Edulabs AGIRE project – evaluation of ICT integration in teaching strategies

The AGIRE project, under the Edulab concept, aims to promote the adoption of innovative teaching practices. This paper reports the support strategies used to evaluate the teacher practices at the end of a teacher training course (TTC) and analyse its impact on teacher technology integration, using a design-based methodology. Teachers’ initial perception was gathered using an online questionnaire comprising ICT personal and professional competencies. The questionnaire results and the classroom observations showed that the majority of teachers were at the level of ICT adoption, before attending the TTC, reaching the adaptation level of integration of ICT, after the TTC. A variety of teaching strategies (flipped classroom, collaborative work, …) and technologies (interactive white boards, tablets, videos, …) were explored. The results sustain the thesis that, with proper support, ICT can be integrated in educational contexts in an innovative way and contribute to the development of teachers’ digital literacy.     

Trajectories of Adjustment in a Brazilian Sample of Street-Involved Youth

Trajectories of adjustment were examined in a sample of street-involved youth across a 1-year period. Participants (N = 113; M_age = 14.18 years; 80.5% male, 91% non-White) were recruited in three Brazilian cities. Interviews conducted at three time points included six measures of physical and psychological adjustment. Unconditional growth models revealed linear declines over time (i.e., improved adjustment) on three indicators: health symptoms, sexual risk behaviors, and negative affect. There were no linear changes in drug use, positive affect, or life satisfaction. Conditional growth models revealed few significant effects for age or gender, but ratings of stressful life events moderated longitudinal changes in health symptoms, drug use, and negative affect. Implications for practice, policy, and theory are discussed.     

Power training in elite young soccer players: Effects of using loads above or below the optimum power zone

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the effects of two jump squat (JS) training programs involving different loading ranges in under-20 soccer players during a preseason period. Twenty-three elite young soccer players performed sprint speed (at 5-, 10-, and 20-m), change-of-direction (COD) speed, JS peak-power (PP), and countermovement jump (CMJ) tests pre and post four weeks of training. Athletes were pair-matched in two groups according to their optimum power loads (OPL) as follows: lower than OPL (LOPL; athletes who trained at a load 20% lower than the OPL) and higher than OPL (HOPL; athletes who trained at a load 20% higher than the OPL). Magnitude-based inferences were used to compare pre- and post-training measures. Meaningful increases in the PP JS were observed for both groups. Likely and possible improvements were observed in the 5- and 10-m sprint velocity in the LOPL group. Meanwhile, possible and likely improvements were observed in the CMJ, 5- and 10-m sprint velocity, and COD speed in the HOPL group. Overall, both training schemes induced positive changes in athletic performance. Soccer coaches and sport scientists can implement the JS OPL-based training schemes presented here, either separately or combined, to improve the physical performance of youth soccer players.     

Improving cognitive and physical function through 12-weeks of resistance training in older adults: Randomized controlled trial

ABSTRACT

We performed a randomized, controlled trial to analyse the effects of resistance training (RT) on cognitive and physical function among older adults. Fifty participants (mean age 67 years, ~60% woman) were randomly assigned to an RT program or a control group. Participants allocated to RT performed three sets of 10-15RM in nine exercises, three times per week, for 12-weeks. Control group did not perform any exercise. Variables included cognitive (global and executive function) and physical function (gait, mobility and strength) outcomes. At completion of the intervention, RT was shown to have significantly mitigated the drop in selective attention and conflict resolution performance (Stroop test: -494.6; 95%CI: -883.1; ?106.1) and promoted a significant improvement in working memory (digit span forward: -0.6; 95%CI: ?1.0; ?0.1 and forward minus backward: -0.9; 95% CI: ?1.6; ?0.2) and verbal fluency (animal naming: +1.4, 95%CI 0.3, 2.5). No significant between-group differences were observed for other cognitive outcomes. Regarding physical function, at completion of the intervention, the RT group demonstrated improved fast-pace gait performance (?0.3; 95% CI: ?0.6; ?0.0) and 1-RM (+21.4 kg; 95%CI: 16.6; 26.2). No significant between-group differences were observed for other mobility-related outcomes. In conclusion, RT improves cognitive and physical function of older adults.     

Tensiomyography parameters and jumping and sprinting performance in Brazilian elite soccer players

Tensiomyography has been suggested as an indirect marker of muscle stiffness, which is associated with strength/power performance. Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that tensiomyography parameters could be associated with power-related motor tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between tensiomyography parameters (from rectus and biceps femoris) and jumping and sprinting abilities in elite soccer players. In addition, we used tensiomyography parameters to compare the lateral symmetry between dominant and non-dominant legs. Twenty elite soccer players (age: 23.3 ± 4.8 years; height: 183.5 ± 6.6 cm; weight: 77.8 ± 7.5 kg) volunteered to participate in the study. Significant moderate negative correlations between biceps femoris displacement and contact time (r = –0.5, p = 0.03), rectus femoris displacement and contact time (r = –0.51, p = 0.02), and a significant moderate correlation between biceps femoris displacement and reactive strength index (r = 0.5, p = 0.03) were found. There were no correlations between tensiomyography parameters and power-related motor tasks. In addition, no differences in tensiomyography parameters between dominant and non-dominant legs were found. Our data suggest that tensiomyography parameters are not associated with power-related motor tasks performance in elite soccer players.     

Balance in Positive Emotional Expressivity Across School Contexts Relates to Kindergartners’ Adjustment

Positive emotional expressivity has been associated with increased social competence and decreased maladjustment in childhood. However, a few researchers have found null or even positive associations between positive emotional expressivity and maladjustment, which suggests that there may be nuanced associations of positive expressivity, perhaps as a function of the social context in which it is expressed. We examined whether observed positive emotional expressivity balance across peer-oriented/recreational and learning contexts predicted kindergarten children’s adjustment (N = 301). Research Findings: Higher positive expressivity during lunch/recess compared to positive expressivity in the classroom was associated with lower teacher–student conflict, externalizing behaviors, and depressive symptoms. In addition, overall positive emotional expressivity predicted lower externalizing behaviors as well as lower depressive and anxiety symptoms. Practice or Policy: The results suggest the importance of assessing observed positive emotional expressivity in context as a potential indicator of children’s maladjustment risk and the need for children to adapt their emotions to different contexts. Implications for assessing and supporting positive emotional expression balance and training emotional regulation in school are discussed.     

Correlation analysis of performance measures for multi-label classification

In many important application domains, such as text categorization, scene classification, biomolecular analysis and medical diagnosis, examples are naturally associated with more than one class label, giving rise to multi-label classification problems. This fact has led, in recent years, to a substantial amount of research in multi-label classification. In order to evaluate and compare multi-label classifiers, researchers have adapted evaluation measures from the single-label paradigm, like Precision and Recall; and also have developed many different measures specifically for the multi-label paradigm, like Hamming Loss and Subset Accuracy. However, these evaluation measures have been used arbitrarily in multi-label classification experiments, without an objective analysis of correlation or bias. This can lead to misleading conclusions, as the experimental results may appear to favor a specific behavior depending on the subset of measures chosen. Also, as different papers in the area currently employ distinct subsets of measures, it is difficult to compare results across papers. In this work, we provide a thorough analysis of multi-label evaluation measures, and we give concrete suggestions for researchers to make an informed decision when choosing evaluation measures for multi-label classification.     

Public universities and the neoliberal common sense: seven iconoclastic theses

Neoliberalism has utterly failed as a viable model of economic development, yet the politics of culture associated with neoliberalism is still in force, becoming the new common sense shaping the role of government and education. This ‘common sense’ has become an ideology playing a major role in constructing hegemony as moral and intellectual leadership in contemporary societies. Neoliberal globalisation, predicated on the dominance of the market over the state and on deregulatory models of governance, has deeply affected the university in the context of ‘academic capitalism’. The resulting reforms, rationalised as advancing international competitiveness, have affected public universities in four primary areas: efficiency and accountability, accreditation and universalisation, international competitiveness and privatisation. There is also growing resistance to globalisation as top-down-imposed reforms reflected in the public debates about schooling reform, curriculum and instruction, teacher training and school governance. Many question whether neoliberal reforms attempt to limit the effectiveness of universities as sites of contestation of the national and global order and thus undermine the broader goals of education. Neoliberal reforms have limited access and opportunity along class and racial lines, including limiting access to higher education through the imposition of higher tuition and reduced government support to institutions and individuals.