A committee system for radio‐TV administration

Often, a series of studies may shed light where a single study from the series will be of minor value. For the past several years, students in the graduate Department of Journalism at the University of California at Los Angeles have investigated facets of the mass communications picture in the Southern California region. In this article, Walter Wilcox, Department Chairman, and Jack Lyle, Assistant Professor, provide a framework and a synopsis of several studies using a variety of methodologies but all concerned with the subject of television news broadcasting.     

An examination of treadmill running familiarisation in barefoot and shod conditions in healthy men

Running on a treadmill is an activity that is novel to many people. Thus, a familiarisation period may be required before reliable and valid determinations of biomechanical parameters can be made. The current study investigated the time required for treadmill familiarisation under barefoot and shod running conditions. Twenty-six healthy men, who were inexperienced in treadmill running, were randomly allocated to run barefoot or shod for 20 minutes on a treadmill at a self-selected comfortable pace. Sagittal-plane kinematics for the ankle, knee and hip, and ground reaction force and spatio-temporal data were collected at two-minute intervals. For the barefoot condition, temporal differences were observed in peak hip flexion and peak knee flexion during swing. For the shod condition, temporal differences were observed for peak vertical ground reaction force. No temporal differences were observed after 8 minutes for either condition. Reliability analysis revealed high levels of consistency (ICC > 0.90) across all consecutive time-points for all dependent variables for both conditions after 8 minutes with the exception of maximal initial vertical ground reaction force loading rate. Participants in both barefoot and shod groups were therefore considered familiarised to treadmill running after 8 minutes.     

The Impact of Vertical Scaling Decisions on Growth Interpretations

Most growth models implicitly assume that test scores have been vertically scaled. What may not be widely appreciated are the different choices that must be made when creating a vertical score scale. In this paper empirical patterns of growth in student achievement are compared as a function of different approaches to creating a vertical scale. Longitudinal item‐level data from a standardized reading test are analyzed for two cohorts of students between Grades 3 and 6 and Grades 4 and 7 for the entire state of Colorado from 2003 to 2006. Eight different vertical scales were established on the basis of choices made for three key variables: Item Response Theory modeling approach, linking approach, and ability estimation approach. It is shown that interpretations of empirical growth patterns appear to depend upon the extent to which a vertical scale has been effectively “stretched” or “compressed” by the psychometric decisions made to establish it. While all of the vertical scales considered show patterns of decelerating growth across grade levels, there is little evidence of scale shrinkage.     

Physical activity estimated by the bone-specific physical activity questionnaire is also associated with cardiovascular risk

The nature of physical activity that benefits bone is traditionally thought to differ from that benefiting cardiovascular health. Accordingly, exercise recommendations for improving bone health and cardiovascular health are largely incongruent. Our aim was to determine the associations between high-impact physical activity participation and both cardiovascular disease risk factors and bone mass. We recruited 94 men and women (age 34.0?±?13.3 years) to undergo measures of cardiovascular disease risk (BMI, total cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, waist-to-hip ratio, and mean arterial pressure) and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA XR-800, Norland) measures of bone mass (femoral neck, lumbar spine, and whole body BMD) and body composition (whole body lean mass and fat mass). Physical activity participation was estimated using the bone-specific physical activity questionnaire (BPAQ). Those in the upper tertile for current BPAQ score exhibited lower total cholesterol, waist-to-hip ratio, and mean arterial pressure than those in the lower tertiles (P?r?=??0.49 to 0.29, P?P?=?0.008), with BPAQ score predicting 6% of the variance in BMD (P?=?0.02). We conclude that high-impact physical activity as captured by the BPAQ may be beneficial for both bone health and for attenuating cardiovascular disease risk.     

Collaborative Staff Development

This article discusses a facilitative and collaborative model of teaching development in higher education. It explores the effectiveness of such a model in the light of the staff (faculty) development literature and the authors' five years of experience in its application through the TRAC (Teaching, Reflection and Collaboration) network facilitated by the Academic Staff Development Unit (ASDU) at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia.Denise C. Scott received her B.A. and M.Ed.St. from the University of Queensland and is a Lecturer in Teaching and Learning (Higher Education) at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia (QUT). She coordinates the TRAC (Teaching Reflection and Collaboration) Network for the Academic Staff Development Unit at QUT and has a particular interest in the role of collaboration and interaciton in learning. Patricia A. Weeks received her Ph.D. from Queensland University of Technology in the area of Professional Development, and she is a Senior Lecturer in the Academic Staff Development Unit at QUT. She coordinates the Graduate Certificate in Education (Higher Education) offered to lecturers at QUT and also teaches a unit within the course entitled The Reflective Practitioner. She consults on issues related to teaching and learning, and her special interests are in action research, narrative inquiry, and models of reflective practice.