A Field Study of Traditional and Nontraditional Children's Baseball

Abstract

Nine- to 10-year-old children have difficulty playing baseball using adult rules because pitchers lack the ability to throw the ball over the plate with consistency and batters lack ability to hit erratically thrown balls. Thus a natural field experiment investigated a modification of adult baseball for 9- to 10-year-old children. Instead of one of the players on the opposing team pitching, the coach of the offensive team pitched to the batters. Teams in a league who played baseball by adult rules (traditional league) were compared with teams in a league who played the modified game (nontraditional league), and both these leagues were compared with 11- to 12-year-old teams (older league). Various offensive and defensive activities were recorded by two observers and satisfaction scores were obtained from the players after the games. More offensive and defensive activity occurred in the nontraditional league games than in the traditional and older league games.     

Achievement goals and school achievement: The transition to different school tracks in secondary school

During the transition from elementary school to secondary school, in Germany, students are assigned to different school tracks, academic or non-academic, that differ markedly in compositional and institutional characteristics, e.g., the level of cognitive activation and performance standards are higher in academic tracks than in non-academic tracks. Currently, there is a lack of research examining the changes in achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals) and in the association between achievement goals and school achievement during the transition to these different school tracks. There were 1646 students who participated in a large-scale, three-wave longitudinal study from Grade 4 to Grade 6. While results revealed only slight differences between the two school tracks, the three types of achievement goals declined over time. In elementary school mastery-approach goals were positively and performance-approach goals negatively associated with school grades. After the transition to secondary school mastery-approach goals predicted school grades positively, whereas performance-approach goals negatively influenced achievement (academic track). Overall, the results indicate that between-school-tracking plays a minor role for the development of achievement goals and the relation between goals and achievement.     

Learning motivation from a cross-cultural perspective: a moving target?

This paper investigates the relationship between educational achievement and the motivation to learn. We used the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that contains representative samples from 55 nations. A strong negative correlation between educational achievement and motivation toward science learning emerged at the national level. We found that differences in the socioeconomic levels of nations are associated with this unexpected negative correlation. Children from developed societies achieve higher educational results but may tend to be rather critical in describing their learning motivation, and vice versa, students from developing countries do not attain very high educational outcomes, but their motivation, as stated on the self-report questionnaires, is high. We offer different explanations for this phenomenon. The motivation to learn in relation to the level of development of countries is a moving target, and this should be taken into account at all levels of education policymaking, from schools to national governments.     

S?ure-Basenhaushalt

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Primäre und sekundäre Disparitäten des Hochschulzugangs: Erklärungsmodelle,Datengrundlagen und Entwicklungen

The present article addresses the question of how social origin affects access to higher education. The role of class-specific differences in school performance (primary effect) and cost-benefit considerations (secondary effect) are considered as well as the way in which changes in the institutional setup of the educational system may interact with social origin. The review shows that educational decisions at this later transition are mainly influenced by secondary effects. In particular, differences between social classes are explained by group-specific investment costs and expectations of the social context associated with continuing higher education. Although expansion of institutional pathways in upper secondary education has reduced social inequality in acquiring higher education entrance qualifications, secondary effects at the transition to university have been found to increase over time. Thus, within younger cohorts, high-school graduates with lower social status are more often diverted from higher education at universities by attractive vocational or nonuniversity pathways. The article discusses approaches to reduce secondary effects of social origin.     

Introduction to Technology in Kinesiology and Physical Education

Students in an undergraduate course, entitled “Writing in Sport Management” experienced a service-learning component through an outreach program with local sport organizations. The primary tenet behind implementing this teaching method was that students would garner a better understanding of business writing if they wrote within the context of the private sector. The aim of the study was to make preliminary observations regarding the potential of servicelearning as a means of providing field experiences that could benefit both students and teachers. Class instructors sewed as support staff and evaluated results through student logs, class presentations, student memorandums, product review, and interviews with agency personnel and students. Results indicated that service-learning improves learning and supported the notion that this teaching technique can provide substantive field experiences while allowing the instructor to monitor the process.     

A Note on Multigroup Comparisons Using SAS PROC CALIS

Ant colony optimization is a recently proposed heuristic procedure inspired by the behavior of real ants. This article applies the procedure to model specification searches in structural equation modeling and reports the results. The results demonstrate the capabilities of ant colony optimization algorithms for conducting automated searches.     

The Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
Has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else
It seems to him there are a thousand bars;
and behind the bars, no world.     

Keine Mythen, sondern fundierte Schulreformen

The Finnish education system has received much international attention because Finnish pupils have attained leading positions in the PISA studies. There are both historical and societal reasons for this, but the success is also a clear consequence of school reform and projects to develop school teaching. Following a historical overview, this essay will present the concrete reform initiatives at the educational system level (introduction of community schools) and at subject level (work on the curriculum, mathematics and natural science lessons, promotion of reading competencies, synergy effects and teacher training). The article will conclude with considerations for the future of the Finnish education system.