrete with respect to motives of learning activity. Finally, some current perspectives and open problems will be mentioned.     

Second and fourth graders' copying ability: from graphical to linguistic processing

Particularly in primary school, good performance on copy tasks is an important working technique. With respect to writing skills, copying is a very basic process on which more complex writing abilities are based. We studied the copying ability of second and fourth graders across four types of symbols which vary with respect to their semantic and phonological characteristics: arbitrary graphical objects, unpronounceable consonant strings, numerals and meaningful text. Results show, in terms of average copying speed, significant effects of both factors: fourth graders performed generally faster than second graders, and for both class levels, the number of copied characters per time decreased from meaningful text to graphical objects, all pair-wise contrasts between symbol types being statistically significant. Moreover, a significant interaction shows that fourth graders improved more when copying symbols that form pronounceable chunks, namely meaningful text and numerical strings. This indicates an increasing role of phonological (and probably also semantic) processes involved in copying across primary school.     

Development of a test rig and a testing procedure for bicycle frame stiffness measurements

The stiffness measuring method for bicycle frames is not standardized, leading to a wide variety of test setups; they differ in many aspects such as applied load, support constraints and frame deflection measurement. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to this problem and to quantify the perturbing, unwanted side effects that influence the stiffness measurement of the bicycle frame. This is illustrated by developing a multi-purpose rating test method for bicycle frame stiffness. The proposed test rig design considers different aspects which should be taken into account when measuring the bicycle frame stiffness. In the experimental setup, it is observed that the contribution of the test bench compliance led to 21% difference in the frame stiffness results; the influence due to the head, the tube-bearing type the corresponding preload resulted in up to 19% difference in the stiffness results between the lowest and highest stiffness values measured; hysteresis effects caused by pulleys are estimated to introduce errors up to 11%; and the influence due to the operator variability and sensor accuracy is estimated to be less than 3%.     

Different types of compression clothing do not increase sub-maximal and maximal endurance performance in well-trained athletes

Abstract

Three textiles with increasing compressive surface were compared with non-compressive conventional clothing on physiological and perceptual variables during sub-maximal and maximal running. Fifteen well-trained endurance athletes (mean ± s: age 27.1 ± 4.8 years, [Vdot]O_2max 63.7 ± 4.9 ml · min^?1 · kg^?1) performed four sub-maximal (～70%[Vdot]O_2max) and maximal tests with and without different compression stockings, tights, and whole-body compression suits. Arterial lactate concentration, oxygen saturation and partial pressure, pH, oxygen uptake, and ratings of muscle soreness were recorded before, during, and after all tests. In addition, we assessed time to exhaustion. Sub-maximal (P = 0.22) and maximal oxygen uptake (P = 0.26), arterial lactate concentration (P = 0.16; 0.20), pH (P = 0.23; 0.46), oxygen saturation (P = 0.13; 0.26), and oxygen partial pressure (P = 0.09; 0.20) did not differ between the types of clothing (effect sizes = 0.00–0.45). Ratings of perceived exertion (P = 0.10; 0.15), muscle soreness (P = 0.09; 0.10) and time to exhaustion (P = 0.16) were also unaffected by the different clothing (effect sizes = 0.28–0.85). This was the first study to evaluate the effect on endurance performance of different types of compression clothing with increasing amounts of compressive surface. Overall, there were no performance benefits when using the compression garments.