Assessing what generates precompetitive emotions: development of the precompetitive appraisal measure

Athletes’ precompetitive appraisal determines which emotion they experience with regard to an upcoming competition. Such precompetitive emotions have powerful and potentially destructive consequences for performance. To control and optimise these consequences, it is important to examine precompetitive appraisal. Currently, such efforts are hampered by the lack of a valid measurement tool. The present study aimed to develop a novel measure of precompetitive appraisal. Specifically, the Precompetitive Appraisal Measure (PAM) was constructed by adapting an existing self-report scale. Female and male intercollegiate team sport athletes (N = 384) completed the PAM, along with a measure of intensity and interpretation of precompetitive anxiety symptoms (CSAI-2D) prior to competition. On these responses, (a) a Principal Component Analysis and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported the PAM’s suggested two-factor structure (Primary and Secondary Appraisal), (b) cluster analyses indicated the measure’s ability to distinguish theoretically congruent appraisal profiles (Threat and Challenge) and (c) a MANOVA and multiple regression analyses demonstrated that PAM-responses predicted precompetitive symptom intensity and interpretation. Further, analyses revealed that the majority of athletes appraised the upcoming competition as a challenge.     

Leniency and halo bias in industry-based assessments of student competencies: a critical,sector-based analysis

Industry placements are popular means to provide students with an opportunity to apply their skills, knowledge and experience in a ‘real world’ setting. Within this context, supervisor feedback allows educators to measure students’ performance beyond academic objectives, by benchmarking it against industry expectations. However, industry assessments appear to be frequently clouded and overwhelmingly positive by nature, which questions the reliability and validity of supervisors’ judgement of competencies. Supervisor bias has been paid much attention within the context of clinical placements, as well as within the domain of social work. However, the concept has been largely ignored within business education, despite the increasing emphasis on – and deep integration of – work-integrated learning in the business curriculum. This paper sets out to address this gap by examining variances in mark distribution and apparent leniency in the context of a final-year, compulsory placement unit, based on observations and data collected over nine semesters (n?=?546). The focus of this study is on gaining an understanding of the reasons behind assessment bias and the pressures placed on industry assessors. The data indicate that different types of placement locations apply dissimilar standards when assessing student performance. The author identifies three statistically different placement types (small business, not-for-profit and professional), which influence the strength and risk of grader bias, hence ultimately the assessment outcome.     

Feature-positive discriminations during a spatial-search task with humans

During feature-positive operant discriminations, a conditional cue, X, signals whether responses made during a second stimulus, A, are reinforced. Few studies have examined how landmarks, which can be trained to control the spatial distribution of responses during search tasks, might operate under conditional control. We trained college students to search for a target hidden on a computer monitor. Participants learned that responses to a hidden target location signaled by a landmark (e.g., A) would be reinforced only if the landmark was preceded by a colored background display (e.g., X). In Experiment 1, participants received feature-positive training (+←YB/ XA→+/A?/B?) with the hidden target to the right of A and to left of B. Responding during nonreinforced transfer test trials (XB?/YA?) indicated conditional control by the colored background, and spatial accuracy indicated a greater weighting of spatial information provided by the landmark than by the conditional cue. In Experiments 2a and 2b, the location of the target relative to landmark A was conditional on the colored background (+←YA/ XA→+/ ZB→+/ +←C /A?/B?). At test, conditional control and a greater weighting for the landmark’s spatial information were again found, but we also report evidence for spatial interference by the conditional stimulus. Overall, we found that hierarchical accounts best explain the observed differences in response magnitude, whereas spatial accuracy was best explained via spatial learning models that emphasize the reliability, stability, and proximity of landmarks to a target.     

Reading fluency: The whole is more than the parts

This study examined the relative contributions of phonological awareness, orthographic pattern recognition, and rapid letter naming to fluent word and connected-text reading within a dyslexic sample of 123 children in second and third grades. Participants were assessed on a variety of fluency measures and reading subskills. Correlations and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were carried out to explore these relationships. The results demonstrate that phonological awareness, rapid letter naming, and orthographic pattern recognition contribute to word-reading skills. Furthermore, rapid naming, orthographic pattern recognition, and word reading fluency moderately predict different dimensions of connected-text reading (i.e., rate, accuracy, and comprehension) whereas phonological awareness contributes only to the comprehension dimension of connected-text reading. The findings support the multidimensional nature of fluency in which the whole is more than its parts.     

Inclusive education in the Netherlands: how funding arrangements and demographic trends relate to dropout and participation rates

There is a global trend towards including children with special needs in mainstream schools instead of placing them in special schools. However, the numbers of students in special schools varies greatly among regions due to variations in educational systems, funding arrangements – and the incentives that are associated with these arrangements – and demographic trends. In the Netherlands, a new policy aimed at inclusive education was introduced in 2014, together with financial measures to equalise funding for students with special needs across the country. The present study explored the effects of this equalisation policy, as well as the demographic trend of population decline, on dropout rates and participation rates in special education (namely, special schools for mainstream education and schools for special education). The data were retrieved from nation-wide registration systems. The results showed that population decline did not affect participation rates in special education, whereas decreases in funding did result in greater declines in participation rates in special education. Moreover, decreases in funding also resulted in higher dropout rates in areas with growing student populations. Although the reform of funding arrangements resulted in lower participation in special education, higher dropout rates might be a cost of this shift towards inclusive education.