‘Please remember we are not all brilliant’: undergraduates’ experiences of an elite,research‐intensive degree at a research‐intensive university

Undergraduate research experiences are being incorporated into degree programs with increasing frequency. However, there has been little study into their effectiveness in preparing students for research or into the learning gains that students realise from one or more research experiences. We surveyed science students in an elite, research‐based undergraduate degree program at a research‐intensive university. These students complete six research projects during their degree and we aimed to delineate factors that students perceive as leading to either good or bad experiences. Two factors stand out as contributing to a successful research experience: the supervisor, with students reporting both pedagogic and affective benefits of good supervision; and the feeling that they are doing authentic science. Surprisingly, given the research‐intensive nature of this degree, the learning gains students report relate to both an appreciation of what research is like and life skills, such as time management, rather than scientific thinking skills.     

An examination of pre-service teachers' attitudes towards the inclusion of development education into Irish post-primary schools

As part of an undergraduate concurrent initial teacher education programme pre-service teachers participate in an education module consisting of a number of workshops relating to the integration of development education active learning methodologies into their teaching. Following completion of the module, pre-service teachers participate in a 12-week teaching practice placement. This study, based on questionnaires and focus group data, was conducted following their return from teaching practice and examines their attitudes towards development education, the extent to which they included development education issues in their teaching while on teaching practice and their attitudes towards including such issues in the future. Results indicate that while pre-service teachers were positive towards integrating development education into post-primary schools and indicated their hope to include such issues in the future, they face a number of barriers that prevent them from doing so. As they begin their teaching career, the integration of development education is not viewed as a major priority for these pre-service teachers.     

Church schools,educational markets and the rural idyll

Researchers have begun to explore the role that faith schools play in contemporary educational markets but the emphasis to date has been on urban rather than rural contexts. This article approaches the issue of marketisation through a qualitative case-study comparison of two Anglican primary schools in contrasting rural localities in England and Wales. Engaging with a range of stakeholders, including parents and pupils, the article explores reasons why the schools were valued, drawing on wider constructions of childhood, religion and rurality. The consequences of the schools’ popularity on factors such as traffic, parking, school ethos and local community ties are also considered. The findings of the study problematise some of the prevalent assumptions about marketisation, including the role of social class and geography in these processes. As such, the article makes an important contribution to the sociological literature on faith schools, rural schools and educational markets.     

“Seeing the Light”: A Cognitive Approach to the Metaphorical in Picture Books

Picture books, as both sophisticated aesthetic objects and literary texts, provide the ideal site for critically examining how values and ideology are transmitted to children. How the child reader might be affected by the process of reading a picture book—that is, how he or she might be moved emotionally and potentially gain new insights about the world—is of interest to scholars and educators alike. This article draws upon cognitive literary theory as a conceptual frame through which to explore the cognitive and emotional affect that reading may have upon children. “Reader response” and “cultural criticism” are approaches to literature that seek to understand how readers interact with texts. Cognitive theory, when applied to literature, builds on these discourses by focusing on why reading fiction might cause the brain to produce emotional and cognitive responses in readers. As metaphors are a feature of language and of thought, a study of the metaphorical in picture books aptly lends itself to the theoretical framework offered by cognitive literary theory. Drawing on examples from four picture books produced for children, broadly correlating to different developmental stages, this article examines the role of metaphor in encouraging skills in decoding and creative thinking. Talking to children about visual metaphor or metaphorical expression introduces them to a feature of language and thought that provides a conceptual frame for richer understanding and expression of ideas. Examining how the metaphorical operates in picture books thus takes us a step closer to understanding how the process of reading affects children and enriches their lives.     

The influence of an afternoon nap on the endurance performance of trained runners

The effectiveness of a nap as a recovery strategy for endurance exercise is unknown and therefore the present study investigated the effect of napping on endurance exercise performance. Eleven trained male runners completed this randomised crossover study. On two occasions, runners completed treadmill running for 30?min at 75% ?O_2max in the morning, returning that evening to run for 20?min at 60% ?O_2max, and then to exhaustion at 90% ?O_2max. On one trial, runners had an afternoon nap approximately 90?min before the evening exercise (NAP) whilst on the other, runners did not (CON). All runners napped (20?±?10?min), but time to exhaustion (TTE) was not improved in all runners (NAP 596?±?148?s vs. CON 589?±?216?s, P?=?.83). Runners that improved TTE after the nap slept less at night than those that did not improve TTE (night-time sleep 6.4?±?0.7?h vs. 7.5?±?0.4?h, P?r^{2 ?} =??0.76, P?=?.001). In runners that improved TTE, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were lower during the TTE on NAP than CON compared to runners that did not improve (?0.4?±?0.6 vs. 0?±?0, P?=?.05). Reduced exercising sense of effort (RPE) may account for the improved TTE after the nap. In conclusion, a short afternoon nap improves endurance performance in runners that obtain less than 7?h night-time sleep.     

Constructing culturally responsive professional development for inclusion in El Salvador using the lens of intercultural competence

This paper describes a collaborative technical assistance project, which was co-constructed by the Ministry of Education (MINED) of El Salvador and the author, to support the advancement of inclusive education through culturally responsive professional development. This research-based project is presented as a model of culturally responsive professional development using the lens of intercultural competence. The author describes each phase of the project through the lens of intercultural competence that includes: (a) initial planning, (b) content proposals, (c) content development, and (d) content delivery. Implications and future research questions for those engaging in culturally responsive professional development-based technical assistance work are provided.     

Middle School Teachers’ Use of Mathematics to Make Sense of Student Solutions to Proportional Reasoning Problems

Mathematics teacher education aims to improve teachers’ use of mathematical knowledge to support teaching and learning, an aspect of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). In this study, we interviewed teachers to understand how they used mathematics to make sense of student solutions to proportional reasoning problems. The larger purpose was to find accurate ways of categorizing teachers’ ability to do this vital aspect of teaching and thereby to inform assessment, teacher education, and professional development. We conjectured that teachers’ PCK for proportional reasoning could be reliably described in terms of attention to quantitative meanings in story problem contexts and in terms of understanding naïve forms of proportional reasoning. Instead, our findings reveal that individual teachers used a variety of means to make sense of (1) cognitively similar student solutions to different tasks and (2) mathematically related steps of a student solution within a single task. These findings illustrate the complexity of PCK for the topic of proportional reasoning and suggest the limits of what can be inferred about teacher knowledge from teachers’ evaluations of student solutions. We discuss implications for teacher education and assessment.     

Peer relationships in adolescent competitive soccer: Associations to perceived motivational climate,achievement goals and perfectionism

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the perceived motivational climate, achievement goals, perfectionism and indices of peer relationships in a sample of young male and female Norwegian soccer players. The sample consisted of 1719 experienced soccer players (1231 males, 488 females) aged 12?–?19 years (mean = 14.9 years) participating in the Norway Cup international youth soccer competition. The players responded to a questionnaire measuring perceived peer acceptance and quality of friendship in soccer, perceived motivational climate, achievement goals and perfectionism in soccer. Canonical correlation analyses revealed that young female players who perceived the motivational climate as predominantly mastery oriented, and who were moderately task oriented and scored negatively on maladaptive perfectionism, reported better relations with their peers in soccer. Constructive peer relations were evident in that they scored positively on companionship with their best friend in soccer; they perceived this friend as being loyal and of allowing free discussion, and they reported being socially accepted by their peers in soccer. Mirroring these findings, young male players who perceived the motivational climate as predominantly performance oriented, who had a moderately negative score on task orientation but a quite strong positive score on maladaptive perfectionism, reported negative relationships with peers in terms of these aspects. They also reported being in conflict with their best soccer friend. The findings suggest that the qualities of motivation have a systematic relationship with peer acceptance and the quality of friendship in male and female youth soccer.     

Movement and stretching imagery during flexibility training

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of movement and stretching imagery on increases in flexibility. Thirty volunteers took part in a 4 week flexibility training programme. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) movement imagery, where participants imagined moving the limb they were stretching; (2) stretching imagery, where participants imagined the physiological processes involved in stretching the muscle; and (3) control, where participants did not engage in mental imagery. Active and passive range of motion around the hip was assessed before and after the programme. Participants provided specific ratings of vividness and comfort throughout the programme. Results showed significant increases in flexibility over time, but no differences between the three groups. A significant relationship was found, however, between improved flexibility and vividness ratings in the movement imagery group. Furthermore, both imagery groups scored significantly higher than the control group on levels of comfort, with the movement imagery group also scoring significantly higher than the stretching imagery group. We conclude that the imagery had stronger psychological than physiological effects, but that there is potential for enhancing physiological effects by maximizing imagery vividness, particularly for movement imagery.