Two critical psychological components of ski racing: Fun and feelings

The concepts of having fun and being aware of feeling states are presented as two critical factors in ski racing. First, the positive motivational characteristics of ‘fun’ are outlined. It is suggested that fun is not only a concept for young athletes but elite ones as well. Preliminary data based on a questionnaire, completed by the United States Alpine Ski Team and approximately 150 ski coaches, are presented. Second, the discussion on feelings refers to the mental programming of tactile sensations and determining one's emotional arousal (feeling state) prior to, and during, competition. Practical suggestions are made with regard to the psychological states and their effects on ski racing.     

Measures used in assessing outcomes of school‐wide positive behaviour support

School‐Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) is increasingly becoming a popular approach to managing challenging behaviour in schools. However, several issues still have to be addressed facilitate successful implementation of this approach in schools. One of these issues pertains to the appropriateness of the different measures used to determine the efficacy of the approach. Because many schools are using indirect measures to assess the effects of SWPBS implementation, determining which measures more accurately reflect the effectiveness of the SWPBS components may increase the effectiveness of school measurement systems. The purpose of this study was to examine the measures used in evaluating the efficacy of positive behaviour support. The paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of outcome measures regarding problem behaviour, prosocial behaviour, and implementation fidelity.     

冬天的快乐

在冬天/孩子们都很高兴/紧紧地聚在一起/围绕着温暖的炉火/当刮大风的时候/大量的漂浮物在窗户的四周/爆米花薄片像雪片     

The teacher educator’s role as enacted and experienced in school-based development

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on teacher educators’ role and how it was enacted and experienced by teachers and leaders in a school-based development project. The arena for the teachers’ professional development was the school, and teacher educators at one teacher-education institution and three schools took part in the research. Teacher educators, teachers and school leaders were interviewed two years and two months after they formally took part in the project, for one year in a pilot program and afterward for three semesters. The findings show that the teacher educators enacted their roles differently, and that they realise that they should have collaborated more and coordinated their experiences from collaborations with teachers and leaders to learn from their experiences in school. The leaders and teachers were satisfied with the teacher educators’ lectures, but the teachers wanted more dialogue with teacher educators and felt that teacher educators should have helped them transform their knowledge into teaching actions in practice. Teacher educators taking part as supporters in teachers’ practice truly could infiltrate instruction and learning. The study demonstrates that culture, structure and content need to be coordinated to enhance school-based development.     

Self‐regulated pupils in teaching: teachers’ experiences

This article outlines in a theoretical and practical way the concepts of self‐regulated learning, learning strategies and metacognition by looking at concrete examples in the classroom. The teachers presented in the article were taking part in a research and development (R&D) work project in which they were cooperating both with each other and a researcher who was facilitating their way through the development processes. The article focuses on how the teachers introduced learning strategies, how the strategies were adapted to the pupils, how the strategies were connected to various tasks and what the use of strategies means for the pupils’ learning in the studied context. The overall aim of the article is to illuminate how the teachers experienced the pupils’ use of strategies in their learning work. Findings from the study indicate that teachers have to adapt the introduction and use of strategies to the pupils’ development levels and that pupils from 13 to 16 years of age need help from their teachers, both in learning and in controlling their own learning processes.     

Assessing volunteer satisfaction at the London Olympic Games and its impact on future volunteer behaviour

Abstract

In recent years, volunteering has received strong research attention from both scholars and practitioners. For the most part, involvement in volunteer activities has been identified as an important determinant of future volunteering. Through revalidating an existing instrument, the purpose of this study was to assess the dimensions of volunteer satisfaction at the 2012 London Olympic Games and its impact on future volunteer behaviour. The findings of this study shed light on the identification of volunteer satisfaction factors in the mega sporting event setting, particularly for a unique type of volunteer (i.e. media worker) assigned to a special set of tasks. Unlike Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley’s results that revealed participation efficacy and group integration to be strong predictors of volunteer satisfaction, organizational support was the primary predictor for media centre volunteers’ re-participation intention towards future volunteering programmes.