Educational brokering: New services for adult learners

This paper describes a fast-growing variety of programs that directly enable adult learners to pursue educational and career plans within their communities. Educational brokering serves an intermediary role between individual clients and the vast array of educational resources in a region. This paper considers the missions of brokering—advisement, assessment, and advocacy—its organizational arrangements, and the sources of its support and development. Specific successes and impacts of brokering are presented, as is the importance of the brokering idea to several larger public policy issues. Efforts currently underway to expand brokering activities on a national level are also discussed.Dr. Heffernan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Higher/Postsecondary Education at Syracuse University and is Coordinator of Research and Editor of theBulletin of the National Center for Educational Brokering. He has been assisted in the preparation of this article by Francis U. Macy and Donn F. Vickers, Director and Associate Director, respectively, of the National Center for Educational Brokering, 405 Oak Street, Syracuse, New York 13203.     

Influence of a stressing constraint on stiffness and damping functions of a ski simulator's platform motion

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of stress on a previously acquired motor coordination. Following a longitudinal learning experiment, four participants performed oscillations on a ski simulator, either in normal or stressful conditions. The results showed that the amplitude of the oscillations decreased under stress, but no significant effect was seen regarding coordination, suggesting the strong resistance to stress of overlearned behaviour. Nevertheless, for one participant, a transient regression towards a former stage of learning was observed. This result was consistent with the regression hypothesis formulated by Fuchs (1962).