What did schools experience from participating in a randomised controlled study (PLAY) that prioritised risk and challenge in active play for children while at school?

‘Risky’ play is an important component of play, which positively affects the cognitive, social and emotional development of children. However, a growing culture of ‘risk aversion’ may be limiting the degree of risk that children are allowed to encounter. We undertook qualitative interviews with eight schools to examine the acceptability of an intervention designed to increase risk and challenge in the school playground (e.g. more rough-and-tumble play and tree climbing). Schools were overwhelmingly positive about the approach and all enjoyed participating. Each school believed many benefits occurred from increasing risk and challenge within play, including better behaviour, improved cooperation between children and increases in physical activity. There were some challenges for schools, but these were generally research related, and all were viewed as acceptable. Indeed, schools found the process enlightening, and upon completion of the two-year intervention often viewed play in quite a different light.     

Reading ability and sensitivity to morphological relations

The morpho-phonological nature of English orthography is examined in this study of the relation between morphological sensitivity and decoding ability in the latter elementary grades. Children in grades three to six were required to distinguish derivationally-related word pairs (e.g., nature-natural) from foil pairs that are related in spelling but not in morphology (e.g., ear-earth). The materials included both transparently-related (i.e., the second word incorporated the pronunciation of the first, as in person-personal) and complexly-related word pairs (i.e., the second word involved some change in pronunciation, as in atom-atomic). Across two experiments, these items were presented in either oral or written form along with various tests of reading ability, intelligence and phonological awareness. The results indicate that children's recognition of derivational relationships improved with grade-level. As anticipated, there was also a significant association between sensitivity to derivational relatedness and decoding ability which remains significant even when the word pairs were orally presented and even when phonological awareness in taken into account. Both phonological awareness and sensitivity to morphological structure emerge as important factors in decoding skill in the later elementary grades.     

Age-ordered shirt numbering reduces the selection bias associated with the relative age effect

When placed into age groups for junior sporting competition, the relative differences in age between children leads to a bias in who is evaluated as being talented. While the impact of this relative age effect (RAE) is clear, until now there has been no evidence to show how to reduce it. The aim of this study was to determine whether the selection bias associated with the RAE could be reduced. Talent scouts from an elite football club watched junior games and ranked players on the basis of their potential. Scouts were allocated to one of three groups provided with contrasting information about the age of the players: (1) no age information, (2) players’ birthdates or (3) knowledge that the numbers on the playing shirts corresponded to the relative age of the players. Results revealed a significant selection bias for the scouts in the no-age information group, and that bias remained when scouts knew the players’ dates-of-birth. Strikingly though, the selection bias was eliminated when scouts watched the games knowing the shirt numbers corresponded to the relative ages of the players. The selection bias associated with the RAE can be reduced if information about age is presented appropriately.     

The effect of biofeedback training on affective regulation and simulated car-racing performance: a multiple case study analysis

The foundation of this study was based on an idiosyncratic concept, which uses probabilistic determinations (Kamata, Tenenbaum, & Hanin, 2002) to verify the utility and effectiveness of a biofeedback intervention by manipulating affective performance states in a race-car simulator. Nine males completed five separate time-trials of a simulated racing task and were then randomly assigned to one of three arousal regulation treatment conditions: (1) optimal, (2) poor, and (3) attention control. Following the biofeedback intervention, participants underwent another series of race trials to determine the effectiveness of the arousal regulation intervention. The results indicated that there were relative similarities in the strength and direction of the perceived and physiological states between the participants; however, the subtle details of the participants' unique performance zones and the probability of achieving each zone were revealed to be unique among the participants. The results also indicated that: (a) the biofeedback manipulation resulted in the expected changes for each participant, and (b) there were some large individual differences among the participants, necessitating the idiosyncratic approach. Limitations and future directions are also addressed.     

Involvement with child protective services: Is this a useful question in population-based surveys?

Direct questions on child maltreatment in population-based surveys are often limited by ethical and methodological issues. This restricts the ability of researchers to examine an important aspect of early adversity and its relationship to health and behavior. An alternative to excluding issues of maltreatment entirely in population-based surveys is to include questions on child and family involvement with child protective services (CPS). A school-based adolescent survey that included a question on child and family involvement with CPS yielded results that were generally consistent with other studies relating child maltreatment to health and behavioral outcomes such as psychological distress symptoms, delinquency, aspects of bullying, and health service utilization. Such findings suggest that questions on involvement with CPS may be a reasonable proxy for child maltreatment. Despite the lack of information on the reason for involvement or specific categories of maltreatment, CPS involvement questions highlight the shared familial experience that surrounds CPS involvement and serves as a general reflection of an adverse experience that can be utilized by researchers interested in early experiences.     

Can Tracing Tools Contribute to Programming Proficiency? The LISP Evaluation Modeler

Abstract

Tracing solutions to programming problems is a long‐standing technique used to reveal the details of a solution and to expose bugs in a program. Tracing can also help programmers build a model or representation of how a programming language responds to code. This article describes the LISP Evaluation Modeler (LEM), an on‐line tracing tool designed to (a) help novices form an understanding of and facility with the LISP evaluation process, and (b) assist all programmers in designing and debugging programs. An empirical study of LEM demonstrates its advantages for design, comprehension, and debugging and suggests ways in which LEM can help novices learning LISP.