Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Overweight Children's Cognitive Functioning

The study tested the effect of aerobic exercise training on executive function in overweight children. Ninety-four sedentary, overweight but otherwise healthy children (mean age = 9.2 years, body mass index ? 85th percentile) were randomized to a low-dose (20 min/day exercise), high-dose (40 min/day exercise), or control condition. Exercise sessions met 5 days/week for 15 weeks. The Cognitive Assessment System (CAS), a standardized test of cognitive processes, was administered individually before and following intervention. Analysis of covariance on posttest scores revealed effects on executive function. Group differences emerged for the CAS Planning scale (p = .03). Planning scores for the high-dose group were significantly greater than those of the control group. Exercise may prove to be a simple, yet important, method of enhancing aspects of children's mental functioning that are central to cognitive and social development.     

A meta‐analytic review of the cover‐copy‐compare and variations of this self‐management procedure

Studies that examined copy‐cover‐compare (CCC) and variations of this procedure were reviewed and analyzed. This review revealed a substantial number of studies that validated the use of CCC across spelling and math skills and across students with and without disabilities. A meta‐analysis of findings indicated that CCC and variations of this procedure were effective for helping students acquire and become fluent in academic skills. The strongest effects were evident when CCC and variations of this procedure were combined with other evidence‐based instructional components. Limitations, future directions for research, and recommendations for practice are offered. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Teacher education in the United Kingdom post devolution: convergences and divergences

This paper examines the roles of research in teacher education across the four nations of the United Kingdom. Both devolution and on-going reviews of teacher education are facilitating a greater degree of cross-national divergence. England is becoming a distinct outlier, in which the locus for teacher education is moving increasingly away from Higher Education Institutions and towards an ever-growing number of school-based providers. While the idea of teaching as a research-based profession is increasingly evident in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, it seems that England, at least in respect of the political rhetoric, recent reforms and explicit definitions, is fixed on a contrastingly divergent trajectory towards the idea of teaching as a craft-based occupation, with a concomitant emphasis on a (re)turn to the practical. It is recommended that research is urgently needed to plot these divergences and to examine their consequences for teacher education, educational research and professionalism.     

The role of inhibitory functioning in children’s reading skills

Executive functions, including inhibition, have been implicated in children’s reading ability. This study investigates whether children’s performance on an inhibition task is more indicative of reading ability than a measure of another executive function, that is, planning. Fifty‐three male participants were administered a reading test and tests of inhibition and planning not requiring a verbal response. Regression analyses revealed that only inhibition significantly predicted reading. Previous inconsistencies may reflect the modality of the tasks used to measure inhibition. Therefore non‐verbal measures may have highest utility for educational psychologists.     

Game-based career learning support for youth: effects of playing the Youth@Work game on career adaptability

Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions that youth has to take but many young people find this a hard issue to engage with. Current career counselling practice does not appear very compelling or motivating to young people. Professional games could provide a more engaging and motivating way of acquiring professional awareness and competence for career decision making and learning. We present the design and effects of playing a game that aims to increase career awareness and adaptabilities in youth (13–19 years). In a Randomized Controlled Trial, 93 high school students from Iceland and Romania were asked to carry out career-oriented activities, with half playing an interactive game and the other half performing a paper-and-pencil version of the same activities. The students were compared on career adaptability, career learning and career awareness scores before and after these interventions. Main results show that engaging players in these career-oriented activities has short term effects on outcome scores for career adaptabilities and for perceptions of career learning competences. Students who played the game report significantly faster growth on career adaptabilities that deal with “concern”, “control” and “confidence”. It can therefore be concluded that introducing game-based learning in career decision support for youth is a promising endeavour.     

Encounters with identity: reflexivity and positioning in an interdisciplinary research project

This paper discusses researcher identity, positioning, and reflexivity as they relate to the experience of a researcher on an interprofessional research project. The project collected video recordings of students and healthcare professionals in university and clinical settings. During the process of data collection, ‘conversations’ emerged between the researcher and participants. They occurred before and after recordings took place and outside of the planned methods of data collection. These unaccounted-for-encounters between the researcher and participant produced a negotiated understanding of who each other were and how it related to the research process. But dichotomous notions of insider and outsider identity seemed too fixed to examine the social construction of knowledge produced in these encounters. This paper examines the methodological reflections on those unaccounted-for-encounters, which emerged as instances of participant focussed reflexivity. It aims to demonstrate how positioning can offer a more refined means with which to highlight the processes and practices which participants and researchers undertake in interaction. These researcher–participant encounters were sites of knowledge construction transversing professional and educational territories and transient opportunities for negotiated intersubjectivity. As such, they highlight the role that positioning can play in not only individual methodological matters but for multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary research teams.     

Evidence for the Efficacy of Systemic Models of Practice from a Cross‐sectional Survey of Schools’ Satisfaction with their Educational Psychologists

A follow‐up cross‐sectional survey of the involvement of educational psychologists in pupil support in mainstream primary and secondary schools was conducted using questionnaires employed in a study carried out 10 years previously. The questionnaires were sent to the head teachers of 112 primaries and 24 secondaries in four education authorities. Ninety‐one of the primaries (81%) and 21 of the secondaries (87%) responded. The findings reveal significantly higher levels of satisfaction with the current contributions of educational psychologists compared with the earlier surveys, with over 70% of head teachers valuing the input of their school’s psychologist. While schools value, and the majority of psychologists offer, the traditional role of individual assessment, the findings also indicate changes in psychologists’ practice and in schools’ expectations, with significant and highly‐valued increases in the number of educational psychologists involved at strategic level in primary and secondary schools and in research and development in primaries over the last 10 years. Implications for schools and for psychological services are considered.     

Family Education and Community Power: New structures for new visions in the educational village

Noting that differences and inequality of education exist in the United States of America, this paper presents two model educational programs that address the iniquities in American public education. The first model is a collaborative effort of a public school in an urban northeast community, the Robert L. Ford Elementary School of Lynn, Massachusetts, USA and a public supported college of higher education, Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts, USA, whose joint venture is known as The Partnership for the Educational Village Project. The second model utilizes technology to outreach families and child care providers through a televised distance learning project that was nationally presented by its producer, Mass Interactions, and a US Department of Education Star School Grant. The Ford School's principal (head teacher) forged the partnership with the college to create a 'full service school' that provides multiple avenues of support to the school's children, their families, and community. The distance learning programs, entitled 'Taking the First Steps: Parents as Teachers' and 'Building Bridges for Excellence in the Early Grades: Home/School Partnership', were conceived as two live and interactive television series that promoted literacy development in preschool and primary school-aged children in their homes. Both educational models recognize the paramount role families and communities play in the education of children. To compensate and overcome the plight of poverty and disenfranchisement, educational endeavors need to respect the parental role, offer new structures for engaging the family and community in the education of their youth, and provide options as a foundation for sound schooling practices. The two educational models in this paper face these challenges of contemporary society. The paper illustrates how the models define and exemplify initiatives that attempt to transform society to accept social responsibility for educating the whole 'village'.