A national study examining the impact of SEVIS on international student and scholar advisors

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact that Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) is having on the professional worklives of international student and scholar advisors (ISSAs) on U.S. college and university campuses. ISSAs are clearly satisfied with their work and hold their institutions in high regard. However, SEVIS is having a profound effect on their morale, satisfaction, and their likelihood to leave the field. That is, SEVIS (i.e., reporting, training, time) and the quality of worklife (i.e., professional activities and career development, recognition for competence and their expertise, external and intra-department relationships, perceptions of discrimination) are important to ISSAs, and thus have a strong effect on their level of satisfaction and/or morale, and their subsequent intentions to stay or leave their career/profession.     

Persuasive impact of loss and gain frames on intentions to exercise: A test of six moderators

The current study situated loss/gain-framing research in the extended parallel process model and tested whether two message features (dose, efficacy appeals) and four individual difference variables (walking self-efficacy, grit, consideration of future consequences, health information overload (HIO)) moderated the impact of message framing on intentions to engage in physical activity. Adults (N?=?341, M_age?=?38.09, SD?=?10.94) were randomly assigned to one of eight message conditions advocating exercise behavior. All four individual difference variables significantly moderated framing effects such that gain-framed messages were more effective for individuals with lower walking self-efficacy, grit, and consideration of future consequences and loss-framed messages were significantly more effective for individuals with higher walking self-efficacy, grit, consideration of future consequences, and for those with lower HIO.     

A Pop-up Service Point and Repurposed Study Spaces: Maintaining Market Share During a Renovation

Payson Library, the largest library at Pepperdine, primarily serves undergraduate students. It underwent a renovation between spring 2016 and fall 2017. Payson Library was closed during this renovation, and a Library Hub was established as a temporary service point and library information and teaching center on campus. Maintaining market share led to rolling out new services such as RAPID-ILL, repurposing a graduate campus library for increased study spaces, and reliance on a strong library liaison program. Predictably, there was a sharp reduction in patron visits, but there was success in providing reference, instruction, and access to the collections.     

Reaction Cards as a Formative Evaluation Tool: Students' perceptions of how their use impacted classes

This article explores students' perceptions of how their input on 'reaction cards' affected their classes. Reaction cards - index cards upon which each student writes remarks related to each day's class activities - were used in 10 classes across seven disciplines as a means of formative evaluation. Open-ended survey questions about the reaction cards were completed anonymously by 195 students at mid-term and by 184 students at the end of the semester. Faculty also reported on how they used the cards and their perceptions of how the cards impacted their classes. At mid-semester, students indicated that the cards had a positive impact on their classes. The cards improved communication, increased students' involvement in the course, and improved their connection to the material. At the end of the semester there were some negative comments related to the tedium of filling out the cards in each class. Reaction cards can provide a simple but powerful tool for gathering data that can be used to modify and improve courses as they progress.     

Curricular design and implementation as a site of teacher expertise and learning

Previously, research about teacher expertise has adhered to relatively fixed notions of teacher expertise. However, in this study, we share data from teacher study group (TSG) meetings, which demonstrate a dynamic understanding of teacher expertise. In these meetings, teachers discursively positioned themselves, their colleagues, and the research team as both experts and learners as they engaged in a community of enquiry around questions of curriculum design and implementation. We argue that teachers’ dynamic and multiple positionings generated especially striking opportunities for learning. As teachers externalized their expert knowledge, their assumptions were brought forth to be examined, challenged, and reconsidered, thus opening space for further learning. We argue that these TSGs thus existed as a site for teacher learning, in which teacher dialog around curricular design, redesign, and the student learning that occurred in the lessons influenced their own learning about their students’ capabilities. We make a case for further research that explores how teacher expertise is interwoven with episodes of teacher learning. We assert that a complex understanding of teacher expertise, grounded in principles of learning occurring through social interaction, has important implications for how the field should move forward in its approach to fostering teacher learning throughout teachers’ careers.     

A feminist poststructuralist examination into the President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Awards Program

The purpose of this viewpoint is to systematically synthesise the intersection of research that focuses on poststructuralism as related to a physical education discourse (namely President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Awards Program). A feminist poststructuralist framework will be used to investigate the ways in which the hegemonic design of norm‐referenced youth fitness tests influence students’ gendering of the body through the notion of the normalised body. We propose that the tests and qualifying standards that are markedly different for prepubescent girls and boys fosters a gendered continuum that forces some students into dominant positions, while others are pushed to the margins.     

Precision Knowledge of Results and Motor Performance: Relationship to Age

In motor skill performance and retention the complexity of knowledge of results should interact with the child's processing rate. This rate has been demonstrated to increase with age. Two experiments were designed to assess this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, 30 7-year-old and 30 10-year-old boys were randomly assigned within age level to three knowledge of results (KR) conditions: no KR, general KR, and precise KR. Performance was assessed on a vertical positioning task at two angles, 60° and 100°, for 10 performance trials. The preciseness of KR interacted with age and the degree of the angle, indicating that at the more difficult angle (60°) preciseness may have been detrimental to the performance of the 7-year-olds but beneficial to the 10-year-olds. At the easier angle (100°), precise KR improved performance for both age groups. In Experiment 2, 27 second-grade and 27 fourth-grade children were randomly assigned within age groups to the same three levels of KR preciseness. A horizontal curvilinear positioning task was used as the motor task and subjects were given 40 acquisition and 19 KR withdrawal trials. Results suggested that while KR was better than no KR during learning, the level of KR preciseness was of minor importance. However, the preciseness of KR during acquisition was of considerable value after KR was withdrawn (retention phase). The older children were able to use more precise KR to form a perceptual trace more resistant to forgetting, while the younger children were unable to use the additional information contained in precise KR.     

Teachers' and Students' Conceptions of Ability in Elementary Physical Education

Using Nicholl's (1989) and Dweck's (1999, 2002) theories on ability as conceptual frameworks, this study explored teachers' and students' conceptions of ability in elementary physical education. Participants were 8 physical education specialists from five public schools and 160 students from their second- and fourth-grade classes. Teacher and student interviews and questionnaires were used for data collection. When asked to describe the “best” and “poorest” students in their physical education classes, teachers defined or referenced student status solely in terms of class behavior and effort, such as participation and working hard. In contrast, students primarily used ability-related indicators, such as task mastery and social comparison along with class behavior as criteria of their own ability. Overall, teachers and students had different views of “good” students in elementary physical education. In an era of standards-based learning and accountability in education, teachers may need to focus more on a task-involved climate by taking into account student learning and achievement.     

Unsettling the Body: The Institutionalization of Physical Activity at the Turn of the 20th Century

The turn of the 20^th century was a time of major political and economic fluctuation and demographic shifts in American cities. As a result, physical health and physical supremacy became serious concerns. Between 1880 and 1930, the Progressive Era, politicians, doctors, and educators advocated for physical activity with the intent to improve individual living conditions, health, and well-being. Exploring the history of the playground movement provides insights into the impetus for legalizing physical education in American public schools. In this paper, we examine the complexity and multiplicity of competing educational and political discourses emerging from the playground movement at the turn of the century—civilized play and democratic play. Democratic play provides an example for physical education researchers and physical educators about creating and sustaining progressive physical education curricula and adopting pedagogies that “unsettle the body” to subvert the racial and gender order in physical education classes today.