Effects of neuromuscular fatigue on perceptual-cognitive skills between genders in the contribution to the knee joint loading during side-stepping tasks

This study investigated whether neuromuscular fatigue affects the neuromuscular control of an athlete within a sports context setting and whether these effects were more pronounced in the females. Lower limb joint kinetics of 6 male and 6 female inter-varsity soccer players performing side-stepping tasks in non-fatigue versus fatigue and anticipated versus unanticipated conditions were quantified using 10 Motion Analysis Corporation cameras and a Kistler^? force platform. The Yo-Yo intermittent recovery Level 1 fatigue protocol was employed. Stance foot initial contact and peak forces, and peak joint knee moments of the lower limb were submitted to a 3-way mixed-model repeated measure ANOVA. The results suggested that males tend to elicit significantly higher knee joint loadings when fatigued. In addition, males elicited significantly higher peak proximal tibia anterior/posterior shear force, vertical ground reaction force at initial contact and peak internal rotational moments than females. These findings suggested that males were at greater overall injury risk than females, especially in the sagittal plane. Neuromuscular control-based training programmes/interventions that are designed to reduce the risk of the non-contact ACL injury need to be customised for the different genders.     

Strategies for effective faculty involvement in online activities aimed at promoting critical thinking and deep learning

Highly-traditional education systems that mainly offer what is known as direct instruction usually result in graduates with a surface approach to learning rather than a deep one. What is meant by deep-learning is learning that involves critical analysis, the linking of ideas and concepts, creative problem solving, and application (Harvey & Kamvounias, Higher Education Research & Development, 27(1), 31–41, doi: 10.1080/07294360701658716 2008)- all of which prepare graduates for life in the 21st Century. It is precisely this kind of deep learning that the current national educational reform initiatives in Bahrain are trying to promote, in contrast to what has usually been offered historically. Unfortunately, this noble aim is not always achieved and teaching methods need to be examined and developed, since there definitely are a lot of alternatives to stereotype lecturing in academic institutions (Annerstedt, Garza, Huang-DeVoss, Lindh & Rydmark, Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(2), 107–127, 2010). One such alternative suggested in this paper is that of increasing faculty involvement with students in online contexts, as a means for promoting critical thinking and deep learning.     

The Ideas of Parents and Children about the Importance of Developmental Skills among Palestinians in Israel Quelle importance les parents et enfants palestiniens d'Israe¨l attachent-ils aux aptitudes developpementales? Las Opiniones de los Padres y de los Niños sobre la Importancia de las aptitudes del Desarrollo de los Palestinos en Israel

The purpose of this study is to investigate parents' ideas about child development among Palestinians in an urban community in Israel. Parents and children were asked to indicate how important they believed a set of developmental skills was for children. Forty-eight Palestinian mothers, 48 Palestinian fathers, and 57 first-born children participated in the study. The parents were interviewed to determine their ideas about child development using the Developmental Timetable Questionnaire (Hess et al. , 1980). In addition, the children were interviewed to determine the importance of two categories of skills taken from the same questionnaire: social skills and school-related skills. The results of the study suggest that both mothers and fathers value school-related skills as the most important and cultural skills as the least important. More specifically, while examining differences across gender, parents of first-born girls emphasise school-related skills, independence, politeness, and compliance as the most important for girls, while parents of first-born boys emphasise the importance of being emotionally mature and socially skilful. The study revealed no significant differences across the gender of the parents. Male and female children value school-related more than social skills as well. These results are discussed in relation to the characteristics of the sample. Le but de cette étude est de cerner l'idée que se font les parents du développement des enfants au sein d'une communauté urbaine de palestiniens en Israël. On a demandé aux parents et aux enfants de dire àquel point ils considèrent comme importantes pour les enfants une série d'aptitudes développementales. 48 mères, 48 pères et 57 premiers et premières-nées palestiniens ont participé à l'étude. L'étude auprès des parents visait à déterminer leur conception du développement infantile à l'aide du Developmental Timetable Questionnaire (Questionnaire développemental) (Hess, Kashiwagi, Azuma, Price & Dickson, 1980). En outre, les questions posées aux enfants visaient à déterminer l'importance de deux catégories d'aptitudes découlant du même questionnaire: aptitudes sociales et aptitudes scolaires. Les résultats de l'étude suggèrent que les mères et les pères favorisent les aptitudes scolaires au-delà des aptitudes culturelles. Plus spécifiquement et lorsqu'il s'agit de considérer les différences entre les sexes, les parents de premières-nées privilégient les aptitudes scolaires, l'indépendance, la politesse et le respect alors que pour les premiers-nés, l'accent est mis sur l'importance de la maturité émotionnelle et d'une bonne maîtrise des aptitudes sociales. L'étude n'a révélé aucune différence majeure entre les pères et les mères. Les enfants, filles ou garçons, privilégient également les aptitudes scolaires au-delà des aptitudes sociales. Ces résultats font l'objet d'une discussion à la lumière des caractéristiques de l'échantillon. El propósito de esta investigación es estudiar las opiniones de los padres sobre el desarrollo infantil de los palestinos en una comunidad urbana en Israel. Se les preguntó a los padres y a los niños que indicarán lo importante que pensaban que eran un conjunto de aptitudes para el desarrollo de los niños. En la investigación tomaron parte 48 madres palestinas, 48 padres palestinos y 57 primogénitos. Los padres fueron entrevistados para determinar sus opiniones sobre el desarrollo de los niños usando el " Developmental Timetable Questionaire " (Cuestionario del Programa del Desarrollo) (Hess, Kashiwagi, Azuma, Price & Dickson, 1980). Adémas, los nin~os fueron entrevistados para determinar la importancia de dos categorías de aptitudes tomadas del mismo cuestionario: las aptitudes sociales y las aptitudes relacionadas con el aprendizaje. Los resultados de la investigación indican que tanto los padres como las madres valoran las aptitudes relacionadas con el aprendizaje como las más importantes y las aptitudes culturales como las menos importantes. Más concretamente, al examinar las diferencias entre los sexos, los padres de las niñas primogénitas hacen hincapié en las aptitudes relacionadas con el aprendizaje, la independencia, la cortesía, y la conformidad como lo más importante para las niñas, mientras que los padres de los niños primogénitos hacen hincapié en la importancia de ser maduro emocionalmente y socialmente hábil. La investigación no reveló diferencias importantes entre los sexos de los padres. Los niños y las niñas valoran las aptitudes relacionadas con el aprendizaje más que las aptitudes sociales. Estos resultados son analizados en relación con las características de la muestra.     

Achievement-oriented beliefs and their relation to academic expectations and school achievement among Qatari students

This study investigated the relation between motivational goals and university intentions, school valuing and school achievement. The premise of this study is that motivational goals play a key role in academic values and achievement. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the construct validity of the motivational measures drawn from the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM): mastery (effort and task), performance (competition and social power), social solidarity (social concern and affiliation), extrinsic (praise and token). A set of eight regression analyses was conducted to examine the relations among these eight motivational measures, future goals to attend college, the value of school and six school subjects. Eight regression equations revealed that effort and task were the most significant predictors of the dependent variables of university intention, valuing school and school achievement scores. Students in Qatar exhibited ‘effort and task’ in goal motivation in relation to students’ beliefs regarding future academic goals and achievement scores in school subjects. As Qatar is a highly gender-segregated society, analyses were also conducted by gender.     

Impact of teachers’ professional development on school improvement—an analysis at Bangladesh standpoint

This study seeks to describe the teachers’ professional development activities in Bangladesh and explores the hypotheses about the relationship between teachers’ traditional professional development activities and school improvement. Data from a representative sample of City secondary schools from Bangladesh (n = 127) were gathered through questionnaires from 127 principals and 694 teachers. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used in this research. This study found significant impacts of some of teachers’ professional development activities on school improvement. Also found that the maximum school improvement can be achieved if schools put more emphasis on teachers’ collaboration, in-service training and classroom observation and less emphasis on individual action enquiry. The findings of this study provide important information for the policy makers, educational managers and especially for the headmasters and teachers concerned with the improvement of teachers’ quality in secondary schools of Bangladesh. This study adopts a concurrent approach of data collection and analysis.     

Suppressing Memory and Knowledge: A Self-taught Pedagogy

This article contextualizes the significance of lived experience in relation to personal narratives and learning largely by examining Zainab Salbi’s autobiography Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam. Discussing Salbi’s education and personal life as the daughter of Saddam’s private pilot, the article explores the learner’s reluctance to share what Donald Winnicott calls ‘the secret self’. This resistance on the part of the learner complicates the notion of communication as a therapeutic method that educators usually use as the bases for teaching and learning, as explicated by Alice Pitt. In Salbi’s politicized world, she explains how suppressed memory and reluctance to express oneself are tools of survival that ultimately turn into a lifestyle inside and outside the classroom. By employing Winnicott’s metaphor of hide and seek to demonstrate ambivalence in communication, this study explores how Salbi’s experience as a woman with a suppressed personal history can culturally and psychologically be very similar to teachers and students who are reluctant to share their own memories. In effect, this paper examines the implications of suppressed memory and knowledge among reluctant learners for pedagogical practices worldwide.     

Contextual influences on sources of academic self-efficacy: a validation with secondary school students of Kerala

This study investigates the theorized sources of Academic Self-Efficacy among the higher secondary school students of Kerala, India. Mastery Experience in the form of Academic Achievement, vicarious experience in the form of School Image and Social Persuasion in the form of Parental Encouragement are included as the predictor variables of Academic Self-Efficacy. Participants in the present study were 700 higher secondary school students of Kerala, selected using stratified random sampling. The findings of the study confirm the theorized correlation of Academic Self-Efficacy with previous achievement, vicarious experience (school image) and persuasory information (parental encouragement). In the total sample, the percent of variance in Academic Self-Efficacy that is predictable by the three-predictor variables is nearly one quarter (23.83?%). School Image is the best contributing variable (9.42?%) followed by Mastery Experience (8.67?%) and then by Parental Encouragement (5.74?%). The findings shows that apart from cultural differences, locale and gender difference also exist in sources of Academic Self-Efficacy. The superiority of School Image over Mastery Experience in predicting Academic Self-Efficacy is different from that found in the West, theoretically and empirically. In India, self-efficacy beliefs of youngsters continue to depend more on social and domestic factors than personal experience and mastery.