Access and targeting: an exploration of a contradiction

To attempt to understand Access to Higher Education provision as an educational social movement is to become caught up in a dialectial dilemma. Is Access allied to the older radical traditions of adult education through a collective emancipatory role or is its role to serve the educational needs of the individual student and/or the economic needs of society? Research carried out at the University of Exeter has shown that while there is a strong rhetoric within the Access movement that supports the more emancipatory approach, practitioners contradict this when questioned about the prime purpose of Access. Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony can be used to address this contradiction by examining how sub‐cultures, such as the group of Access practitioners, create a mosaic of meaning or a reality map which is drawn from the conflicting ideologies which surround them.     

Detection of Invalid Test Scores: The Usefulness of Simple Nonparametric Statistics

In recent guidelines for fair educational testing it is advised to check the validity of individual test scores through the use of person‐fit statistics. For practitioners it is unclear on the basis of the existing literature which statistic to use. An overview of relatively simple existing nonparametric approaches to identify atypical response patterns is provided. A simulation study was conducted to compare the different approaches and on the basis of the literature review and the simulation study guidelines for the use of person‐fit approaches are given.     

Hydration,sweat and thermoregulatory responses to professional football training in the heat

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between intensity of training and changes in hydration status, core temperature, sweat rate and composition and fluid balance in professional football players training in the heat. Thirteen professional football players completed three training sessions; “higher-intensity” (140 min; HI₁₄₀), “lower-intensity” (120 min; LI₁₂₀) and “game-simulation” (100 min; GS₁₀₀). Movement demands were measured by Global Positioning System, sweat rate and concentration were determined from dermal patches and body mass change. Despite similar environmental conditions (26.9 ± 0.1°C and 65.0 ± 7.0% relative humidity [Rh]), higher relative speeds (m · min^?1) and increased perceptions of effort and thermal strain were observed in HI₁₄₀ and GS₁₀₀ compared with LI₁₂₀ (P < 0.05). Significantly (P < 0.05) greater sweat rate (L · h^?1) and electrolyte losses (g) were observed in HI₁₄₀ and GS₁₀₀ compared with LI₁₂₀. Rate of rise in core temperature was correlated with mean speed (r = 0.85), session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) (r = 0.61), loss of potassium (K⁺) (r = 0.51) sweat rate (r = 0.49), and total sweat loss (r = 0.53), with mean speed the strongest predictor. Sodium (Na⁺) (r = 0.39) and K⁺ (r = 0.50) losses were associated with total distance covered. In hot conditions, individualised rehydration practices should be adopted following football training to account for differences in sweat rate and electrolyte losses in response to intensity and overall activity within a session.     

Contextual factors and effective school improvement

This research provides policy-makers, researchers, and educators at all levels with a glimpse of the contextual influence on effective school improvement (ESI) in 8 European countries. What are the factors at the contextual level, particularly at the national level, which influence ESI? Are there any similarities or differences between the influences they exert on ESI in different countries? Can common traits be identified? These are the core questions this paper tries to explore. It has drawn on insights from 5 areas of research: school effectiveness; school improvement; curriculum; public choice (marketization); organization, organizational learning, and learning organization. This yields a “goal – pressure – support” conceptual framework accompanied by 10 contextual factors and 48 indicators. Given the original conceptual framework and the empirical support of 31 case studies contributed by 8 European countries, the findings of this study may have significant implications for policy, practice, school effectiveness, and school improvement.     

Negotiating the challenge of collaborative writing: learning from one writing group's mutiny

With continuing pressure to publish or perish, interventions such as writing groups are increasingly part of the academic landscape. In this paper, we discuss our writing group's experiment with collaborative writing, which came unstuck as simmering concerns led to a mutiny within the group. The mutiny provided insights into tensions that are inevitably present in writing groups and collaborative writing exercises but are seldom written about. We explore these tensions via a collaborative autoethnography, drawing on published literature on writing groups and collaborative writing. The mutiny revealed three key dynamics. Experienced voices can have an important role to play but these voices need to be moderated so that other voices might be recognised and valued. Pleasure and productivity are two necessary components for sustaining writing groups and writing collaborations. Finally, hierarchies in the academic context are inescapable but they can be renegotiated so that more enabling power relations can be generated.     

In loco parentis? Public‐school authority,cricket and manly character, 1855–62

This article considers the responsibility for schoolboys’ behaviour and character when in liminal spaces between home and school, in an historical account of the annual cricket matches in London between Eton, Harrow and Winchester in the late 1850s. The episode is situated in the context of the Clarendon Commission’s discussions on school sports, parental and school authority, and ‘muscular Christianity’ in the early 1860s. Set in the conceptual framework of late‐nineteenth‐century manliness and masculinity, the article suggests an enduring attachment to pursuits of the mind rather than the body amongst masters, and points to a greater role for parents (particularly fathers) and boys themselves in the rise of athleticism in schools than is usually granted by historians. The article outlines the limits of school authority in loco parentis, and calls for a reinterpretation of the history of muscular Christianity and its relationship with the public schools.