The effects of training on performance and performance-related states in individual elite athletes: A dynamic approach

Abstract

There are difficulties undertaking controlled training studies with elite athletes. Thus, data from non-elite performers are often presented in scientific journals and subsequently used to guide general training principles. This information may not be transferable or specific enough to inform training practices in an individual elite athlete. However, the nature of athletic participation at elite levels provides the opportunity to collect training data, performance-related variables, and performance data of elite athletes over long periods. In this paper, we describe how dynamic linear models provide an opportunity to use these data to inform training. Data from an elite female triathlete collected over a 111-day training period were used to model the relationship between training and self-reported fatigue. The dynamic linear model analysis showed the independent effects of the three modes of triathlon training on fatigue, how these can change across time, and the possible influence of other unmeasured variables. This paper shows the potential for the use of dynamic linear models as an aid to planning training in elite athletes.     

Intercultural PhD supervision: exploring the hidden curriculum in a social science faculty doctoral programme

International knowledge markets rely heavily on a ready supply of highly mobile doctoral students, many of whom are from the global South, to bring in revenue. The supervision of these PhD students, however, can reproduce neo-colonial knowledge relations, often in subtle ways. In settler nations, international PhD students may find that they are assigned subaltern status in their university departments and this can have a significant impact on their learning. This paper explores the experiences of a group of international PhD students in a social science faculty in a New Zealand university during the first two years of their doctoral studies. It examines how they responded to the displacement of their cultural values and priorities, the way they navigated intercultural engagements with supervisors, and their ensuing relationships with indigenous and ethnic allies in the faculty. Despite considerable pressure to conform to the dominant modes of academic knowledge production that characterise universities in settler nations, it is concluded that international students find ways of speaking out, often in highly coded forms, that complicate their subaltern academic status.     

What really matters for students’ school satisfaction in Bangladesh?

School satisfaction is the reflection of students’ comprehensive evaluation of their school experience. This study reports the level of school satisfaction among students in Grades 6 and 8 in Bangladesh to perceive and the factors that might contribute to it using a cross‐sectional research design. A 61‐item survey questionnaire was utilized to collect data. The students’ mean score on the school satisfaction subscale of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale equated to a slightly positive attitude towards school. Three demographic factors including students’ academic achievement, gender, and grade level; and two school climate factors of perceived teacher–student relationship, and perceived academic support, emerged from the multiple regression analysis. The study findings are discussed from the perspective of self‐determination theory with implications for practice and avenues for future research offered.     

Student/Faculty Connections in the Development of Teaching

This project directly involved students in two different models of instructional development. The first model was a Student Consultant program in which faculty selected from a menu of instructional services carried out by students. Typical services included attending class as impartial observers, soliciting feedback from other students on their learning experiences, videotaping class sessions, and evaluating course Web sites. The second model of instructional development was a program of student‐assisted teaching seminars for college faculty. Student Associates helped serve as panelists and facilitators. Assessments of attitudes toward teaching indicated that faculty members viewed both professors and students as collaborators in the classroom as a result of the seminar series.     

Pre-service teachers’ conceptions of creativity in elementary school English

Widely thought to be something worth encouraging in young learners, creativity has popularly been associated more with music and art than with other areas of the curriculum. There have been many studies of creativity but few that focus explicitly on what counts as creative thinking in specific subject areas. The aim of the research reported here was to determine pre-service teachers’ conceptions of creativity within the curriculum for English. The study involved analyses of primary school trainee teachers’ responses to questionnaires and follow-up focus group discussion to identify their conceptions. A group of 48 trainees in the final year of an undergraduate degree in primary education leading to qualified teacher status in England completed the questionnaire. Of these, eight volunteered to participate in a follow-up focus group discussion to further explore ideas. Responses were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Conceptions of creativity in English were found to be limited, focused mainly on naïve views of story writing and dramatic activity. Responses indicated that they were often unable to distinguish clearly between the concept of creativity, an example of its occurrence in the classroom, and what feature of that example made it creative. Consequently, their limited constructions of creativity were confused. It is important that teachers in schools as well as those responsible for training teachers in universities are advised that trainees’ conceptions of creativity in English may be inadequate in several respects and that they may not recognise opportunities for creativity. Pre-service training programmes could well benefit from structured courses on the forms and applications of creativity.     

Editors’ introduction to Keeping cultures alive: Archives and Indigenous human rights

Keeping Cultures Alive investigates the relationship between Indigenous human rights and the archives through an interdisciplinary and comparative lens, bringing together papers by Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts in Indigenous studies, human rights, law and archival science. It explores Indigenous human rights in an international context with particular reference to the implications of the international human rights agenda for current and future archival practice in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.