Daily steps in midlife and older adults: relationship with demographic, self-rated health, and self-reported physical activity

The relationship between average daily step counts and age, body mass index (BMI), self-reported physical activity (PA) level, and perceived health was determined in 85 middle-aged and older adults who wore a pedometer for 7 consecutive days. Average daily steps were significantly (p < .05) correlated with BMI (r = -.26), age (r = -.44) and perceived health (r = .53) but not with self-reported PA level (r = .19). The adjusted percentage of participants classified as meeting the PA recommendation in < or = 5,000, 5,001-9,999, and > or = 10,000 steps/day categories ranged from 53 to 61%. These findings support previous evidence in younger populations suggesting that the recommended minimal level of health-related PA may be achieved despite not accumulating 10,000 steps/day.     

Physical Activity Classification in Youth Using Raw Accelerometer Data from the Hip

ABSTRACT

This study developed and evaluated machine learning algorithms to predict children’s physical activity category from raw accelerometer data collected at the hip. Fifty participants (mean age = 13.9 ± 3.0 y) completed 12 activity trials that were categorized into 5 categories: sedentary (SED), light household activities and games (LHHAG), moderate-vigorous games and sports (MVGS), walking (WALK), and running (RUN). Random Forest (RF) and Logistic Regression (LR) classifiers were trained with features extracted from the vector magnitude using 10?s non-overlapping windows. Classification accuracy was evaluated using leave-one-subject-out cross validation. Overall accuracy for the RF and LR classifiers was 95.7% and 94.3%, respectively. Classification accuracy was excellent for SED (96.3% – 98.1%), LHHAG (92.3% – 95.2%), WALK (94.5% – 97.1%), RUN (99.5% – 99.6%); and MVGS (87.5% – 92.7%). The results indicate that classifiers trained on features in the raw acceleration from the hip can be used for activity recognition in young people.

Abbreviations: VM: Vector Magnitude; RF: Random Forest; LR: Logistic Regression; LOSO: Leave-One-Subject-Out     

Quality of Australian childcare and children's social skills

This study investigated the relationships and interactions between childcare quality (Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale – Revised edition [ECERS‐R]/Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale – Extension [ECERS‐E]) and children's social skills (SSRS) in different sociodemographic areas within one Australian city. Multiple regression analysis revealed that some subscales of ECERS‐R and ECERS‐E (language–reasoning, programme structure, space and furnishings, parents and staff, literacy, mathematics, science and environment) predicted the level of children's social skills and the frequency of problem behaviour, with positive and negative effects. Interestingly, although total scores for ECERS‐R and ECERS‐E were not significant predictors of social skills scores, interaction between total ECERS‐R and ECERS‐E scores was a significant predictor. With some qualifications the study provides evidence that both the childcare centre's neighbourhood and the quality of childcare provision are related to children's social skills. The interaction between social/emotional and academic aspects of quality suggests that we need to consider synergistic dimensions in quality in order to optimally enhance social skills in children.     

Reasoning and self-awareness from adolescence to middle age: Organization and development as a function of education

This study involved four age groups: 13–15-, 23–25-, 33–35-, and 43–45-yr-olds. All adult groups involved persons with university education and persons with low education. Participants (1) solved tasks addressed to spatial, propositional, and social reasoning, (2) evaluated their own performance and the difficulty of the tasks, and (3) answered an inventory probing their self-concept for these reasoning domains and for self-awareness and self-regulation. Structural modeling revealed that performance, self-evaluation, and self-representation are systematically interrelated. Performance in spatial and propositional reasoning stabilized in early adulthood, whereas in social reasoning and self-evaluation, performance improved throughout the age span studied. Educated persons performed better and rated themselves accordingly across all domains. The implications of these findings for the general theory of intelligence and cognitive development after adolescence are discussed. The functional shift model is proposed to account for changes in the relative power of different abilities with increasing age.     

First year expectations and experiences: student and teacher perspectives

Transitioning from high-school to university can be difficult, and many university teachers feel students are often ill-prepared for the change. To investigate this 233 Humanities and Science students at the University of Adelaide were surveyed 6 months into their first year regarding experiences of teaching and learning at university. 189 students were also surveyed 18 months after commencement, to gain retrospective views of their transition year, as were lecturers and tutors of both groups. Results were compared to similar Orientation Week questionnaires that focused on expectations. Questions included reasons for selecting degrees, quality of teacher feedback and perceived impact of outside commitments. Even though student expectations, student experience, and teacher views differed, remarkable similarities emerged across the two degree programs (Science and Humanities). Our findings thus highlight a call for non-specialised transition programs to meet the needs of first year students and facilitate the transition from secondary to tertiary education. All authors contributed equally to this work.     

Risk of Early Onset Substance Use among Students with and without Mild Academic Disabilities: Results of a Discrete‐Time Survival Analysis

This study investigated the age of onset of substance use among 536 students with mild academic disabilities and 906 students without academic disabilities, and the extent to which emotional, conduct, and hyperactivity problems explain the differences between these two groups. Using discrete‐time survival analysis, the results of this study showed that students with a mild academic disability were not at higher risk for the onset of daily smoking, and were at a significantly lower risk for the onset of weekly alcohol use and cannabis use. Though students with a mild academic disability displayed higher scores on conduct, emotional, and hyperactivity problems compared with their counterparts without an academic disability, this was not reflected in an increased risk for early onset substance use.     

The Transition From Sublexical to Lexical Processing in a Consistent Orthography: An Eye-Tracking Study

We studied the transition in predominant reading strategy from serial sublexical processing to more parallel lexical processing as a function of word familiarity in German children of Grades 2, 3, 4, and adults. High-frequency words, low-frequency words, and nonwords of differing length were embedded in sentences and presented in an eye-tracking paradigm. The size of the word length effect was used as an indicator of serial sublexical decoding. When controlling for the generally higher processing times in younger readers, the effect of length over reading development was not direct but modulated by familiarity: Length effects were comparable between items of differing familiarity for Grade 2, whereas from Grade 3, length effects increased with decreasing familiarity. These findings suggest that Grade 2 children apply serial sublexical decoding as a default reading strategy to most items, whereas reading by direct lexical access is increasingly dominant in more experienced readers.     

Under-threes’ mathematical learning – teachers’ perspectives

This project highlights preschool teachers’ views of toddlers’ learning in mathematics. The Swedish national curriculum covers even the youngest children who are 1–3?years old. Interesting questions are thus: what should mathematics be for this age group and how should preschool teachers work with maths to achieve the curriculum objectives? Data were collected through interviews with six preschool teachers working in four different preschools. The data show that the teachers emphasize the body as very important for the learning process, which means that for these children, it is not a matter of simply talking about mathematical concepts, but experiencing them bodily. The teachers also report that they now pay more attention than previously to what material the children use and how they interact with it. They are more aware of how they organize and offer the various materials in the preschool and how this influences the way children use them and, consequently, their learning processes.     

Explaining Health and Social Care Students' Experiences of Meaningfulness in Vocational Education: The Importance of Life Goals,Learning Support,Perceived Competence,and Autonomous Motivation

The experience of meaning in a learning situation is a stated goal of Knowledge Promotion Reform in Norway. This study, guided by self-determination theory, examines how pursuing intrinsic and extrinsic life goals relates to the experience of meaning in vocational education. The study also examines how learning support, perceived competence, and different types of autonomous motivation are associated with students' experiences of meaning. The sample consisted of health and social care students (N?=?405) in upper secondary school. The results indicated that intrinsic goals encouraged meaningfulness in all subjects, whereas extrinsic goals related to perceived meaninglessness in vocational subjects. Learning support, perceived competence, and autonomous types of motivation all have a positive link to students' experiences of meaning, either directly or indirectly.     

Teaching Genetics in Secondary Classrooms: a Linguistic Analysis of Teachers’ Talk About Proteins

This study investigates Swedish biology teachers’ inclusion of proteins when teaching genetics in grade nine (students 15–16 years old). For some years, there has been a call to give attention to proteins when teaching genetics as a means of linking the concepts ‘gene’ and ‘trait’. Students are known to have problems with this relation because the concepts belong to different organizational levels. However, we know little about how the topic is taught and therefore this case study focuses on how teachers talk about proteins while teaching genetics and if they use proteins as a link between the micro and macro level. Four teachers were recorded during entire genetics teaching sequences, 45 lessons in total. The teachers’ verbal communication was then analyzed using thematic pattern analysis, which is based in systemic functional linguistics. The linguistic analysis of teachers’ talk in action revealed great variations in both the extent to which they used proteins in explanations of genetics and the ways they included proteins in linking genes and traits. Two of the teachers used protein as a link between gene and trait, while two did not. Three of the four teachers included instruction about protein synthesis. The common message from all teachers was that proteins are built, but none of the teachers talked about genes as exclusively encoding proteins. Our results suggest that students’ common lack of understanding of proteins as an intermediate link between gene and trait could be explained by limitations in the way the subject is taught.