Putting More Life Into Life Career Courses: The Benefits of a Holistic Wellness Model

Career and life planning courses are gaining popularity across university campuses. The authors outline curricula for career and life planning courses that integrate a holistic wellness approach with career development Curriculum and learning activities to enhance the life planning component of the course are included.     

Latent growth curve modeling in exercise science

ABSTRACT

Longitudinal measurement enables the examination of behavioral or psychological change. One approach to examining longitudinal measurements is the use of latent growth curve modeling (LGCM). This approach affords the assessment of inter- and intraindividual change. Yet, this approach likely is underused in exercise science. The purpose of the current study was to describe and demonstrate the use of LGCM to examine change using multiple measurements in the field of exercise science. We first provide a substantive review of LGCM. We highlight the use of unconditional models to find an appropriate model of change, how and why to utilize autoregressions, and how to examine predictors of change in conditional models. We then provide an illustration of the approach using data from the Michigan State Motor Performance Study. In the conclusion, we discuss the advantages and limitations of the approach and suggest future directions when assessing longitudinal data in exercise science.     

A Review of “Faith in Children: Stories from Faith-Based Children's Centers”

Islamic education has always recognized spiritual and moral values as significant elements in developing a “balanced” human being. One way of demonstrating spiritual and moral concepts is through effective teaching methods that integrate and forefront these values. This article offers an investigation of how the authors’ teaching approaches integrate spiritual and moral values in tertiary/university curriculum subjects as part of the students’ spiritual and moral development.     

A case study comparison of objective and subjective evaluation methods of physical qualities in youth soccer players

ABSTRACT

Subjective and objective assessments may be used congruently when making decisions regarding player recruitment in soccer, yet there have been few attempts to examine the level of agreement between these methods. Therefore, we compare levels of agreement between subjective and objective assessments of physical qualities associated with youth soccer performance. In total, 80 male youth soccer players (13.2 ± 1.9 years), and 12 professional coaches volunteered to participate. Players were objectively assessed using five fitness measures: Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 1; Countermovement vertical jump; Functional Movement Screen?; 5/20 m sprint; alongside anthropometric measures. Additionally, coaches subjectively rated each player on the same five physical qualities using 5-point Likert scales. Inter-rater agreement between ratings from lead and assistant coaches was established for each age group. Moreover, Bayesian regression models were fitted to determine how well coach ratings were able to predict fitness test performance. Although inter-rater agreement between lead and assistant coaches was moderate-to-substantial (ω = 0.48–0.68), relationships between coaches subjective rating’s and corresponding fitness test performance were only highly related for the highest and lowest performing players. We suggest that while ratings derived from objective and subjective assessment methods may be related when attempting to differentiate between distinct populations, concerns exist when evaluating homogeneous samples using these methods. Our data highlight the benefits of using both types of measures in the talent identification process.     

A humanistic framework for helping students

According to David M. Myers and Eric Rosenberger, we all can be “natural helpers” in our relationships with students—read on to learn about the basic set of skills widely considered important for helping students in need.     

Rater calibration when observational assessment occurs at large scale: Degree of calibration and characteristics of raters associated with calibration

Observational assessment is used to study program and teacher effectiveness across large numbers of classrooms, but training a workforce of raters that can assign reliable scores when observations are used in large-scale contexts can be challenging and expensive. Limited data are available to speak to the feasibility of training large numbers of raters to calibrate to an observation tool, or the characteristics of raters associated with calibration. This study reports on the success of rater calibration across 2093 raters trained by the Office of Head Start (OHS) in 2008–2009 on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), and for a subsample of 704 raters, characteristics that predict their calibration. Findings indicate that it is possible to train large numbers of raters to calibrate to an observation tool, and rater beliefs about teachers and children predicted the degree of calibration. Implications for large-scale observational assessments are discussed.     

A mathematical analysis of the motion of an in-flight soccer ball

In this paper, an analytical and numerical study of the three-dimensional equations describing the motion through the air of a spinning ball is presented. The initial analysis involves constant drag coefficients, but is later extended to involve drag varying with the spin ratio. Excellent agreement is demonstrated between numerical, analytical and experimental results. The analytical solution shows explicitly how the ball’s motion depends on parameters such as ball roughness, velocity and atmospheric conditions. The importance of applying three-dimensional models, rather than two-dimensional approximations, is demonstrated.