A new jump-landing protocol identifies differences in healthy,coper, and unstable ankles in collegiate athletes

Ankle sprains are the most common injury in sport. With stability being an important risk factor for ankle sprains, a jump-landing protocol that can elicit differences in time-to-stabilisation (TTS) is necessary. The objective of this study was to develop a jump-landing protocol that could identify differences in TTS among healthy, ‘coper’, and unstable ankles of high-level athletes. 61 Division I collegiate athletes (32 females, 29 males; age: 19.9 ± 1.2 years; height: 176.6 ± 9.5 cm; mass: 74.3 ± 10.8 kg) participated in a jump-landing protocol that utilised sporting movements with preparatory steps and a vertical propulsion of the body in two multi-directional jumps. Utilising the landing on a force plate, ground reaction forces were used to quantify TTS. TTS of the unstable group (1.58 ± 0.62s) was significantly longer than the healthy (1.19 ± 0.37s; p = 0.050) and ‘coper’ (1.13 ± 0.49s; p = 0.019) groups in the forward hops. In addition, TTS of the lateral hops in the unstable group (1.55 ± 0.63s) was also significantly longer than the healthy (1.14 ± 0.37s; p = 0.026) and ‘coper’ (1.15 ± 0.39s; p = 0.028) groups. This new jump-landing protocol was able to elicit differences in TTS in high-level athletes that were not found using previous protocols. This new jump-landing protocol could be an effective tool to identify injury risk for high-level athletes.     

Creating a model to examine motivation for sustained engagement in online communities

This paper considers factors that influenced long-term engagement in an online community. It draws on a case study of a 6 year online collaboration amongst a group of European teachers. The email interchange between these teachers was, with their agreement, saved and used as research data; intensive group interviews were also conducted, involving all the participants in the online group. Dynamic motivation models and Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of motivational flow were used to create a theoretical framework to analyse the email interchanges and group interview data so as to build an understanding of the teachers’ commitment to the online community. As a result of the analysis, the existing theoretical models were modified to produce a new combined model. This incorporates ideas grounded in the participants’ reasons for their sustained engagement in the collaboration. This combined model could provide a basis for planning future virtual interactions and for assessing their sustainability.     

Urban High School Student Engagement Through CincySTEM iTEST Projects

Journal of Science Education and Technology - This paper focuses on the notable heightening of underrepresented students’ engagement in STEM education through project-based learning CincySTEM...     

‘That’s just the way I am’: metacognition,personal intelligence and reading

Metacognition is thinking about thinking and there is fairly robust evidence that an awareness of one’s own understanding, especially in reading, is strongly linked with success. Readers who are alert to the problems in their understanding of what they read and can adopt a range of strategies to ‘fix’ these problems tend to be better readers. Kathy Hall and Julia Myers here explore how such awareness works in one child’s view of herself as a reader and suggest that such insights need to form part of a useful assessment of the child’s reading.     

Effectiveness of a psycho-educational staff training program on attitudes of staff in a long-term care facility: A pilot study and framework

Managing Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) is a significant challenge for staff working in long-term care facilities. This study examines the effectiveness of a psycho-educational training aimed at changing staff’s attitudes. The results indicated that participants’ attitudes toward dementia were more positive, person-centered, and hopeful; some participants’ attitudes were unchanged or altered negatively after the training sessions. The conclusiveness of evaluation findings was limited due to time constraints for staff to participate in the complete educational program and the small dataset. Further research is indicated to revise the methodology of the training to ascertain if the framework regarding education on dementia influences staff’s attitude and the overall well-being of the residents.     

Shifting Deficit Paradigms of Latino Emerging Bilingual Students’ Literacy Achievement: Documenting Biliterate Trajectories

The purpose of this single-subject longitudinal study was to examine the Spanish and English biliterate development of U.S. Latino Spanish/English speaking students, who we call emerging bilingual students, as they participated in an innovative biliteracy instructional program titled Literacy Squared®. Findings indicate that across the three years of the study, participating students made gains in Spanish and English reading and writing. This study provides support for Literacy Squared as an innovative biliterate program. Further, the study provides evidence for the need to consider alternative methods to document Latino Spanish/English students’ biliteracy development such as through the use of biliterate trajectories.     

Children’s access to pre‐school education in Bangladesh

Using the Education Watch household survey database, this paper explores children’s access to pre‐school education in Bangladesh. Participation in pre‐school education has been increasing in Bangladesh at the rate of 0.6% per year and the net enrolment rate was found to be 13.4% in 2005. Enrolment of over‐aged children in pre‐school education made the gross enrolment ratio as high as 30.5%. However, over half of the four to five year olds at school were actually enrolled in primary school and not in pre‐school. Moreover, 71% of the four‐ to five‐year group were out of school. Only a third of the four‐ to five‐year‐old children enrolled in schools had the opportunity to attend the English‐medium kindergartens or NGO‐run non‐formal schools, both of which provide better quality pre‐school education. Urban children, especially those with educated parents and from more privileged socio‐economic backgrounds, were more likely to have access to pre‐school education. The lack of a common pre‐school curriculum seems to have created further inequity among children at this very early age. An educational policy targeting poor and socially disadvantaged children with support from both the state and current pre‐school providers is urgently needed to provide four‐ to five‐year‐old children appropriate education for their needs.