Activity-related typologies and longitudinal change in physical activity and sedentary time in children and adolescents: The UP&DOWN Study

Background: Children and adolescents can be distinguished by different typologies (clusters) of physical activity and sedentary behavior. How physical activity ...     

Arguing in Portugal: A cross-cultural analysis

We report data on Portuguese understandings of interpersonal arguing, based on a survey conducted in Portugal (N?=?252). Employing concepts and methods developed for studying interpersonal arguing, we report on the levels of argumentativeness, verbal aggressiveness, personalization of conflict, and argument frames. After comparing Portuguese men and women, we compare Portuguese respondents with two groups of US respondents. In contrast to US respondents, Portuguese report to argue more prosocially, cooperatively and civilly, and are more sophisticated in their reflections about arguing. We discuss these results in the context of the Portuguese notion of argumentation (argumentação) and Portuguese culture more broadly.     

Strategic Planning: From Training to Performance Technology Within Three Years

Many corporate Human Resource Development (HRD) department staff are type-cast as trainers. They have tried to become human performance technologists and have found it difficult to accomplish. This article describes how developing and implementing a set of strategic plans guided one HRD department through its evolution from delivering conventional training to delivering multiple performance improvement interventions. It will show how projects were selected, developed, and managed over a three-year period to meet the customer's critical business issues and the HRD department's strategic plan.     

Embodied cognition as grounding for situatedness and context in mathematics education

In this paper we analyze, from the perspective of 'Embodied Cognition', why learning and cognition are situated and context-dependent. We argue that the nature of situated learning and cognition cannot be fully understood by focusing only on social, cultural and contextual factors. These factors are themselves further situated and made comprehensible by the shared biology and fundamental bodily experiences of human beings. Thus cognition itself is embodied, and the bodily-grounded nature of cognition provides a foundation for social situatedness, entails a reconceptualization of cognition and mathematics itself, and has important consequences for mathematics education. After framing some theoretical notions of embodied cognition in the perspective of modern cognitive science, we analyze a case study – continuity of functions. We use conceptual metaphor theory to show how embodied cognition, while providing grounding for situatedness, also gives fruitful results in analyzing the cognitive difficulties underlying the understanding of continuity. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Adult Learning Experiences from an Aquarium Visit: The role of Social Interactions in Family Groups

Abstract How and what adults learn in the context of a family visit to an aquarium is a valuable and important question to ask, given the significance of this demographic to institutions such as these. Based on a larger empirical work,¹ this paper reports on the nature and character of adult learning within a family group context while visiting the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre (Canada), and the longitudinal effects of such experience in the weeks following the visit. In this study a multiple or collective instrumental case study approach was employed to examine the learning experiences of the adult members of 13 family groups; this approach demonstrates that adults visiting the aquarium as part of a family group are active social learners and not merely facilitators of the experience for younger visitors or caregivers. Our outcomes also indicate that the adult members of the participant family groups learned in a multiplicity of domains including the cognitive, the social, and the affective, as a result of their visit to the Vancouver Aquarium. In addition, we discuss the longitudinal impacts of the aquarium visit and provide valuable insights as to the relevance of these experiences in visitors' everyday lives.     

The implementation of language policy: The case of Ecuador

Ecuador is implementing a programme of indigenous bilingual intercultural education. Work began systematically in 1978 through a research centre of the Catholic University, and throughout the 1980s the government has become increasingly committed to the principle of indigenous education. In 1980 agreement was reached on a common alphabet for all indigenous languages. In the same year the government accepted that vernacular languages might be used for education, and the Macac educational model was devised by the Catholic University's research centre. By 1984 there were 300 bilingual primary schools, but the government then suspended its experiment. This was restored four years later, with the addition of secondary education and teacher training colleges. What is stressed by NGOs active in promoting indigenous education is not only its use of vernacular languages, but the need for intercultural exchange, recognizing in a modified curriculum the cultural values of the indigenous population and their socioeconomic reality. This change has not been understood by all government agencies, although a new Directorate for Bilingual Intercultural Education was established in 1988 to provide education for people of all ages in indigenous communities. The traditional Spanish-language formal education system has exercised a restricting influence on innovation, and the response of the dominant Spanish-speaking majority has generally been indifference.

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Zusammenfassung Ecuador führt ein einheimisches, zweisprachiges, interkulturelles Erziehungsprogramm durch. Die Untersuchung wurde systematisch 1978 vom Forschungszentrum der katholischen Universität begonnen, und während der 80er Jahre befaßte sich die Regierung in steigendem Maße mit dem Prinzip der einheimischen Erziehung. 1980 wurde ein Abkommen über ein gemeinsames Alphabet für alle einheimischen Sprachen getroffen. Im gleichen Jahr akzeptierte die Regierung, daß Muttersprachen im Rahmen der Erziehung angewendet werden könnten, und das Forschungszentrum der katholischen Universität erarbeitete das Erziehungsmodell Macac. Bis 1983 gab es 300 zweisprachige Grundschulen, aber die Regierung setzte das Experiment dann aus. Vier Jahre später wurde es mit der Hinzufügung von Sekundarstufe und Lehrerausbildungsstätten wieder aufgenommen. Die in der Förderung einheimischer Erziehung tätigen NGO's betonen nicht nur den Gebrauch der Muttersprachen sondern auch die Notwendigkeit eines interkulturellen Austausches, der in einem modifizierten Curriculum die kulturellen Werte der einheimischen Bevölkerung und ihre sozialwirtschaftliche Realität berücksichtigt. Dieser Wechsel wurde nicht von allen Regierungsstellen verstanden, obwohl 1988 ein neuer Vorstand für zweisprachige interkulturelle Erziehung (Directorate for Bilingual Intercultural Education) zur Sicherstellung von Ausbildungsmöglichkeiten für Menschen jeden Alters in den Gemeinden gegründet wurde. Das traditionelle spanische formale Erziehungssystem hat einen hinderlichen Einfluß auf Innovationen ausgeübt, und die Antwort der dominierenden spanischsprachigen Mehrheit bestand im allgemeinen aus Gleichgültigkeit.

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Résumé Un programme interculturel d'enseignement bilingue indigène est mis en oeuvre en Equateur. Ce travail a été amorcé de façon systématique en 1978 par le centre de recherche de l'Université catholique, et le gouvernment a de plus en plus soutenu le principe de l'enseignement indigène au cours des années 80. En 1980, on s'est mis d'accord sur un alphabet commun à toutes les langues indigènes. Le gouvernement acceptait la même année que les langues vernaculaires soient employées dans l'enseignement, et le modèle d'enseignement Macac a été mis au point par le centre de recherche de l'Université catholique. On comptait 300 écoles primaires bilingues en 1984, mais le gouvernement a suspendu cette expérience. Celle-ci fut rétablie quatre ans plus tard, avec en plus un enseignement secondaire et des écoles de formation des maîtres. Ce que les ONG soulignent dans la promotion de l'enseignement indigène, ce n'est pas seulement l'emploi des langues vernaculaires, mais la nécessité d'un échange interculturel, d'un nouveau curriculum qui intègre les valeurs culturelles de la population indigène ainsi que sa réalité socio-économique. Ce changement n'a pas été appréhendé par tous les organismes de l'Etat, bien qu'une nouvelle Direction de l'Enseignement Interculturel Bilingue ait été mise en place en 1988 pour offrir une éducation aux populations de tout âge dans les communautés indigènes. Le système traditionnel d'éducation formelle en langue espagnole a exercé une influence de contrainte sur l'innovation, et la réaction de la majorité hispanophone dominante se caractérise généralement par l'indifférence.

     

Boyer in the Middle: Second Generation Challenges to Emerging Scholarship

This article reports on an examination of the distinctive second-generation challenges and opportunities faced by an early institutional adopter of the Boyer model of scholarship. Following the first cohort of faculty to be reviewed for tenure and promotion based on these criteria, we report the results of a survey designed to determine the perceptions of faculty and administrators of the degree to which emerging forms of scholarship had been integrated into the university culture including factors such as institutional identity, support structures, and faculty participation. This case study sheds light on the process of adaptation at this single institution and provides glimpses of how cultural change might occur across higher education.     

Poor Performance at TVET Colleges: Conceptualising a Distributed Instructional Leadership Approach as a Solution

In South Africa the challenges facing the post-school vocational education system are daunting. There is a lack of coherence, resulting in fragmentation of the system. A Training Needs Assessment Study commissioned in 2014 revealed several major academic challenges facing college leadership. The most pressing issues were poor leadership and management skills and challenges facing lecturers in various aspects of teaching and learning, amongst which were blatant shortcomings in their capabilities to meet the competencies required for effective lecturing. This realisation led the researchers to hypothesise that ineffective and fragmented leadership and management practices may be to blame for this state of affairs. The researchers wondered whether an integrated and focused leadership model aimed at distributing ownership for student achievement should be implemented to produce better results. The overarching research question was: What are the main stumbling blocks in improving National Certificate: Vocational (NC(V)) students’ performance at technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges; and how can a distributed instructional leadership approach be conceptualised to address the problems at institutional level? A qualitative research approach was used, which was mainly inductive, providing a clear understanding of the participants’ views and capturing their perceptions in their own words. A phenomenological design was used as strategy of inquiry. The findings created an awareness for considering collaboration and the distribution of powers and capabilities to bring about a shared leadership vision in the quest for challenging poor performance at institutional level in a sector that is in dire need of positive outcomes.