Making Research Relevant in Preservice Early Childhood Teacher Education

Increasingly, researchers, teacher educators and governmental agencies underline the need for early childhood professionals to be able to conduct and use relevant research in their practice. In contrast, early childhood teachers tend to draw exclusively on practical advice rather than research evidence to evaluate and develop their teaching. To address these contradictions in expectations, recently developed preservice early childhood teacher education programs have included a core research subject that aims to foster an appreciation of the value of research and its contributions to professional practice. This study examines the effectiveness of teaching and learning approaches designed to make research relevant to undergraduates at an Australian regional university by tracking students' changing views about research during a one-semester teaching period. The findings of this study show that relevant learning experiences, such as designing and conducting a simple research project, modeling research, collaborative inquiry, focused reading, and organizing a research conference, significantly changed student perceptions of the relevance of research to their teaching and their future role as early childhood professionals.     

Somersaulting techniques used in high-scoring and low-scoring Roche vaults performed by male Olympic gymnasts

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the somersaulting techniques used in the 16 highest-scoring and 16 lowest-scoring Roche vaults. Our hypothesis was that the gymnasts performing the highest-scoring Roche vaults would demonstrate a better technique than those performing the lowest-scoring Roche vaults while on the horse (pushing off the horse more effectively), somersaulting (executing most of the required somersaults higher in flight), and landing (showing a greater control). A 16-mm motion picture camera, operating at 100 Hz, recorded the vaults during the official competition. The two-dimensional direct linear transformation was used for spatial reconstruction. The results of t-tests (P < 0.05) indicated that, compared with the low-scoring gymnasts, the high-scoring gymnasts had: (1) greater height of body centre of mass and a more fully extended body position at the horse take-off; (2) greater height of body centre of mass at the peak of post-flight, knee release, and touchdown on the mat; (3) greater horizontal and vertical displacements of body centre of mass, greater somersaulting rotation, and longer time from the knee release to mat touchdown; and (d) markedly smaller landing point deductions. In conclusion, a successful Roche vault is likely when the focus is on: (a) leaving the horse with a large vertical velocity in an extended body position to achieve a high trajectory of centre of mass by first extending the legs, then immediately pushing off the horse vigorously, using the muscles of the upper extremity; (b) grasping the knees immediately after the take-off from the horse, achieving the tightly tucked body position early during the ascent to the peak, and completing two-thirds of the required somersaults at a great height; (c) releasing the knees and extending the body above the top level of the horse; and (d) contacting the mat with a high body centre of mass position.     

Effects of active,passive or no warm-up on metabolism and performance during high-intensity exercise

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of type of warm-up on metabolism and performance during high-intensity exercise. Eight males performed 30 s of intense exercise at 120% of their maximal power output followed, 1 min later, by a performance cycle to exhaustion, again at 120% of maximal power output. Exercise was preceded by active, passive or no warm-up (control). Muscle temperature, immediately before exercise, was significantly elevated after active and passive warm-ups compared to the control condition (36.9 - 0.18°C, 36.8 - 0.18°C and 33.6 - 0.25°C respectively; mean - sx ) ( P ? 0.05). Total oxygen consumption during the 30 s exercise bout was significantly greater in the active and passive warm-up trials than in the control trial (1017 - 22, 943 - 53 and 838 - 45 ml O 2 respectively). Active warm-up resulted in a blunted blood lactate response during high-intensity exercise compared to the passive and control trials (change = 5.53 - 0.52, 8.09 - 0.57 and 7.90 - 0.38 mmol· l -1 respectively) ( P ? 0.05). There was no difference in exercise time to exhaustion between the active, passive and control trials (43.9 - 4.1, 48.3 - 2.7 and 46.9 - 6.2 s respectively) ( P = 0.69). These results indicate that, although the mechanism by which muscle temperature is elevated influences certain metabolic responses during subsequent high-intensity exercise, cycling performance is not significantly affected.     

Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations: The utility and application of an observation schedule for school‐aged students with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

The present research describes the development and pilot testing of a new instrument, the Responses to Interpersonal and Physically Provoking Situations Schedule (RIPPS), designed to measure the reactivity of students with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) in the naturalistic setting of the classroom. For this study, 29 pre‐service teachers from one university graduate school of education conducted structured observations on two students each, one clinically diagnosed student with AD/HD and the other with no diagnosed disorder, resulting in 58 Year 8–11 students (aged 13–17 years) participating in the study. Each student pair was observed for 40 minutes, with alternating observational blocks of two minutes per student. Observational data in the form of responses to emotionally provoking events and the triggers to the responses were clustered together and systematically coded, resulting in four distinct categories for responses and four distinct categories for triggers. Students with AD/HD exhibited significantly more solitary off‐task behaviours, interactional off‐task behaviours, and challenging behaviours than their non‐AD/HD peers. There were no differences between the students in the perceived severity of responses. For triggers, failure to begin assigned tasks and peer‐initiated triggers were the most common, with nearly half of the solitary off‐task behaviours being attributed to environmental distractions and over a quarter attributed to teacher behaviours. While the RIPPS is a relatively new instrument, important data have been gathered in ecologically valid contexts and provide the framework for further development of an instrument of this nature.     

Parental Involvement in Education: how do parents want to become involved?

Increased parental involvement in schooling is one of the central plans of government policy. The planned integrated schools in Northern Ireland provide direct evidence of high levels of parental participation in action. The experience of the schools suggests, that whilst parental involvement is relatively easy to generate during the initial stages of the setting up of a school it is much more difficult to sustain over the long term. There is also potential for difficulties to arise, both between groups of parents and between parents and staff, over the range of issues which parents wish to influence and the direction of that influence. Parents wish to participate in the running of the schools in many different ways and this leads to the development of the concept of levels of involvement’. Whilst quite large numbers of parents want a direct involvement in the education of their own children only a small number seek the type of wider commitment to policy development implicit in positions such as that of school governor.     

Conflict, Understanding, and Relationships: Developments and Differences in the Preschool Years

Children's conflict management in three close relationships was studied longitudinally in 38 second born children, observed at home with their mothers and siblings at 33 months and at 47 months, and with friends at 47 months. Children used significantly more other-oriented argument with friends than with their mothers or siblings. Their use of reasoned argument with their siblings, but not their mothers, was related to their emotional understanding assessed formally at 40 months. The emotional context of conflict interactions was found to be important as an influence on children's use of reasoned argument, with less reasoning shown by children when they were upset at 33 months. The differences in patterns over time and in links with emotional understanding for these different relationships is discussed, and the significance of child-child interaction in the development of social understanding is highlighted.