“Dancing in a cage”: Changing autonomy in Chinese higher education

In China, the central government has released a series of key policy initiatives over the last twenty years to foster decentralisation of control over higher education, giving prominence to discourses of increased autonomy for both universities and academics. This article reports findings of an empirical study of changing autonomy in Chinese higher education and it focuses on the effects of these key policy developments in two case study universities. This research was part of a larger study of new power relationships emerging from changing policies on accountability and autonomy in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore, located within a broader context of the impact of globalisation on higher education. The focus on the three regions was selected to begin to redress a Western hegemony in such research. The larger study is premised on the principle that globalisation is characterised by ongoing tensions between global commonalities and context-specific differences, and that it is important not to gloss over the complex and often contradictory national and local mediations of “global” policy trends.     

Designing your web site for instructional effectiveness and completeness: First steps

TechTrends - Developing and publishing Web sites is becoming almost trivially easy today, and there are many sites on the Web nowadays that purport to be instructional in one way or another. In...     

Bifurcated commitment,priorities, and social contagion: the dynamics and correlates of volunteering within a university student population

In spite of a progressive institutionalisation of community‐based learning into higher education, relatively little is known about the actual dynamics and correlates of volunteering by students. The study presented seeks a more in‐depth understanding of the spontaneous, extracurricular involvement within a university student population. Data are drawn from a postal survey of a representative sample of third‐year university students enrolled at a Flemish university (n = 744). In a first step, an exploration of the course and nature of students’ volunteer involvement is provided. In a second step, an explanatory model is constructed to predict the likelihood of belonging to the categories of volunteers, former volunteers or non‐volunteers. Firstly, it appears that a large group of students drop out of volunteering in transition to university, and that volunteering is rarely given priority in students’ agenda. Furthermore, a bifurcated pattern of involvement with a different pace inside and outside university is identified. Finally, extensive embedding in a volunteer environment as well as the discipline of study are major predictors of volunteering by students. Gender, church practice, being encouraged to volunteer and subjective study pressure produce subsidiary effects.     

Child-methods in secondary mathematics

An earlier research project, the Concepts in Secondary Mathematics and Science (Mathematics) project, identified both a hierarchy of levels of understanding in different areas of secondary mathematics, and a number of particular errors which were made by significant proportions of the children tested. Preliminary consideration of these errors and the strategies which appear to have given rise to them suggests that the use of informal naive methods which are limited in their applicability is widespread even at fourth-year level. The suggestion is made that there may be two systems of mathematics coexisting in the secondary school classroom: the formal taught system, and a system of child-methods which are based upon a counting, adding-on or building-up approach, and by which children attempt to solve mathematical problems within a human-sense framework. The difficulties which some children appear to experience in mathematics is suggested to be due in part to these children's non-initiation into the formal taught system. The implication of such a view for teaching and research are indicated.     

Biomechanics teachers can be animals

The aim of this study was to determine whether a constructivist approach, in particular a visit to a zoo, could be effective in consolidating mechanical concepts and applying those concepts to coaching and teaching. Ten students in their final year of their Bachelor of Physical Education at the University of Edinburgh participated in a visit to Edinburgh Zoo. During the visit students completed a worksheet of questions and engaged interactively in discussing how various animals are adapted mechanically to survive in their environments. Immediately after the visit they completed a questionnaire with four sections. The first section assessed whether they could apply the mechanical concepts discussed during the visit to human sports performance. The second canvassed their opinions on whether the visit was effective in reinforcing mechanical concepts, in developing ‘lateral thinking’ about mechanical concepts, and in improving their ability to apply mechanical concepts to coaching and teaching. The third canvassed their opinions on whether the visit would be effective for senior high school Physical Education and Sports Science students for developing mechanical concepts and applying them to coaching. The fourth section canvassed their opinions on when the visit should be conducted for Physical Education and Sports Science students in universities and in senior high schools. The results indicated that the visit was effective in reinforcing mechanical concepts and in applying them laterally to improve understanding of human sports performance. Participants believed that the visit would also be effective for senior high school students. All participants believed that the visit would be most beneficial after at least one course in biomechanics that covers the basic biomechanical principles.     

Sport development and physical activity promotion: An integrated model to enhance collaboration and understanding

As inactivity and obesity levels continue to rise, calls are being made for sport development action to be further directed towards capitalising on the value of community participation for health and social benefits. This paper seeks to highlight a current disconnect between physical activity and sport management research, and identify opportunities for collaboration. To date, the sport management literature has predominantly focused on sport as a form of entertainment with spectatorship outcomes, where professional codes are a commonly used setting of research inquiry. There has been less focus on organisational issues related to participation in sport and recreation. This is identified as a gap, given the current push towards increasing focus on sport and recreation promotion for community wellbeing. The present paper sought to examine physical activity and sport management research, to identify commonalities and potential for integration and co-operation. The outcome of this review is a conceptual framework, integrating socio-ecological models, taken from physical activity research, and sport development concepts derived from sport management theory. The proposed conceptual framework seeks to provide sport management researchers with direction in their efforts to promote participation in sport, recreation and physically active leisure domains, particularly for community wellbeing purposes. Furthermore, such direction may also enhance the capacity of researchers to capitalise on opportunities for collaboration and integration across domains of inquiry.     

Eating Right: Linking Food‐Related Decision‐Making Concepts From Neuroscience,Psychology, and Education

This literature review uses four dimensions to classify and compare how food‐related decision‐making is conceptualized and experimentally assessed in neuroscience and other disciplines: (1) food‐related decision‐making other than the decision of what to eat that is part of each eating episode, (2) decision complexes other than the eating episode itself, (3) the evolution of food‐related decision‐making over time, and (4) the nature of food related decisions. In neuroscience in particular, food‐related decision‐making research has been dominated by studies exploring the influence of a wide range of factors on the final outcome, the type and amount of foods eaten. In comparison, the steps that are leading up to this outcome have only rarely been discussed. Neuroscientists should broaden their historically narrow conceptualization of food‐related decision‐making. Then neuroscience research could help group the numerous hypothesized influences for each of the decision complexes into meaningful clusters that rely on the same or similar brain mechanisms and that thus function in similar ways. This strategy could help researchers improve existing broad models of human food‐related decision‐making from other disciplines. The integration of neuroscientific and behavioral science approaches can lead to a better model of food‐related decision‐making grounded in the brain and relevant to the design of more effective school and nonschool lifestyle interventions to prevent and treat obesity in children, adolescents, and adults.     

“It’s the X and Y Thing”: Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Changes in Children’s Understanding of Genes

Studies from different theoretical traditions investigating children’s inheritance and genetics concepts have adopted a cross-sectional method. This paper is the first to examine both cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in children’s basic genetic concepts. It forms part of a larger investigation into the development of intuitive inheritance and genetics concepts in childhood. Four age cohorts (4–5 years, 7–8 years, 10–11 years, 14–15 years) were interviewed individually at two measurement occasions (T1, N = 182; T2, N = 164) separated by a 1-year interval. Cross-sectional analyses revealed an increase in children’s knowledge of genetics by 10 years. Between 10 and 14 years, there were fewer changes in the content of children’s knowledge, especially at the level of scientific genetic understanding. There was little evidence of longitudinal changes over the 1-year period. Overall, children may hold an understanding of genetics that is tied to knowledge of inheritance within families. This may pose challenges for acquiring more abstract and formal concepts of genes.     

The Renewal of Science Teachers’ Knowledge: a pilot professional development project

This paper describes a pilot project for the professional development of science teachers, a major aim of which was to update teachers’ science content knowledge. The paper focuses on the rationale and background of the project, the model of inservice education, the arrangements for credentialling and recognising participating teachers, and the findings of the external evaluation of the initial stages of the project. It concludes with a summary of the features of the project which appear to be facilitating the achievement of its aims.     

Rethinking the ‘Western Tradition’: a response to Enslin and Horsthemke

This is a reply to an article authored by Enslin and Horsthemke (2014) published in Educational Philosophy and Theory (EPAT). Enslin and Horsthemke argue that those who they refer to as ‘friends of the subaltern’ pit themselves against a straw-person that is swiftly dismissed in pointing out blindness of the Western tradition. They point out that in doing so ‘friends of the subaltern’ pursue a ‘politics of resentment’. In their reply, Le Grange and Aikenhead argue that Enslin and Horsthemke mischaracterise their work by cherry picking from their selected works and by taking their words out of context. They suggest that Enslin and Horsthemke produce their own straw-person arguments that they accuse others of doing. Le Grange and Aikenhead argue that their research programmes seek cognitive justice which is not tantamount to engaging in a politics of resentment.