High bar swing performance in novice adults: effects of practice and talent

An individual's a priori talent can affect movement performance during learning. Also, task requirements and motor-perceptual factors are critical to the learning process. This study describes changes in high bar swing performance after a 2-month practice period. Twenty-five novice participants were divided by a priori talent level (spontaneous-talented [ST] and nonspontaneous-talented [NST]) and compared to experienced gymnasts. Additionally, we assessed their perception of their performance level before and after practice. We defined three events independently for hip (H) and shoulder (S) angle joints and for the lag between consecutive events (phases [P]): the smallest angle during downswing (P1H, P1S), the largest angle after P1 (P2H, P2S), and the smaller angle during upswing (P3H, P3S). Movement performance variables were the maximum elevation on the downswing (Pi) and the upswing (Pf), and the total path between both (swing amplitude). Data were collected during pre- and postpractice sessions by two video cameras. At the end of both sessions, participants drew a sketch to represent their perception of their performance level relative to the Pi, Pf and the hip events. Results showed a similar practice effect in the swing amplitude in both novice groups. However the ST group 's performance and perception variables on the downswing improved more than the NST group due to practice. This study suggests that (a) downswing improvements were easier than in the upswing, possibly due to familiarity of the visual reference in combination with proprioceptive feedback; and (b) being ST may involve a better orfaster gain in perception of self-action compared to NST.     

Reliance to Independence: Approaches to learning in peer‐led undergraduate science,technology, engineering,and mathematics workshops

The phenomenographic ‘approach to learning’ literature holds that students’ approaches to learning can change depending on the learning context. This implies that, by modifying the learning context, teachers can change the way students approach learning, and this can ultimately lead to a change in learning outcomes. The study presented here examines one effort to modify a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning context and the approaches to learning taken by students experiencing this environment. Using a qualitative, phenomenographic approach, we interviewed 45 students in a STEM peer‐led workshop programme at a large US research university. Similar to previous approach‐to‐learning research, the study identified three approaches students took to learning in the peer‐led programme, in which they focused on simply making it through the course, engaging more meaningfully with the material, and gaining better control over their own learning.     

External and internal assessment in the final examination in secondary schools in Slovenia

This article examines the introduction of the final examination as an external national system of assessment of students in the transition from secondary school to university education. Since 1991 Slovenia has followed foreign models, the British one in particular; however, it has also considered its own traditional system of education. Students take the final examination (the matura) in three compulsory and two elective subjects; of which sociology can be one. A case study considering this subject demonstrates how external assessment can be fine tuned using internally supervised and assessed project work, in which seminar essays are produced. This article conducts a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the essays and structured questions forming the written examination; the same procedure is applied in the case of seminar essays. Also included are the opinions and experiences of students regarding their preparations for the final examination and their work in the seminars; the students’ feedback is decidedly positive. So far, the external and the internal results have shown little correlation, a fact that points to certain problems in the final examination assessment system. The positive results in sociology, considered in this contribution, suggest that it would be worthwhile applying similar assessment strategies in other subjects. It is, however, impossible to provide a straightforward answer to the question of a positive impact of the final examination on the desired improvement in the quality of the education process.     

Factors correlated with teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with special educational needs in Cyprus

Inclusion of SEN students in mainstream classrooms constitutes an ambitious objective of the education system in Cyprus. The legislation currently in effect provides for a clear‐cut frame of action, largely based on the willingness of teachers in the mainstream school, who are expected to develop positive attitudes that encourage and support the coeducation of SEN and non‐SEN students. However, the impact of infrastructural insufficiency, prejudice and, above all, the lack of specific knowledge as regards special education, seems in many cases to pose obstacles that undermine any efforts made. The present study, based on recent research in the schools in Cyprus, aims at recording teachers’ perceptions and determining the factors that influence Cypriot teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion after the implementation of the new laws on special education in Cyprus. The findings of this research confirm that the provisions in the new laws have adopted the right course of action, although teachers’ feelings of inadequacy, non‐SEN students’ circumspection and SEN students’ hesitation have not yet been satisfactorily addressed.     

Can learning of basketball be enhanced through a web-based multimedia course? An experimental study

This study’s aim is the creation of a web-based multimedia course for Physical Education (PE) students’ familiarization with the teaching of basketball, and the evaluation of its use as a complementary tool to conventional instruction, in terms of learning effectiveness and student acceptance. The course includes multimedia learning material as well as interactive learning activities and quizzes on the cognitive components of basic basketball skills and on other basketball-related topics (history of the sport, referee’s signals, training aids, basketball court). The study involved 88 undergraduate students during one semester. They were randomly assigned to two groups: a group that used the web-based multimedia course and also attended a conventional face-to-face course on the teaching of basketball (N?=?45), and another group that only attended the conventional face-to-face course (N?=?43). A pretest/posttest research design was followed. For both groups basketball knowledge was measured at the beginning and at the end of the semester through written questionnaires. The responses of the students of the first group towards the web-based course were also assessed, at the end of the semester, through a written feedback questionnaire. Within both groups, significant increases in students’ basketball knowledge were found. However, the web-based multimedia course in combination with conventional face-to-face instruction was significantly more effective than conventional face-to-face instruction alone in increasing students’ cognitive learning regarding the sport of basketball, at the same time being well-accepted by the students. These findings support the effectiveness of blended learning for PE at higher education level as well as the acceptance of this mode of learning by PE students.     

Retaliatory Aggression and the Effects of Point of View and Blood in Violent Video Games

In this study, an experimental design was utilized to test, first, the effect of a violent game versus a no game control on physical and verbal aggression and retaliatory aggression against a confederate. In addition, the effects of two internal video game manipulations were explored. Overall, those in the violent game condition were more verbally and physically aggressive than those in the no game condition. In terms of internal game features, third-person play with the blood on, especially when combined with aggressive cognitions and to some extent, hostile affect, encouraged more aggressive outcomes.     

Cross-lingual training of summarization systems using annotated corpora in a foreign language

The increasing trend of cross-border globalization and acculturation requires text summarization techniques to work equally well for multiple languages. However, only some of the automated summarization methods can be defined as “language-independent,” i.e., not based on any language-specific knowledge. Such methods can be used for multilingual summarization, defined in Mani (Automatic summarization. Natural language processing. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 2001) as “processing several languages, with a summary in the same language as input”, but, their performance is usually unsatisfactory due to the exclusion of language-specific knowledge. Moreover, supervised machine learning approaches need training corpora in multiple languages that are usually unavailable for rare languages, and their creation is a very expensive and labor-intensive process. In this article, we describe cross-lingual methods for training an extractive single-document text summarizer called MUSE (MUltilingual Sentence Extractor)—a supervised approach, based on the linear optimization of a rich set of sentence ranking measures using a Genetic Algorithm. We evaluated MUSE’s performance on documents in three different languages: English, Hebrew, and Arabic using several training scenarios. The summarization quality was measured using ROUGE-1 and ROUGE-2 Recall metrics. The results of the extensive comparative analysis showed that the performance of MUSE was better than that of the best known multilingual approach (TextRank) in all three languages. Moreover, our experimental results suggest that using the same sentence ranking model across languages results in a reasonable summarization quality, while saving considerable annotation efforts for the end-user. On the other hand, using parallel corpora generated by machine translation tools may improve the performance of a MUSE model trained on a foreign language. Comparative evaluation of an alternative optimization technique—Multiple Linear Regression—justifies the use of a Genetic Algorithm.     

汉语和格鲁吉亚语语音对比--对格鲁吉亚学生的汉语语音教学初探

本意在比较汉语与格鲁吉亚语语音系统并从格鲁吉亚语的语音特点出发审视格鲁吉亚鲁吉亚学生的汉语教学。本通过汉语与格鲁吉亚语语音的比较，认为格鲁吉亚学生学汉语语音的基本难点在于汉语元音和声调及少数辅音的发音上，指出了发音困难的原因，并提出了解决困难的办法。