The effect of the personalization principle on multimedia learning: the role of student individual interests as a predictor

By focusing on the personalization principle, the present study investigates whether two different language presentation formats of a multimedia presentation influence students’ learning outcome and how individual interest towards the learning material moderates this impact. German students (N?=?104) were randomly assigned to either a conversational or a formal language format of the multimedia presentation that taught Gestalt Laws. The results of this study showed that there were more positive effects on the learning performance in the conversational presentation format than the formal language format. This was, therefore, an indication of the effects of personalization. Furthermore, individual interest is a significant predictor for learning in this study. By testing different percentiles of individual interest, the findings showed that students with intermediate interest were affected by the format of language style. In contrast, learning results of students with the very lowest and very highest individual interest were not affected by different language styles. These results underline the necessity to take into account individual motivational prerequisites when designing multimedia learning environments.     

Kompensatorische Wirkungen von Ganztagsschulen – Ist die Ganztagsschule ein Instrument zur Entkopplung des Zusammenhangs von sozialer Herkunft und Bildungserfolg?

The introduction of “all-day schools” (i.e. schools that provide extended education times and extracurricular activities) has been a major topic in educational debates in Germany in the last decade. One of the main goals for expanding the provision of all-day schooling in Germany was to support the development of academic skills and abilities of all students independent of their socio-economic-background. Based on empirical results of current studies and the data of the “study of the development of all day schools” educational effects of extracurricular activities are analyzed. Typically studies show that extracurricular participation supports social learning rather than academic achievement. Nonetheless, data provide first hints of compensatory effects. Thus all-day schools can weaken the link between socio-economic background and academic achievement.     

Review of Essays About Philosophical Analyses of Sport (Physical Culture) in Central Europe

Herein I address and extend the sparse literature on deception in sports, specifically, Kathleen Pearson’s Deception, Sportsmanship, and Ethics and Mark J. Hamilton’s There’s No Lying in Baseball (Wink, Wink). On a Kantian foundation, I argue that attempts to deceive officials, such as framing pitches in baseball, are morally unacceptable because they necessarily regard others (e.g., the umpire) as incompetent and as a mere means to one’s own self-interested ends. More dramatically I argue, contrary to Pearson and Hamilton, that some forms of competitor-to-competitor deception (which Pearson labels ‘strategic deception’) are similarly unacceptable. Specifically, I offer a ‘principle of caustic deceit’ according to which any strategic deception that divorces a game from its constitutive skills is morally untoward and ought to be met with negative social pressure at least, and/or legislated out of existence. The problem with these forms of strategic deception is that they treat one’s opponents, again in the Kantian sense, as a mere means to one’s own self-interested ends.     

Lernen im freiwilligen Engagement und gesellschaftliche Partizipation

This contribution analyses the impact of young people’s work on political participation in adulthood on the basis of Dewey’s theory of democratic education and a theory of community service sketched by Reinders. Its primary goal is to examine whether the acquisition of specific skills and specific knowledge obtained in social and political institutions is as important for – or even more important than – future political commitment as the development of pro-social attitudes. Based on survey data (n = 2,052), these assumptions are tested using ordinal probit models. These models show that in addition to effects of changes in attitude, specific experiences in voluntary work seem to be important to promoting political participation. Political commitment is, therefore, indeed closely connected to learning and educational processes in the sense of Dewey.     

Philosophical Kinanthropology (Philosophy of Physical Culture,Philosophy of Sport) in Slavonic Countries: The Culture,the Writers,and the Current Directions

Until recently, English-speaking scholars have had few outlets to review the philosophy of sport literature generated in Slavonic countries. Existing English texts of this nature consist primarily of review essays providing little historical and cultural context from which to understand the development of specific tendencies in lines of inquiry from this part of the world (23,24,27). This article attempts to fill this gap in understanding by 1) briefly describing the cultural history of the Slavonic region, and, within this context, 2) identifying key sport philosophers and their current trends of philosophic thought in sporting practices. It is hoped that this project will better inform scholars of the philosophy of sport research being done in Slavonic nations, will advance new scholarship in the English-speaking world, and will encourage more international collaboration within the discipline of philosophical kinanthropology     

Musikalische Aktivitäten von Kindern und Jugendlichen

This article deals with playing a musical instrument as an important form of music related activities in the development and socialization of children and youth. The authors discuss aspects of arts education and reflect concepts of interest. They focus on the musical socialization and its contexts of today, so the question, which children and young persons are playing an instrument as well as a systematic analysis of places where adolescents are playing music. The self-organized and non-goal oriented learning processes in music activities are focused, reflecting theories of social inequalities. The results of the empirical findings show differences related to social class in playing an instrument and its choice, but not in places where music is done. Especially if adolescents play an instrument with corresponding interest, intensity, forms of activities and motifs of playing do not differ by social background.     

Winter outdoor trekking: spiritual aspects of environmental education

This text deals with the potential spiritual aspects of being outdoors within the framework of non-formal and informal education. The course being examined was organized by the Vacation School of Lipnice – Outward Bound Czech Republic, and the participants in this course made up the research sample. While the research was not directly focused on the spiritual dimension of the human way of being, our analysis of the interviews (n = 12) and the results of the Prague Spirituality Questionnaire (n = 10) indicate a connection between the fortnight spent trekking through the winter landscape and spirituality in terms of the educational potential it has for personal development. The data obtained in the interviews may be structured into the following main semantic fields connected with nature: naturalness, the element of fire, senses, aesthetic perceptions, bad weather, and spiritual dimension. In the questionnaire respondents were inclined to include factors such as ethical enthusiasm, sense of belonging, and deep ecology. The results may be interpreted as suggesting that due to the immediacy of direct experience the two-week-long trekking journey in the winter landscape (snowshoeing and camping in tents) reinforces a dimension of environmental education that surpasses any rational verification and enters the spiritual realms.