The Validity of the Sit-and-Reach Test and the Modified Sit-and-Reach Test in Middle-Aged to Older Men and Women

Abstract

A growing concern for the establishment of a national system of education was clearly evident in France during the last decades of the eighteenth century. Physical education was afforded an important role in the educational projections of the period. Beginning with La Chalotais' Essai d'éducation nationale (1763) authors began to express more and more support for the inclusion of a comprehensive program of physical education. Gabriel Coyer's De l'éducation publique (1770), Louis Philipon de la Madelaine's Vues patriotiques sur l'education du peuple (1783) and De l'éducation des collèges (1784), and Jean Ver dier's Maison d'éducation physique et morale (1772) and Cours d'éducation à l'usage des eleves (1777) all contributed significantly to the concept that physical education must constitute an important and integral part of any comprehensive and viable plan for national education. Among the most important deliberations of the various French revolutionary assemblies between 1789 and 1795 were those dealing with education as a concern of the state. Legislators tried valiantly to establish a sound national plan for education. The educational reports and projects presented to the various revolutionary assemblies by Talleyrand, Condorcet, Lepelitier, Lakanal, Romme, and Daunou are usually considered by educational historians to be the most significant. Each of these specified that due attention must be devoted to physical education for children and youth. The proposals, the decrees and the debates which they precipitated did much to attract attention to the importance of the subject. It seems most likely that the period from 1763 to 1795 in France witnessed the establishment of a precedent in modem times for the concept of state concern and support for physical education.     

New Learning Environments and Constructivism: The Students’ Perspective

Research into students’ perceptions of their learning environments reveals the impact of these perceptions on the way students cope with these learning environments. Consequently, students’ perceptions affect the results of their learning. This study aims to investigate whether students in a new learning environment (NLE) perceive it to be more constructivist when compared with the perceptions students have of a conventional lecture-based environment. Using a questionnaire consisting of seven key factors of constructivist learning environments, the results show that students in the NLE perceive it to be more constructivist when compared to the perceptions of students in a conventional lecture-based environment. The difference was statistically significant for four of the seven factors. According to the effect size, as measured by the d-index, the difference in perception between the two groups was greatest for the factor ‘conceptual conflicts and dilemmas’. in final form: 31 May 2005     

Social class and educational decision-making in a choice-driven education system: a mixed-methods study

Social class differences in educational decision-making form an important explanation for persisting educational inequalities, particularly in choice-driven systems with early tracking. Nevertheless, little is known about the process preceding these choices, especially when school and track choice are interrelated. Building on school choice literature, this study aims to explore how parents from different social backgrounds shape their decision-making process at the transition from primary to secondary education in Flanders (Belgium). To this end, we adopt an explanatory mixed-methods design. Quantitative findings from a parent survey conducted in 36 primary schools were complemented with 32 in-depth interviews with parents. Our findings show two parental profiles regarding educational decision-making, which can be traced back to differences in social and cultural capital. Although effective navigation of the complex field of educational decision-making proved to be strongly class related, parents’ educational and immigrant biographies led to specific approaches, transcending the middle class versus working class binary.     

Understanding how a case-based assessment instrument influences student teachers’ learning approaches

In order to stimulate student teachers to thoroughly comprehend the main variables influencing their work, teaching and assessment strategies in teacher education have changed significantly. One of the changes in the assessment of student teachers in teacher education programs is the use of case-based assessment instruments. Such instruments evaluate the extent to which student teachers are able to handle authentic problems. It is expected that implementing this mode of assessment will stimulate student teachers to adopt a deep approach to learning. In this study we examine student teachers’ learning approaches in the context of case-based assessment. Hereto, we investigated the direct effects of the student teachers’ general beliefs on the cognitive demands of assessment on their learning approaches. Also the student teachers’ perceptions of the cognitive demands of the case-based assessment instrument were considered as a mediating variable. The present study is conducted in the Netherlands, in the third year of a 4-year initial teacher training program for primary education. A case-based assessment instrument, called the OverAll Test, was implemented as the major determinate of the third-year final examination grade of the student teachers.     

The Affordances of Minecraft Education as a Game-Based Learning Tool for Atomic Structure in Junior High School Science Education

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Video games are a medium most students are familiar with; thus, they can be used as educational tools to meet the needs of twenty-first-century...