Computational support for teachers’ design thinking: its feasibility and acceptability to practitioners and institutions

A significant area of learning design research has been the development of software applications that guide teachers’ thinking as they plan, construct and revise learning events for their students. In this paper, we review conceptualisations of, and approaches to, the activity of pedagogic design and highlight the implications for the provision of computational support for this activity. We then outline different ways in which that support has been implemented in three digital tools: Phoebe, the LAMS Activity Planner and the Learning Designer. We consider the challenges to, and implications of, deploying these tools from the perspectives of three groups of stakeholders: developers, teachers and institutions. Our findings suggest that, while such tools are acceptable in principle, they face a number of technological and socio-cultural challenges to their acceptability from teachers’ perspectives and to their deployment within institutional strategies for teaching and learning in a digital age.     

New Public Management in an age of austerity: knowledge and experience in further education

This article originates in a piece of educational research into the experiences of further education (FE) student teachers in the West Midlands region of England. This cohort of students experienced significant upheaval in their college workplaces and placements during the 2010/2011 academic year. Pressures on FE funding were exacerbated by a Comprehensive Spending Review by the coalition government in late 2010 – prompted by the on-going global economic crisis. Some of the repercussions of these funding cuts for staff and students in the sector are discussed in this article, as perceived by this cohort of student teachers working in a range of FE providers across the West Midlands. Many of these repercussions can broadly be seen as an extension of existing managerialist practices, as the justification for an increasing squeeze on local resource allocation continues to be a wider appeal to global market ‘realities’. But we theorise that new public management (NPM) plays an important role in a reductive kind of knowledge production for policy-makers which fuels and legitimises on-going policy intervention, and we see this as an important shaping force in the emerging professional identity of these new teachers.     

The Communication Anxiety Regulation Scale: Development and Initial Validation

A series of studies present the development and validation of the Communication Anxiety Regulation Scale (CARS), a self-report measure designed to assess the use of emotion regulation strategies to manage acute communication anxiety—in contrast to measures of general emotion regulation tendencies. Study 1 delineates the item derivation and selection process that yielded the final 12 CARS items. Results of an exploratory factor analysis supported the existence of four distinct subscales, each representing one of four anxiety regulation strategies (suppression, reappraisal, avoidance, and venting). Study 2 confirmed this factor structure and also examined correlations of the CARS with existing measures in an attempt to establish concurrent validity. Finally, Study 3 presents results of an item-sort task demonstrating the scale’s face validity and items’ substantive validity. Overall, findings provide preliminary support for the utility of the CARS as measure of communication anxiety regulation to be used by communication and psychology researchers.     

Engineering perceptions of female and male K-12 students: effects of a multimedia overview on elementary,middle-, and high-school students

Computer-based multimedia presentations employing animated agents (avatars) can positively impact perceptions about engineering; the current research advances our understanding of this effect to pre-college populations, the main target for engineering outreach. The study examines the effectiveness of a brief computer-based intervention with animated agents in improving perceptions about engineering. Five hundred sixty-five elementary, middle-, and high-school students in the southwestern USA viewed a short computer-based multimedia overview of four engineering disciplines (electrical, chemical, biomedical, and environmental) with embedded animated agents. Students completed identical surveys measuring five subscales of engineering perceptions immediately before and after the intervention. Analyses of pre- and post-surveys demonstrated that the computer presentation significantly improved perceptions for each student group, and that effects were stronger for elementary school students, compared to middle- and high-school students.     

The Correlates of Credit Loss: How Demographics,Pre-Transfer Academics,and Institutions Relate to the Loss of Credits for Vertical Transfer Students

Research in Higher Education - Despite the long-standing centrality and growing prevalence of transfer in the American postsecondary system, students, college professionals, and policymakers decry...     

Changes in mechanical properties of sprinting during repeated sprint in elite rugby sevens athletes

This study aimed to analyse fatigue-induced changes in mechanical sprinting properties during a specific repeated-sprint test in elite rugby sevens athletes. Twenty elite rugby sevens players performed ten 40?m sprints on a 30?s cycle with participant’s running back and forth in a marked lane. Radar was used to assess maximal overground sprint performance over each 40?m. Macroscopic mechanical properties (maximal horizontal force (F₀), maximal horizontal power (P_max), maximal ratio of horizontal force (RF_peak), decrease in the ratio of horizontal-to-total force (D_RF), total force and maximal sprinting velocity (v₀)) were drawn from horizontal force velocity relationships, using a validated method applied to the speed–time data. Fatigue-induced changes were analysed comparing the first sprint to an average of 2^nd-4^th, 5^th-7^th and 8^th-10^th. Repeated-sprint ability (RSA) testing induced substantial changes in the maximal velocity component, with a decrease (–15%) in v₀ (effect size (ES)?=?–2.46 to –4.98), and to a lower extent (–5.9%) in the maximal force component F₀ (ES?=?–0.59). D_RF moderately decreased (14%; ES=–0.76–1.11), and RF_peak largely decreased in the later sprints (ES?=?–0.32 to –1.27). Fatigue observed in this RSA test appeared to have a greater effect on the technical ability to produce horizontal force at high velocities, likely due to an alteration in the ability to maintain horizontally oriented force application when velocity increases rather than during the initial acceleration phase, but also the overall force production capacity. The ability to maintain forward-oriented force at high velocities is of central importance for identifying fatigue and monitoring load.