A study of the relationship among type and quality of implementation of science teaching strategy,student formal reasoning ability,and student engagement

The objective of this study was to identify the relationship between the type and quality of science teaching strategy and student engagement. Teachers and their students in middle and high schools were observed on ten occasions. A total of 60 observations were made of all teachers and ten of each of their students. During each observation period, the type and quality of implementation of teaching strategy was identified and student engagement was rated. Data collected were examined by regression analyses. The results indicated that the type and quality of implementation of teaching strategies did significantly and positively relate to student engagement. Analyzed individually, the type of teaching strategy predicted 12 per cent of the variance in engagement, while the quality of teaching strategy predicted 35 per cent. Overall, the type and quality of teaching strategy predicted 37 per cent of the variance in engagement. The data also showed that the more indirect the teaching strategy, the greater the students' involvement in learning tasks.     

The Preschooler's Understanding of the Causes and Consequences of Emotion

This article reports evidence on 2 issues: ( a ) the preschooler's understanding of the causes and consequences of basic emotions, and ( b ) the relative power of a word, such as happy , versus a facial expression, such as a smile, to evoke that knowledge. Preschoolers ( N = 120, mean age = 4–11) completed stories about fear, anger, sadness, happiness, and surprise by telling either why the protagonist felt that way or what the protagonist did when feeling that way. Responses were scored both "subjectively" (rated as appropriate or not) and more "objectively" (frequency of a judge guessing the question asked). By both criteria, the children did well, distinguishing causes from consequences and between most of the emotions. Contratry to what is commonly assumed, children were no more accurate—and sometimes less accurate—when the emotion was specified by a prototypical facial expression than when specified by a word.     

The effectiveness of an expanded interrogative training technique for young deaf children

This study investigates the development of language interrogatives in deaf children through a program using expanded question structures. Ten young deaf children, (age range 6 to 8 years) were assigned to matched groups on the basis of chronological age and results of Raven's Progressive Matrices. One group was given six traditional question structures and the other was given six expanded question structures, on each of four consecutive days. On the fifth day, the traditional question structures were asked of all the subjects. The analysis of responses showed that even with a small sample the expanded question structures affected the number of accurate responses for the conceptual type of “wh” questions.     

Conservation from conception: Commissioning an installation by Cai Guo-Qiang

Over a period of six years, the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art and Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang developed and realized the major art installation Heritage (2013). The artwork comprises 99 life-sized imitation animals congregating at a waterhole and covers 1104 m² of floor space. This paper reviews aspects of the commission, construction, and completion of Heritage – a very large-scale, technically complex contemporary installation. From commission to acquisition, the project was a highly collaborative undertaking and is an interesting example of unconventional conservation. This paper, written from curatorial and conservation perspectives, describes this cooperative endeavour.     

Relative age effect: implications for effective practice

Physical and psychological differences related to birthdate amongst athletes of the same selection year have been characterised as the “relative age effects” (RAEs). RAEs have been identified in a variety of sports, both at youth and adult level, and are linked with dropout of athletes and a reduction of the talent pool. This study examined the existence, mechanisms and possible solutions to RAEs using qualitative methodology. Seven experts in the field of talent identification and development were interviewed. Inductive analysis of the data showed that, while there was mixed evidence for the existence of RAEs across sports, the eradication of RAEs was attributed to controllable features of the development environment. The factors reported included the structure of “categories” used to group athletes within the sport (e.g. age, weight, size, skills), recognition and prioritisation of long-term development over “short term win focus.” Education of relevant parties (e.g. coaches, scouts, clubs) about RAEs and the nature of “talent” within a long-term context was suggested, along with careful consideration of the structure of the development environment (e.g. delayed selection, provision for late developers, focus on skills not results, use of challenge). Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The peer mentor experience in a physical activity intervention for mental health

Despite the effectiveness of peer-led health programs, few studies have been focused on the experiences of the peer mentors involved in such programs. The purpose of the current study was to explore the experiences of peer mentors involved in a peer-led physical activity program for students with mental health concerns, namely anxiety and depression. Participants were eight former peer mentors from a mid-size university who completed interviews regarding their motivation for serving as a peer mentor and the ways in which the program influenced them both during and after the program ended. Findings from an integrative analysis demonstrated that the mentors grew personally, professionally, and interpersonally from their participation. Further, mentors’ experiences could be explained by the self-determination theory.     

Performance-enhancing drugs as a collective action problem

Current general restrictions on performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) pose a collective action problem that cannot be solved and bring a variety of adverse consequences for sport. General prohibitions of PEDs are grounded in claims that they violate the integrity of sport. But there are decisive arguments against integrity of sport-based prohibitions of PEDs for elite sport. We defend a harm prevention approach to PED prohibition as an alternative. This position cannot support a general ban on PEDs, since it provides no basis for prohibiting non-harmful PED use. We argue that a harm prevention approach to restricting PEDs is ethically justified, has better prospects of compliance, is consistent with respecting the integrity of sport, and holds at least a modest prospect of resolving the collective action problem around PED restriction.     

Children's conceptions of air pressure: exploring the nature of conceptual change

Children's responses to a series of air pressure activities were tracked in detail during group discussion and interview, and again in interview six months later. Results for different age cohorts have yielded insights into age‐related knowledge components framing children's conceptions of air pressure phenomena. Case studies of individuals have been constructed to explore the way conceptions change over time, and the difficulties presented by the concept of atmospheric pressure. These are used to evaluate different structural theories of conceptual change. The findings point to the complexity of children's conceptions, the stability and extension over time of productive conceptions, and the critical role of contextual features of phenomena in the conceptual change process. Although structural aspects of changes in concepts related to air pressure are identified, the difficulty of accessing the atmospheric pressure conception is argued to have more to do with presupposition based in perceptual features of air, and with difficulties associated with the application to particular phenomena.