Voices from the Field: Perspectives of U.S. Kinesiology Chairs on Opportunities,Challenges, and the Role of Mentoring in the Chair Position

This study examined perspectives of U.S. collegiate kinesiology department chairs (n = 54/144; 37.5% response rate) relative to: (a) opportunities and most enjoyable aspects of being a department chair, (b) challenges and least enjoyable aspects of being a department chair, and (c) perspectives on mentoring. The majority of participants enjoyed their chair role (90%) and did not aspire to advance in administration (61%). Job-related opportunities included mentoring others, facilitating department success, and leading initiatives (e.g., curricula, policies, and finances). Job-related challenges included a lack of university support, personnel issues, and urgent requests for information. Many had a mentor for a long time (mean = 7.9 ± 7.6 years; range 1 to 28 years), and the majority (71%) did not consider their dean a mentor. Protégés appreciated their mentors’ experience, listening skills, and willingness to share information, advice, and empathy. Results from this study provide helpful information for serving as a kinesiology chair.     

Innovations in creative education for tertiary sector in Australia: present and future challenges

Abstract

Recent significant changes in technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data analysis have a wide impact in many areas of human societies, not least in education. Advances in efficiency of new technologies, with impacts in renewable energy and transport affected by environmental concerns and climate change mitigation, demand a reassessment and adjustment of the industrial structure of the economy. Technological advances enhancing creativity and analytical skills mean people must learn and adapt to a fast-changing economic environment. This paper present some key changes in Australian educational areas in recent years that are important and relevant to the subject of education innovation and philosophy to achieve outcomes in training and sustainable economic development, as anticipated by the community and government. Education courses and curricula in many countries have been transformed by technological advance. It is the swift incorporation of new technologies that best prepares students for the dynamics of economic and social change. Even though technological responsiveness is not a new phenomenon, it is established that the teaching methods found to be most successful include complementary and supplemental courses producing multi-skilled and creative graduates. These courses are delivered with significant emphasis upon self-development skills and are less focused upon traditional content. A move toward horizontal focus and a student-centric balance is the current trend, displacing vertical over-specialisation of learning. Yet, the central role of educator is seen as still appropriate and necessary where the aim is to equip graduates with creative and adaptive skills.     

Using texting to nudge urban public school students to and through college

Abstract

This study investigates how a network of New York City public schools use texting to increase enrollment and persistence in college. Text messages include tips and reminders to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid as well as college tips. Our multiple regression results suggest that although when the texting began did not appear to matter, the texting program increased enrollment and persistence in college. In addition, response rates were positively associated with enrollment and persistence. Finally, we find that the content of the messages themselves as well as individual characteristics affected response rates.     

Understanding students’ game experiences throughout the developmental process of the number navigation game

Educational technology research and development - Serious games for learning have received increased attention in recent years. However, empirical studies on students’ gaming experiences...     

Linking family hardship to children's lives

The impact of drastic income loss on children is mediated by a number of family adaptations, including the shift toward more labor-intensive households and altered relationships. Using newly developed codes on parenting behavior during the Great Depression, this study investigates the role of parental behavior (rejecting, nonsupportive) in linking economic hardship to children's lives in the Oakland Growth Study. The results extend beyond those reported in Children of the Great Depression by showing that economic hardship adversely influenced the psychosocial well-being of girls, but not boys, by increasing the rejecting behavior of fathers. The parenting behavior of mothers did not vary significantly by income loss. In addition, the rejecting influence of hard-pressed fathers was more pronounced in relation to less attractive daughters, as judged by physical features. Attractive daughters were not likely to be maltreated by their fathers, no matter how severe the economic pressure. These outcomes on family mediation and conditional effects underscore the importance of viewing economic decline in relation to both the child's characteristics and parenting behavior. An understanding of the effects of economic decline in children's lives requires knowledge of parent and child behavior within the family and life course.     

Measurement Invariance Testing with Many Groups: A Comparison of Five Approaches

With the increasing use of international survey data especially in cross-cultural and multinational studies, establishing measurement invariance (MI) across a large number of groups in a study is essential. Testing MI over many groups is methodologically challenging, however. We identified 5 methods for MI testing across many groups (multiple group confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel factor mixture modeling, Bayesian approximate MI testing, and alignment optimization) and explicated the similarities and differences of these approaches in terms of their conceptual models and statistical procedures. A Monte Carlo study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of the 5 methods in detecting measurement noninvariance across many groups using various fit criteria. Generally, the 5 methods showed reasonable performance in identifying the level of invariance if an appropriate fit criterion was used (e.g., Bayesian information criteron with multilevel factor mixture modeling). Finally, general guidelines in selecting an appropriate method are provided.     

Searching for education for sustainable development in Vietnam

Abstract

This article discusses how the purpose of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is reflected within the perception of teachers and educational stakeholders in Vietnam and whether a difference exists between the two respondent groups’ perspectives. Biesta’s three functions of education, qualification, socialization, and subjectification, are considered to be the theoretical outline for analyzing perceptions of the respondents. The empirical material for this analysis consists of interviews in Vietnam with secondary teachers and educational stakeholders. The perspectives of the two groups regarding the purposes of ESD somewhat overlap: central interests in ESD discourse are to qualify students with knowledge, skills, and competences, and to teach them how to behave in sustainable ways. In other words, qualification and socialization, not subjectification, are major concerns of the respondents. This reflection, to some extent, reveals Vietnam’s sustainable development priorities and the role education should play.     

Comparing balance and inverse methods on learning conceptual and procedural knowledge in equation solving: a cognitive load perspective

We examined the use of balance and inverse methods in equation solving. The main difference between the balance and inverse methods lies in the operational line (e.g. +2 on both sides vs ?2 becomes +2). Differential element interactivity favours the inverse method because the interaction between elements occurs on both sides of the equation for the balance method but only on one side of the equation for the inverse method. In an experimental study, 63 students (mean age = 13) were randomly allocated to either balance or inverse group to undertake a pre-test, study an instruction sheet, complete acquisition equations, sit for a post-test and a concept test. Procedural knowledge was assessed on performance on practice equations and post-test, whereas conceptual knowledge was assessed on performance on the concept test. The inverse group outperformed the balance group on practice equations but not the post-test. Both the balance and inverse groups scored higher on the inverse concept test than the balance concept test. Positive association between performance on procedural knowledge and performance on conceptual knowledge was found for the inverse group but not the balance group. Overall, the evidence obtained indicates a number of educational implications for implementation.     

‘Everyone thinks that I just need to know a few words and sing some songs to teach English to the kids’: primary school English language teachers struggled for their professional legitimacy

Language teachers’ struggles for professional legitimacy have emerged as an area of interest in the field of language teaching research. Grounded in Wenger’s concept of ‘trajectories of learning’, the current study explored the fight for legitimate status of two primary school English language teachers in Vietnam. Data for this article were collected through life-history interviews in which the two participating teachers were encouraged to tell stories about the early days of their teaching careers. The findings of the study reveal that the participants struggled for professional legitimacy during the early stage of their teaching careers. Beyond the school setting, the two teachers encountered negative attitudes towards their teaching profession as teaching languages to young learners was not highly valued in society. Based on the findings, the study pointed to the issue of power relations which, although regarded as a barrier to teachers’ professional legitimacy, is not adequately addressed in the concept of ‘trajectories of learning’. The study also revealed some implications for legitimising language teachers’ professional status.     

Science Career-Related Possible Selves of Adolescent Girls: A Longitudinal Study

This paper uses a possible selves theoretical framework to examine whether and how adolescent girls' images of themselves as future scientists change during their transition from high school to college. Forty-one female high school graduates from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, who had enrolled in an intensive math and science program while in high school, participated in interviews focused on their perceptions of factors that influenced their career plans over time. Participants suggested that career-related internships and intensive academic programs, especially those that yielded important mentoring relationships, were contexts in which they negotiated career-related possible selves and subsequent career plans.