Prevalence and correlates of resistance training skill competence in adolescents

The aim of this study is to examine the prevalence and correlates of adolescents’ resistance training (RT) skill competence. Participants were 548 adolescents (14.1 ± 0.5 years) from 16 schools in New South Wales, Australia. RT skills were assessed using the Resistance Training Skills Battery. Demographics, BMI, muscular fitness, perceived strength, RT self-efficacy, and motivation for RT were also assessed. The proportion demonstrating “competence” and “near competence” in each of the six RT skills were calculated and sex differences explored. Associations between the combined RT skill score and potential correlates were examined using multi-level linear mixed models. Overall, the prevalence of competence was low (range = 3.3% to 27.9%). Females outperformed males on the squat, lunge and overhead press, whereas males performed better on the push-up (p < .05). Significant associations were seen for a number of correlates, which largely differed by sex. Muscular fitness was moderately and positively associated with RT skills among both males (β = 0.34, 95%CIs = 0.23 to 0.46) and females (β = 0.36, 95%CIs = 0.23 to 0.48). Our findings support a link between RT skills and muscular fitness. Other associations were statistically significant but small in magnitude, and should therefore be interpreted cautiously.     

An examination of the jump-and-lift factors influencing the time to reach peak catch height during a Rugby Union lineout

The goal of an offensive Rugby Union lineout is to throw the ball in a manner that allows your team to maintain possession. Typically, the player catching the ball jumps and is lifted upwards by two teammates, reaching above the opposing player who is competing for the ball also. Despite various beliefs regarding the importance of the jumper’s mass and attempted jump height, and lifters’ magnitude and point of force application, there is negligible published data on the topic. The squeeze technique is one lifting method commonly employed by New Zealand teams during lineout plays, whereby the jumper initiates the jump quickly and the lifters provide assistance only once the jumper reaches 20–30 cm. While this strategy may reduce cues to the opposition, it might also constrain the jumper and lifters. We developed a model to explore how changes in the jumper’s body mass and attempted jump height, and lifters’ magnitude and point of force application influence the time to reach peak catch height. The magnitude of the lift force impacted the time-to-reach peak catch height the most; followed by the jumper’s (attempted) jump height and body mass; and lastly, the point of lift force application.     

Instructional Settings in Science for Students with Disabilities: Implications for Teacher Education

Finding appropriate instructional settings in science for students with disabilities is challenging, and the range of services or placements used is currently unknown. This study identifies administrative structures, instructional settings, and special/general education teacher roles in teaching science to students with disabilities. A phone survey was conducted with special education coordinators of fifth graders in 137 districts in Texas. Survey data indicated that while nearly all districts reported special education settings for the instruction of science for students with disabilities, some districts provided only general education settings. Theoretical and practical implications for teacher preparation are discussed.     

Blending Effective Behavior Management and Literacy Strategies for Preschoolers Exhibiting Negative Behavior

Sometimes students will exhibit various aggressive behaviors in the preschool classroom. Early childhood educators need to have behavior management strategies to manage the students’ negative behaviors within the classroom setting. This article will provide a rationale for embedding literacy instruction within behavior management strategies to assist preschool age students with negative behaviors. Three widely used classroom management strategies will be explained: group contingencies, anger management, and individualized behavior plans with differential reinforcement of other behaviors. Each strategy will have developmentally appropriate literacy skills infused into it. In conclusion, a suggestion will be given to early childhood educators on how to implement these blended management techniques.     

University and College Counselors as Athletic Team Consultants: Using a Structural Family Therapy Model

Increasingly, university and college counselors are sought out by their institution's sports coaches for assistance in achieving team goals. Traditional sport psychology models that have the individual athlete as their primary focus are insufficient frameworks for team‐level consultations. The authors believe that systemic approaches may provide an effective alternative. In this article, the authors offer and illustrate S. Minuchin's (1974) Structural Family Therapy as a heuristic model for conceptualizing and intervening with athletic teams.     

Cultural diversity in online learning: A study of the perceived effects of dissonance in levels of individualism/collectivism and tolerance of ambiguity

Online learning courses are hypothesized to be influenced by the instructors' and students' cultural values. This study collected survey data from online instructors and students to analyze the effects that Hofstede's individualism/collectivism and ambiguity (in)tolerance cultural dimensions exert on online courses offered from an individualist/ambiguity tolerant perspective. Results revealed that the students' cultural dimensions relate significantly to some of their perceptions of culture in the online classroom. Contrary to their individualist peers, collectivist learners felt that their individualist instructors were not usually aware of cultural differences in the online classroom and that their culture was not being considered to make learning relevant to their cultural context. Ambiguity intolerant students, in contrast with their ambiguity tolerant peers, felt that cultural background consideration is important and would appreciate being informed about relevant cultural differences they might experience taking an online course based on a different cultural perspective. Students from ambiguity intolerant cultures also reported less motivation to participate than their counterparts. In addition, language was found to influence the participation patterns when the ambiguity (in)tolerance values of the students were studied. However, language was not found to influence participation patterns for the individualist/collectivist dimension. The results of the study suggest that cultural differences do affect how students perceive the online classroom.     

Benchmarking the environmental values and attitudes of students in New Zealand's post‐compulsory education

How much do teachers in tertiary education know about the sustainability characteristics of their incoming students and, if this knowledge were to be available, how could their educational approaches be influenced by this knowledge? In New Zealand, Otago Polytechnic has committed itself to the goal that every graduate may think and act as a sustainable practitioner, and staff are changing their approach to teaching to achieve this. This research sought to benchmark the environmental worldview attributes of an incoming cohort of Otago Polytechnic students to support academic staff who need to know more about the sustainability interests and characteristics of their students, so that they may provide appropriate educational programmes. The research was also designed as the first stage of longer‐term research to evaluate the impact of these institutional changes on how students transform during the period of their tertiary education experience. The data and analysis presented here suggest that even before students start to study in the institution different groups have substantially different sustainability values‐sets. The authors anticipate that the research instruments and approaches used in the present study will contribute to a substantial national exploration of the sustainability value‐sets of tertiary students.     

‘It's like being in a zoo.’ Researching with people with intellectual disability

This paper introduces key debates in the contemporary practice of disability research and examines how these apply to conceptualising, designing and conducting research with people with intellectual disability. Specifically, it describes a collaborative action‐oriented reflexive approach to researching the lived experience of people with intellectual disability in self‐advocacy, offering a ‘reflective reprocessing’ of the methodological traditions, decisions, complexities and inadequacies of approaches to researching with such people. Emphasis on mutuality and the co‐construction of research agendas, interpretative frames and meanings is a method that has rarely been seen in research practice in intellectual disability. The approach described enables a merging of the skills of the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’ to create a process of integrated inquiry and reflection. It promises the possibility of new forms of co‐produced social knowledge about intellectual disability and self‐advocacy, with explicitly emancipatory values and assumptions.     

Student Learning Groups: Does Group Composition Matter?

There has been a shift in university teaching over the past decades to emphasize student achievement and persistence through high-impact practices and collaborative learning. While research supports the efficacy of these pedagogical strategies, it can be difficult to implement them on large campuses. Yet, many criminal justice professors assign students to work in small groups. This study, conducted at a university with a large underrepresented student population, found that the composition of student groups in one criminal justice class can affect the perceived benefits students receive in that class, in other classes, and in general. We found that students placed in a small group with classmates who shared some criminal justice classes reported more student-initiated collaborative learning, expanded support networks, and improved grades in shared courses compared to students in small groups with classmates who shared no classes. This simple intervention has the potential to mimic learning-communities with similar benefits.     

Foregrounding Women in the Doctoral Classroom: Mainstreaming and Single-Sex Approaches to Graduate Education

An increasing number of published studies have drawn attention to gender disparities in various dimensions of Christian higher education. Although the majority of students on the campuses of member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) are women, and the percentage of women holding faculty and administrative roles has increased, the male-normed environment of the academy continues to be evident in various ways, particularly in these Christian institutions. At the same time, higher education—and doctoral education in particular—is an important pathway to prepare future leaders and professors for Christian organizations. One potential way to begin to shift toward a more welcoming climate that benefits both men and women on CCCU campuses is to “foreground,” or make central, women's issues and concerns as part of regular classroom teaching. Such foregrounding can help counter the historic tendency to treat men's experience and concerns as normative for the human race. In the discipline of missiology, women make up the bulk of the practitioners yet are underrepresented as scholars, making it a pertinent field to challenge the neglect of women's voices and concerns in the academy. This article describes how a missiology classroom has been used to create a climate where women have opportunities to be central and where women's perspectives are treated as equally important as men's perspectives. To do this, I used three key practices: intentionally addressing gendered topics in mixed classes, offering selected single-sex education opportunities for women, and focusing on gender-related topics for research and publication. Using the discipline of missiology as a case study in relation to the importance of giving women's contributions to the field both recognition and voice may also offer transferable insights for doctoral faculty in other disciplines.