Socialisation,culture and the foundations of expertise in elite level Indigenous Australian sportsmen

This article reports on an ongoing study that investigates the development of expertise in rugby league and Australian football by Indigenous Australians as a socially and culturally situated process of learning. Focused on the sampling phase of the Development Model of Participation in Sport (6–12 years of age), it combines narrative inquiry and grounded theory methodologies to identify the important role that participation in a range of different sports and in informal games plays in the participants’ development of expertise, as a process of socialisation.     

Cervical spine kinematics during machine-based and live scrummaging

The aim of this study was to compare cervical spine kinematics in rugby union front row players during machine-based and “live” scrummaging. Cervical spine kinematics was measured via electromagnetic tracking of sensors attached to the head and thorax. Joint angles were extracted from each trial at two time points (“bind” prior to engagement and instant of impact) for comparison between scrummaging conditions. The effect of scrummaging condition on kinematics was evaluated using a mixed effects model and estimations were based on a Bayesian framework. With differences ranging from 38° to 50°, the results show that the cervical spine is consistently more flexed when scrummaging against opponents than against a scrum machine. In contrast, there are little differences in the excursion of lateral-flexion (range 5–8°) and axial rotation (7°) between the two conditions. The findings from this study provide clear information on motion patterns in different scrum formations, and suggest that the current design of scrum machines may not promote the same pattern of movement that occurs in live scrums. The results highlight that findings from previous studies that have investigated kinematics during machine-based scrummaging may not be generalisable to a competitive scrummaging context.     

Participation and provision in arts & culture – bridging the divide

ABSTRACT

Successive policies and efforts to increase participation in a range of arts and cultural activities have tended to focus on the profile and attitude of individuals and target groups in order justify public – and therefore achieve more equitable – funding. Rationales for such intervention generally reflect the policy and political regime operating in different eras, but widening participation, increasing access and making the subsidised arts more inclusive have been perennial concerns. On the other hand, culture has also been the subject of a supply-led approach to facility provision, whether local amenity-based (“Every Town Should Have One” – Lane, 1979. Arts centres – every town should have one. London: Paul Elek), civic centre or flagship, and this has also mirrored periodic growth in investment through various capital for the arts, municipal expansion, urban regeneration, European regional development and lottery programmes. Research into participation has consequently taken a macro, sociological, “class distinction” approach, including longitudinal national surveys such as Taking Part, Target Group Index, Active People and Time Use Surveys, whilst actual provision is dealt with at the micro, amenity level in terms of its impact and catchment. This article therefore considers how this situation has evolved and the implications for cultural policy, planning and research by critiquing successive surveys of arts attendance and participation and associated arts policy initiatives, including the importance of local facilities such as arts centres, cinemas and libraries. A focus on cultural mapping approaches to accessible cultural amenities reveals important evidence for bridging the divide between cultural participation and provision.     

From Dual-mode to Flexible Delivery; Paradoxical Transitions in Australian Open and Distance Education

Distance education has been a fundamental element of Australian education from early in the 20th century. The prevailing practice in higher education has been to have dual-mode organizations. This has led to some paradoxes unfolding in the recent history of Australian distance education that are grounded in the history and politics of the development of educational institutions and systems. Dual-mode institutions developed in Australia only partly because they suited the geographical and demographic circumstances of a new and developing nation. Rather, distance education often was added as a means of supporting the viability of small, on-campus institutions that had been established for party political expediency in favored rural towns. Attempts by governments in recent years to “rationalize” distance education provision have produced a paradoxical position where “distance education” and “dual-mode” are less frequently used terms, and yet the practices and systems embedded in both terms have flourished under the guise of “flexible delivery.” “Flexible delivery” brings with it some new connotations and practices that reflect the domination of economic rationalist ideologies.     

Decreasing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms utilizing an automated classroom reinforcement device

Psychologists and physicians are frequently approached by parents and, indirectly, by classroom teachers to diagnose and treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Requests are also frequently made for psychostimulant medication to control ADHD behavioral symptoms. One reason for such requests is that alternative classroom approaches to treating ADHD have focused on positive reinforcement, response cost, and token reinforcement programs, all of which can require extensive teacher involvement. One of the major problems with such behavioral approaches is the fact that teachers have limited time to reinforce positive, attentive behaviors, and/or alternative behaviors to ADHD symptoms. This study examined the efficacy of an automated reinforcement device, the Attention Training System (ATS), in decreasing off-task behavior in an 11-year-old, fifth-grade student who had been diagnosed as being affected with ADHD and had been placed in Special Education Resource Room programming. The Attention Training System provides automated token reinforcement in the form of points on a fixed interval schedule when the youngster is on-task. When distractible, impulsive, or hyperactive behavior occurs, the Attention Training device can be activated by a teacher to provide a response-cost consequence of loss of points. The device in this study was coupled with a token reinforcement program whereby points could be exchanged for selected reinforcers at the end of each day. Results indicated that the ATS plus token reinforcement was successful in reducing off-task behavior across classes of three subject areas: Science, Reading, and Social Studies. Results have implications for psychologists and physicians in their attempts to assist families and schools in their management of youngsters with ADHD.     

Do your friends make you smarter?: An analysis of social strategies in online information seeking

Prior research in the social search space has focused on the informational benefits of collaborating with others during web and workplace information seeking. However, social interactions, especially during complex tasks, can have cognitive benefits as well. Our goal in this paper is to document the methods and outcomes of using social resources to help with exploratory search tasks. We used a talk-aloud protocol and video capture to explore the actions of eight subjects as they completed two “Google-hard” search tasks. Task questions were alternated between a Social and Non-Social Condition. The Social Condition restricted participants to use only social resources—search engines were not allowed. The Non-Social Condition permitted normal web-based information sources, but restricted the use of social tools.     

An elaborated model of social search

Search engine researchers typically depict search as the solitary activity of an individual searcher. In contrast, results from our critical-incident survey of 150 users on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service suggest that social interactions play an important role throughout the search process. A second survey of also 150 users, focused instead on difficulties encountered during searches, suggests similar conclusions. These social interactions range from highly coordinated collaborations with shared goals to loosely coordinated collaborations in which only advice is sought. Our main contribution is that we have integrated models from previous work in sensemaking and information-seeking behavior to present a canonical social model of user activities before, during, and after a search episode, suggesting where in the search process both explicitly and implicitly shared information may be valuable to individual searchers.