The influence of technology-mediated and in-person communication on student satisfaction: The moderating role of national culture

This article analyses the effects of technology-mediated (i.e., social media) and in-person communication (i.e., non-verbal cues) on student satisfaction in a higher education context. Data were collected among 221 college students from the University of Valencia (UVEG) in Spain and analysed from the perspective of the respondents' national culture. Contrary to expectations, the results show that neither one of the social media aspects drives student satisfaction, thus providing support for the technology paradox literature. Instead, three non-verbal communication cues are found to influence student satisfaction, i.e., paralanguage, kinesics, and chronemics. The moderating role of national culture on the examined relationships is also considered. The results reveal that national culture seems to only affect the relationship between chronemics and satisfaction.     

Biomechanical loading of the hip during side jumps by soccer goalkeepers

Abstract

There is a risk of hip injury in dives to the side by soccer goalkeepers. In this study, we assessed hip loading in goalkeepers when performing such dives. The experiments were conducted in a laboratory setting using an in-ground force plate as well as on a grass surface when the athletes were equipped with force sensors. The forces acting on the hip were measured and high-speed video analysis was performed, allowing the investigation of the dive characteristics and techniques. The peak force values recorded in the laboratory setting ranged from 3 to 8 kN, which corresponded to 4.2–8.6 times body weight. The vertical impact velocities reached 3.25 m · s^?1. In the field experiments, a hip loading of 87–183 N · cm^?2 was determined. We found that goalkeepers who perform a rolling motion reduce their hip loading. The data provided by this study add to the biomechanics database and contribute to the establishment of injury criteria. Such information is necessary to develop and implement strategies to help prevent hip injuries.     

Improved sentence retrieval using local context and sentence length

In this paper we propose improved variants of the sentence retrieval method TF–ISF (a TF–IDF or Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency variant for sentence retrieval). The improvement is achieved by using context consisting of neighboring sentences and at the same time promoting the retrieval of longer sentences. We thoroughly compare new modified TF–ISF methods to the TF–ISF baseline, to an earlier attempt to include context into TF–ISF named tfmix and to a language modeling based method that uses context and promoting retrieval of long sentences named 3MMPDS. Experimental results show that the TF–ISF method can be improved using local context. Results also show that the TF–ISF method can be improved by promoting the retrieval of longer sentences. Finally we show that the best results are achieved when combining both modifications. All new methods (TF–ISF variants) also show statistically significant better results than the other tested methods.     

Peer Feedback Improves Students’ Academic Self-Concept in Higher Education

Research in Higher Education - Peer feedback has been shown to be an effective strategy to improve academic achievement. However, little evidence is available about the effects of peer feedback on...     

A ‘globalised’ curriculum – international comparative practices and the preschool child as a site of economic optimisation

Globalisation is often referred to as being external to education – a state of affairs presenting the modern curriculum with numerous challenges. In this article, ‘globalisation’ is examined as something that is internal to curriculum and analysed as a problematisation in a Foucaultian sense, that is, as a complex of attentions, worries and ways of reasoning, producing curricular variables. The analysis is made through an example of early childhood curriculum in Danish preschool, and the way the curricular variable of the preschool child comes into being through ‘globalisation’ as a problematisation, carried forth by comparative practices such as Programme for International Student Assessment. It thus explores some of the systems of reason that educational comparative practices carry through time, focusing on the ways in which configurations are reproduced and transformed, forming the preschool child as a site of economic optimisation.     

Analysis of FRBR User Tasks

FRBR, FRAD, and FRSAD models propose user tasks as a way to address and categorize functions that a catalog should support. The user tasks are not harmonized among these models, but to do that, they should first be fully understood and analyzed, especially “select” and “identify.” We decided to look at the FRBR user tasks from the perspective of interactive information retrieval (IIR). Several IIR models were reviewed and Ellis’ and Belkin's models were chosen for further analysis and interpretation of FRBR “select” and “identify” tasks.     

The emergence of the analytical method in early childhood education – the scientific effort to produce the learning child for the nation in a global era

Through an analysis of a recent Danish administrative educational reform in the area of early childhood education, this article raises a discussion about the way pedagogical objects and subjects are generated in the knowledge acquisition of administrative educational reforms promoting accountability, visibility and documentation. It is argued that pedagogy is generated as a sequential and unit-specified way of working on the production of ‘the learning child’, forming a time- and material-optimising approach. Hereby, the nursery teacher, as a daily scientific researcher, comes to serve the nation by an ongoing observational intervention, producing the learning foundation for the entrepreneurial citizen, and thus the nation as a knowledge society in a globalised world. This is what this article terms the emergence of the analytical method.     

A reflection on adaptability,achievement motivation and success of Central and Eastern European students in one English university

This article reflects on and discusses Central and Eastern European (CEE) learners’ adaptability and achievement in one English post-1992 university. There appears to be a scarcity of studies of values, beliefs, attitudes and needs as well as achievement (and factors contributing to it) between CEE and other learners. Since the expansion of the European Union, CEE students’ presence in British higher education has become more pronounced. CEE learners are treated as home students (for the purpose of fees) and yet they come from a distinctively different socio-historical background and pedagogic tradition – tradition (as explained further in the article) that is, to a certain extent, common in CEE countries as a result of the sovietisation of education systems within post communistic countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In the British higher education sector there is a move in curriculum delivery towards more personalised learning, which underlines that effective teaching and learning starts with understanding the individual student. Therefore, it is important that universities with a high proportion of EU students attempt to understand where CEE students come from and what their aspirations might be. This article provides some insights into CEE learners’ values, attitudes and motivations to learn and looks for possible reasons for their success.