Work Output and Heart Rate Response of Top Level New Zealand Oarsmen

Abstract

A 6-min rowing ergometer test was administered to 116 candidates for Junior, Colt, and Olympic New Zealand crews. Stroke frequency, work output, and heart rates were used to assess rowing fitness and to compare min-by-min performance of the selected and unselected trialists. Throughout the duration of the test, the Junior and Olympic selected oarsmen demonstrated a greater ability to tolerate this type of heavy work than did the unselected oarsmen. The Colt trialists were relatively homogeneous and their subgroup differences did not reach significance. In comparison to earlier work using a similar sample, the present data indicate a general increase in rowing ability.     

Determinants of Cardiorespiratory Endurance in College Women

Abstract

The relationship between cardiorespiratory (CR) endurance performance and various physiological and anthropometric measures was determined in 33 college women. Bivariate and multiple regression analysis was used to determine the extent to which the independent variables, individually and collectively, accounted for the variance in the 2-km run. Independent variables included maximal [Vdot]O₂, [Vdot]_E, R, and HR; submaximal HR; response to a standard workload of steps during a l-min steptest; percent body fat predicted from skinfolds; body circumferences; height; and weight. [Vdot]O₂ max in ml/kg of body weight accounted for the greatest amount of variance in run time (39%). The steptest added 5.9%, the other physiological measures collectively added 9.7%, while the anthropometric measures collectively added only 2.1% to the explained variance for a total of 56.7%. Although anthropometric factors play a role in CR endurance performance, their influence is small in this population when physiological factors are accounted for.     

Effects of Transcendental Meditation on Rotary Pursuit Skill

Two groups of male subjects received a total of 7½-min practice on the pursuit rotor, with a day's rest following the first 5 min. The transcendental meditation (TM) group consisted of 15 volunteers who meditated twice daily and who had been practicing the technique for an average of 28 months. The other group consisted of 15 nonmeditators. The results did not support the expectations that the meditators would demonstrate superior learning and performance and less reactive inhibition than the nonmeditators. Indeed, it was found that in terms of performance, and of learning to a lesser degree, the meditators were significantly poorer. While there was some limited support for the expectation that meditators would exhibit less intra-individual variability, the trends for inter-individual differences indicated that the individual meditators became much less alike than did the nonmeditators when practice was resumed on the second day. It was concluded that certain benefits attributed to the practice of TM (such as greater within-subject consistency, less anxiety, increased alertness and awareness) are not apparent when a novel perceptual-motor skill is being learned. Instead, it appears that the effects of TM are detrimental to such performance.     

Cycle of Conflict: A Decade of Strife in English Professional Rugby

Rugby union was the last major international sport to embrace open professionalism. In the years leading up to the abandonment of the amateur principle by the sport's world governing body, the (English) Rugby Football Union's rearguard action on both domestic and international fronts left it ill-equipped to cope with the realities of a new world order. This discussion will provide a brief review of the circumstances that led to rugby union's change of status; examine in detail how and why conflicts that emerged in the aftermath of professionalism were particular to the English experience; analyse events that have sustained these conflicts over a decade; and offer an assessment of future prospects for stability in the domestic game.     

Questions Can Answer Questions About Mechanisms of Preschoolers’ Selective Word Learning

This study examined how inferences about epistemic competence and generalized labeling errors influence children’s selective word learning. Three- to 4-year-olds (N = 128) learned words from informants who asked questions about objects, mentioning either correct or incorrect labels. Such questions do not convey stark differences in informants’ epistemic competence. Inaccurate labels, however, generate error signals that can lead to weaker encoding of novel information. Preschoolers retained novel labels from both informants but were slower to respond in the Inaccurate Labeler condition. When the test procedure was not sensitive to the strength of information encoding, children performed above chance in both conditions and their response times did not differ. These results suggest that epistemic-level inferences and error generalizations influence preschoolers’ selective word learning concurrently.     

Recent official policy and concepts of reading comprehension and inference: the case of England's primary curriculum

This article engages with recent policy on reading comprehension. It argues that the construct of inference has been treated as a single entity despite research and literature to the contrary, and this is perpetuated in the National Curriculum for 2014. It explores the limitations of conceptualising inference as a unitary construct and demonstrates that official policy has confused progression in inference with the process of a reader building a mental representation of a text. It argues that criterion‐referenced statements for progression in inference are flawed. The article proposes a means of conceptualising inference so it can be operationalised for the purpose of teaching and learning in the classroom. This is exemplified and applied to an example of a standardised test.