Does slow motion impact on the perception of foul play in football?

Objectives: Slow-motion replays of foul play situations are now used in the education and training of sports officials. We investigated the impact of video speed on the decision-making process of association football referees and how this interacted with expertise. Methods: Three different groups of referees, varying in level of expertise, assessed video clips from an in-game perspective. Video clips represented corner kick and open play situations in which a foul occurred or not. For these foul/no foul situations, the referees had to make a technical (no foul; indirect free kick; direct free kick; or penalty kick) and a disciplinary decision (no card; yellow card; or red card), under both slow-motion and real-time viewing conditions. Accuracy scores were determined by comparing participant’s responses with the decisions of an expert panel. Results: Significant differences were observed across groups for foul/no foul situations, suggesting that the experts were able to process the available information more effectively than their less expert colleagues. The accuracy scores for the technical decision were higher in slow motion (67%) compared to a real-time viewing condition (56%), particularly for corner kick situations. No differences were found between real time and slow motion for the disciplinary decision. Conclusions: Slow-motion footage results in higher accuracy scores for complex technical decisions. These findings have implications for the use of slow-motion replays in the decision-making process of referees.     

Creativity in Artistic Education: Introducing Artists into Primary Schools

Despite a more prominent role of arts education in the school curriculum, artistic creativity does not occur to a great extent in primary school practice. More opportunities for teachers to strengthen their know‐how in the field of artistic creativity can therefore be considered important. Arts education projects focus on pupils' development of creativity by means of introducing artists with their divergent working methods into primary schools. Beside fostering pupils' creative openness and skills, arts education organisations aim to transfer artistic enthusiasm to teachers in each project. Collaboration with artists can encourage teachers' artistic creative work. New working methods, techniques or ways of experimenting are more likely to be adopted in daily teaching practice when the project duration consists of several years. However, most projects are short‐lived and the means for a long‐term project policy are limited. Consequently, results in the area of sustainable outcomes concerning artistic creative work with teachers are limited. To create a long‐term view, the availability of financial resources is an important condition in order to realise a mentality change towards artistic creativity in education. Finally, continuing debate with several participants about making artistic creative work sustainable remains necessary.     

Gross Motor Skills and Sports Participation of Children With Visual Impairments

Gross motor skill performance of children with visual impairments and its association with the degree of visual impairment and sports participation was examined. Twenty children with visual impairments (M age = 9.2 years, SD =1.5) and 100 sighted children (M age = 9.1 years, SD = 1.5) from mainstream schools participated. The results showed that children with visual impairments had significantly lower object control but not locomotor skill scores than the sighted children. No significant differences were found between children with a moderate and severe visual impairment. Children with visual impairments who participated in sports had significantly higher object control skill scores than those who did not. No significant associations between motor skills and sports participation were found in the sighted children.     

The beginnings of modern education in Korea, 1883–1910

Korea opened up to foreign intercourse in 1876, when the country concluded its first international treaty with Japan. Similar treaties with European and American nations followed during the 1880s. The period until 1910, when Korea was annexed to the Japanese Empire, saw manifold attempts to reform as well as resistance to these reforms. Against the background of research on the world institutionalisation of education, this contribution analyses the changes that the opening of Korea entailed in the field of education, especially focusing on newly established forms of education. First, modern education was characterised by newly created institutions and curricula. These institutions can be classified according to the actors engaged in their creation, private Korean citizens, foreign missionary actors and the Korean government. Second, new educational discourses and practices characterised modern education in Korea. These new discourses played a central role in negotiating Korean nationalism and in culturally positioning Korea between China and the “West”. Bodily practices were radically changed through uniforms, new hairstyles and military drills. A new system of classroom interaction was introduced to Korea.     

The content of educational technology curricula: a cross-curricular state of the art

The purpose of this study is to analyze the content features of educational technology curricula for primary education developed by national governments. A qualitative cross-case document analysis of the national educational technology curriculum of Norway, Flanders and England was conducted. The analysis focuses on the underlying visions, specific aims and instruction related aspects that are integrated in the national educational technology curricula of the three cases under investigation. The results indicate that specific aims mainly focus on the critical use of educational technology; safe and responsible use of educational technology; information retrieval, processing and production; communication by use of educational technology; and use of educational technology for subject learning. It is possible that a discrepancy exists between the concepts of digital literacy and the specific aims that are addressed in educational technology curricula. Moreover, the rationales that underlie educational technology curricula represent a catalytic and social point of view rather than an economic one. The implications of our findings for curriculum developers and researchers are discussed.     

Research upon return: The effect of international mobility on scientific ties,production and impact

Highly skilled return migrants contribute to the establishment of ties between the home and host systems. This paper studies how the professional ties, which Argentinean researchers built up during the time spent in foreign research systems, influence their collaboration patterns and their research outputs upon return. It confirms the expectation that having foreign work experience helps to explain the propensity to co-publish internationally and it also shows that researchers collaborate to a higher degree with their former host system. Another central finding is that foreign work experience has a positive effect on the propensity to publish in journals with a high impact factor. Additionally, a large share of this type of research is published without international co-authorship. We therefore do no not find evidence of a lack of publication autonomy in the case of Argentinean returnees.     

Variability of inter-team distances associated with match events in elite-standard soccer

Abstract

In soccer, critical match events like goal attempts can be preceded by periods of instability in the balance between the two teams' behaviours. Therefore, we determined periods of high variability in the distance between the teams' centroid positions longitudinally and laterally in an international-standard soccer match and evaluated corresponding match events. Position data were collected with AMISCO Pro®. Inter-team distance variability was calculated over a 3-s moving window. Out of the 242 match periods that exceeded the variability criterion, 51 were dead-ball situations. Match events identified through longitudinal inter-team distance primarily related to defending players moving forward-backward after a longitudinal pass. Match events identified through lateral inter-team distance mainly corresponded with defending players moving laterally following sideways passing. One of two goals and two of fourteen goal-attempts were preceded by a period of high variability. Together, periods of highly variable inter-team distance were associated with collective defensive actions and team reorganisation in dead-ball moments rather than goals or goal attempts. Inter-team dynamics quantified (mutual) reorganisation of the teams and marked teams' collective defensive ability to respond to attacking explorations.     

Evolutionary theorizing and modeling of sustainability transitions

This paper argues that evolutionary thinking and modeling can contribute to the emerging research on sustainability transitions and their management. Evolutionary theory provides a range of concepts and mechanisms that are useful in making existing theorizing about transitions more precise and complete. In particular, we will discuss how the multi-level, multi-phase, co-evolutionary, and social learning dynamics underlying transitions can be addressed in evolutionary models. In addition, evolutionary theorizing offers suggestions for extending current theoretical frameworks of transitions. Group selection provides a good example. We review the small set of formal evolutionary models of sustainability transitions, and show that existing formal evolutionary models of technological, social and institutional change can provide useful inputs to transition research and management.     

Development of the self-regulated learning teacher belief scale

The present study describes the development and psychometric properties of the Self-Regulated Learning Teacher Belief Scale (SRLTB). The SRLTB is a self-report teacher scale with 10 items assessing teachers' beliefs about introducing self-regulated learning (SRL) in primary education. The process of item and scale development as well as testing and scale refinement procedure is presented. An explorative study (n=399) revealed a one-factor structure representing adherence of teachers for SRL in primary school. Next, Rasch analysis revealed good fit of the scale to the unidimensional continuum model. In a following study (n=553), construct validity of the SRLTB was confirmed. Finally, implications and limitations of the SRLTB for studying SRL are discussed. In general, the SRLTB appears to be a useful instrument for examining teacher beliefs about self-regulated learning practices in primary schools.     

Differences in game reading between selected and non-selected youth soccer players

Applying an established theory of cognitive development―Skill Theory―the current study compares the game-reading skills of youth players selected for a soccer school of a professional soccer club (n = 49) and their non-selected peers (n = 38). Participants described the actions taking place in videos of soccer game plays, and their verbalisations were coded using Skill Theory. Compared to the non-selected players, the selected players generally demonstrated higher levels of complexity in their game-reading, and structured the information of game elements―primarily the player, teammate and field―at higher complexity levels. These results demonstrate how Skill Theory can be used to assess, and distinguish game-reading of youth players with different expertise, a skill important for soccer, but also for other sports.