TELEVISION TRAINING AT JORDANHILL

A backward glance over ten years of television production courses at Jordanhill College of Education reveals an interesting pattern of change and development. New technologies have offered portable lightweight cctv, video‐cassettes and cartridges, handheld battery‐operated cameras geared to low‐light conditions; these call for training and induction programmes radically different from those common in the mid‐sixties.     

Success at Scale: Outcomes of Community-Based Neurodevelopment Intervention (CASITA) for Children Ages 6–20 months With Risk of Delay in Lima,Peru

This study is a randomized controlled trial of a 12-week community-based group parenting intervention (“CASITA”) in Lima, Peru. CASITA improved neurodevelopment in a pilot study of 60 Peruvian children and subsequently scaled to 3,000 households throughout the district. The objective of this study was to assess intervention effectiveness when implemented at scale. A total of 347 children ages 6–20 months (52.7% male, 100% identified as “mestizo”) at risk for developmental difficulties were randomized to immediate or delayed CASITA. At 3 months after enrollment, the immediate arm showed significantly higher overall development, based on the Extended Ages and Stages Questionnaire and Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment scores (Cohen’s ds = .36 and .31, respectively). Programs demonstrably effective at scale could help address children’s development risks worldwide.     

Addressing Disparities in Parent Education: Examining the Effects of Learn the Signs/Act Early Parent Education Materials on Parent Outcomes

Early intervention is critical for improved prognosis and quality of life for young children with developmental delays and disabilities. Yet, disparities persist among underserved families with young children. These disparities include knowledge of child development, use of medical providers as referral sources, and later diagnosis. The current study employed a mixed method, randomized controlled trial to examine participant outcomes among low-income, underserved families who received child development information. The information included the 42-page Milestone Moments booklet that was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Learn the Signs/Act Early initiative. Participants (n = 108) included parents or legal guardians of children ages birth through 5 years. The participants were predominantly Black/African American (86 %) and female (90 %), and all had incomes below the federal poverty level. Study variables related to the location (home vs. child care center) and context (single session vs. extended visits) for delivering the information did not yield significant differences. Yet, there were clear findings that parents who received the booklet reported increased knowledge about child development, a decrease in concern about their own children’s developmental progress, and a positive perception of the booklet. On interview, parents reported learning new information about child development or being reminded of developmental information they had forgotten and the importance of following up with professionals when concerns arose. While not statistically significant, there was a consistent trend toward greater participant outcomes for parents who received materials in the child care setting relative to the home.     

Publications in the doctoral thesis: challenges for doctoral candidates,supervisors, examiners and administrators

Encouraging doctoral students to publish during their candidature is becoming more widely accepted and practised, both in Australia and internationally, although it is still less common in some fields. Almost all universities in Australia now offer candidates an option to include publications in their doctoral thesis. This paradigm shift has occurred over several decades as the role of doctoral education has been debated, but guidelines for students, supervisors and examiners have yet to catch up. While various benefits, challenges and criticisms have been discussed by established academics, the voices of the candidates themselves are limited. Using a narrative inquiry approach, this study helps to fill that void by reporting the personal experiences of the author, who recently completed a thesis with publications (TWP) in education. As such, this paper not only illuminates the potential challenges for doctoral candidates but it also offers possible ways in which universities, supervisors, examiners and candidates themselves can make the path to completing a doctoral TWP easier to navigate.     

Accessed or latent resources? Exploring new secondary science teachers' networks of resources

Although new teachers clearly need resources and support, little is known about the types of resources new science teachers' access during their early years of teaching. To increase knowledge of their needs, the study described in this article focused on the primary resources (i.e., human, material, and social) and secondary resources (i.e., strategic and symbolic) new science teachers' access and how those resources interact in new teachers' instructional contexts. The participants for this qualitative study were 15 new secondary science teachers in the United States, and data sources included a contextual interview, teaching observations, and a follow-up interview. Findings revealed that these teachers had a variety of resources available to them, of which social resources were particularly important. Some resources were not accessed and remained latent resources. In addition, some interactions of resources in the new teachers' context led to the development of the network of resources model to represent how resources can interact in contexts to support a new teacher. This model highlights the importance of considering the interaction of multiple resources in a teaching context.     

Differential results of instruction at the preoperational/concrete operational transition

The same cognitive intervention was attempted with children from two schools serving different populations. All children were identified by their teachers as having cognitive difficulties in kindergarten. Within each school, children were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Children in the experimental groups received more than 40 short lessons on unidimensional classification (oddity), seriation, and number conservation. These lessons were taught via a learning-set procedure employing 160 kinds of manipulatable objects. Children in the control groups received an equal amount of instruction on verbal and mathematics materials recommended by their teachers. Five months after the instruction was concluded, the experimental group in one school scored significantly better on a psychometric test of reasoning. There was no significant difference in verbal and mathematics achievement. Differences in the significance of outcomes of the intervention at the two schools suggest that children at different stages of cognitive development will benefit differently from cognitive interventions. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

An Examination of Sport Participation Tracking and Adult Physical Activity for Participants of the Michigan State University Motor Performance Study

ABSTRACT

Research tracking sport participation from youth to adulthood is relatively rare, as is research that tracks youth sport participation with regard to adult physical activity (PA) levels, especially in the United States. Aims of this study were: 1) To investigate the degree to which sport participation tracked across youth, adolescence, and early adulthood in a sample of participants from the Michigan State University Motor Performance Study (MPS), and 2) Determine if differences existed in their levels of adult PA relative to prior sport participation. In total, 256 (60.8%) former participants from the MPS completed follow-up surveys regarding routine sport participation and PA across the previous year. Sport participation tracked consistently from youth to college. Further, regardless of the level of youth sport participation, adult leisure time PA was relatively consistent among groups. Although the study did not directly test the influence of the MPS on subsequent adult outcomes, our findings suggest that participants’ past sport participation was not a good predictor of adult PA for those who were involved in a program that emphasized fundamental motor skills in youth. Further investigation of such programs can help to better inform their influence on adult PA.