Community-based assessment pedagogy

This article attempts to structure student assessment practices in the classroom. Informed by fourth generation evaluation, it discusses a pedagogy based on a recursive framework of writing, assessment, and reflection activities that move students toward productive praxis. Implemented over three semesters at a land grant university in the U.S., this pedagogy moves away from teacher-centered assessment and evaluation of student writing, and pushes students to do these things for themselves. It promotes a classroom in which students take control of all writing assignments, their instructions, assessment criteria, and the practices and reflective activities that go along with their writing. It encourages a community of writers that are implicated in each others’ writing and assessment practices, and gets them to critically engage with these practices. The article offers theoretical justifications and qualitative data from three semesters and suggests conclusions based on them.     

Cognitive predictors of word reading in Sinhala

We examined whether akshara knowledge, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and RAN predict variability in word and nonword reading skills in Grade 1–4 children (N?=?200) learning to read Sinhala. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that akshara knowledge had the strongest unique association with both word and nonword reading accuracy across grades. Akshara knowledge and RAN predicted word and nonword reading fluency. The impact of phonological memory and syllable awareness on reading was mostly mediated by akshara knowledge, and phoneme awareness was not uniquely associated with word reading skills in any grade. These results suggest that there are multiple cognitive correlates of accurate and fluent word reading in Sinhala, and akshara knowledge is the most important predictor of learning to read words. The findings have implications for the literacy acquisition, development, and instruction in alphasyllabaries.

     

Long-term impact of the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games on sport participation: A cohort analysis

The sport participation rate has been shown to decrease with age in many countries. In Japan, however, the elderly sport participation rate has increased over the last decade and is the highest among all Japanese. This study investigated whether the cohort effect generated by the shared experience of hosting the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games during their youth can explain the increased sport participation of elderly Japanese. Data from the Japanese National Sport-Life Survey over 20 years were analyzed through regression analysis. The results show that, after controlling for demographics and other determinants of sport participation, individuals who experienced the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games participated in sport more frequently than other generations.     

Instruction Matters to the Development of Phoneme Awareness and Its Relationship to Akshara Knowledge and Word Reading: Evidence from Sinhala

We examined whether global instruction of complex akshara and explicit phoneme-level instruction of akshara impact the development of phoneme awareness and its association with akshara knowledge and word reading accuracy. The participants were 100 Sinhala-speaking children from Grades 4 and 5 in Sri Lanka. Phoneme awareness showed stronger growth and a significant relationship with word reading accuracy and akshara knowledge only after children received explicit phoneme-level instruction in akshara construction. Both word reading accuracy and akshara knowledge predicted phoneme awareness, but the opposite was not true. The results suggest that phoneme awareness in Sinhala is sensitive to the method of reading instruction, and contrary to the studies in alphabetic languages, it does not have a bidirectional relationship with reading.     

Cocco's musical intervention in the US base problems: traversing a realm of everyday cultural sensibilities in Okinawa

This essay intervenes in the political contradiction between the pro-base and anti-base positions in Okinawa while at the same time seeking to provide an alternative to the binary at the level of everyday cultural sensibilities. I will accomplish this task by exploring the activities of charismatic Okinawan musician-artist-activist Cocco. More specifically, locating Cocco's music within – and also outside – a long, complicated genealogy of Okinawan popular music, I will trace how she has grounded the formal political problems of the US military in Okinawa's everyday dilemmas concerning money, memory, and globalization. In my view, Cocco has done so in a way that prods us to move beyond the pro-base/anti-base binary and to navigate an uncharted realm of culture, power, and history. I will also pay attention to how the audience in Okinawa and beyond, as a co-producer of Cocco's music community, has participated in this process. In so doing, I will show how Cocco's music has brought to light possibilities of transforming the existing political inequalities from below, possibilities that may be destined to disappear as soon as they are materialized as an explicit political program. I will articulate these possibilities with reference to what French writer-critic-philosopher Maurice Blanchot (1908–2003) once called the ‘unavowable community’.     

Players and Whiners? Perceptions of Sex Stereotyping in Animé in Japan and the US

This study examined cognitive and affective responses of Japanese (N=199) and American participants (N=194) to the depiction of gender in a Japanese animé popular in both countries. As expected, Japanese respondents indicated more familiarity with the animation and also reported that they were fans to a greater extent than Americans. Japanese participants and males showed greater agreement with sex stereotyping in the depiction of characters. Males also showed greater liking for characters and expressed the belief that they were positive role models. American females disliked the characters, especially the female character, significantly more than all other participants. Finally, participants, regardless of country, who held conventional views of gender perceived fewer stereotypes in the depiction of the characters. Given the current interest in animé, implications of findings from viewing sex-stereotypical images and directions for future research are discussed.     

A novel comparison between standard and new testing procedures to assess shock absorbency of third generation artificial turfs

This study aims to re-examine to what extent the testing procedure of the Artificial Athlete Berlin (DIN18032) is a valid evaluation method to assess the shock absorbency of third generation artificial turf (3-g turf) and to establish a new testing procedure, which precisely reflects the acute load by human sports action. The DIN test was conducted for 3-g turfs with different infill component. The baseline of the load of acute human sports action was obtained from the ground reaction force underneath the standard type of 3-g turf sample during landing from a 55-cm height with minimal shock attenuation. For reproducing the force similar to such a hard landing, a testing rig was developed and the same 3-g turf samples were tested. The DIN test failed to distinguish most types of 3-g turf and was found to be inappropriate to evaluate the shock absorbency of the 3-g turf mainly due to bouncing actions of the test foot on measured samples. In contrast, the newly developed testing rig succeeded in illustrating the differences of shock attenuation properties among most types of 3-g turfs in a high loading condition. In terms of players’ safety, the necessity of high loading test using an alternative testing procedure was highlighted.     

Examining an Extended Home Literacy Model: The Mediating Roles of Emergent Literacy Skills and Reading Fluency

We examined the developmental relationships between home literacy environment (parent teaching, shared book reading) and emergent literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, rapid naming speed) in kindergarten, reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, and reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3 in a sample of Canadian children learning to read English (N = 214). Results from a latent variable model showed that parent teaching predicted letter knowledge and phonological awareness, and shared book reading predicted vocabulary and rapid naming speed after controlling for family socioeconomic status. Moreover, both parent teaching and shared book reading contributed indirectly to reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, which then mediated the effects of home literacy environment on reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3. The results suggest that the effects of home literacy environment on later reading development are distributed via more pathways than previously thought.     

Analysis of cooperative research and development networks on Japanese patents

To sustain economic growth, countries have to manage systems in order to create technological innovation. To meet this goal, they are developing policies that organically connect companies, national laboratories, and universities into innovation networks. However, the whole structures of these connections have been little investigated because of the difficulty of obtaining such data.We use Japanese patent data and create a network of jointly applying organizations. This network can be considered as one representation of an innovation network because patents are seeds of innovation and joint applications are strong evidence of connections between organizations. We investigated the structure of the network, especially whether or not the degree distribution follows a power law. After that, we also propose a model that generates the actual network, not only degree distribution, but also link distance distribution.     

Dynamics of submaximal effort soccer instep kicking

During a soccer match, players are often required to control the ball velocity of a kick. However, little information is available for the fundamental qualities associated with kicking at various effort levels. We aimed to illustrate segmental dynamics of the kicking leg during soccer instep kicking at submaximal efforts. The instep kicking motion of eight experienced university soccer players (height: 172.4 ± 4.6 cm, mass: 63.3 ± 5.2 kg) at 50, 75 and 100% effort levels were recorded by a motion capture system (500 Hz), while resultant ball velocities were monitored using a pair of photocells. Between the three effort levels, kinetic adjustments were clearly identified in both proximal and distal segments with significantly different (large effect sizes) angular impulses due to resultant joint and interaction moments. Also, players tended to hit an off-centre point on the ball using a more medial contact point on the foot and with the foot in a less upright position in lower effort levels. These results suggested that players control their leg swing in a context of a proximal to distal segmental sequential system and add some fine-tuning of the resultant ball velocity by changing the manner of ball impact.