THE INFLUENCE OF A DESIRABILITY HALO EFFECT ON RATINGS OF INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

A rationale is provided for hypothesizing that a counterpart of the social desirability variable influences environmental ratings based on student perceptions, and a test is made of the hypothesis. The High School Characteristics Index was administered to 2819 high school seniors from 11 high schools. Social desirability scale values for the 300 items and 30 scale scores of the HSCI were obtained from 85 students in Education, and these values were correlated with the endorsement percentages and average scale scores for the students in each of the 11 high schools. Results indicated an appreciable "desirability halo" effect for some student bodies, with wide differences among student bodies with respect to the strength and direction of that effect. The results are interpreted as a serious challenge to the validity and discriminative capability of environmental assessment techniques based on student perceptions.     

On Simulation and the Teaching of Statistics

The use of simulation as an instructional tool can promote a deep conceptual understanding of statistics and lead to misunderstandings. Teachers need to be aware of the misconceptions that can arise as a result of simulation and carefully structure classroom activities so as to derive the benefits of this powerful instructional tool.     

Anti-doping policies and the Gay Games; Morgan’s treatment–enhancement distinction in action

The anti-doping policy of the Gay Games offers an interesting exemplification of the treatment–enhancement distinction. Some Gay Games athletes require steroids to deal with the effects of HIV or for sexual reassignment, and the practice community had to negotiate coordinating conventions with regard to steroid use that remained committed to the deeper conventions of Gay Games sport. This paper will investigate the way that this policy emanated from the type of participatory social practice community that would be necessary for any sport to challenge the anti-doping fundamentalism within contemporary sports.     

Influence of ACTN3 R577X polymorphism on ventilatory thresholds related to endurance performance

The purpose of this study was to verify the association between ACTN3 polymorphism and physiological parameters related to endurance performance. A total of 150 healthy male volunteers performed a maximal incremental running test to determine the speeds corresponding to ventilatory threshold (VT) and respiratory compensation point (RCP). Participants were genotyped and divided into terciles based on the analysed variables. Genotype frequencies were compared through χ² test between lower and higher terciles, with the lowest or highest values of each analysed variable. ACTN3 XX genotype was over-represented in higher tercile for VT and RCP. Odds ratio also showed significantly higher chances of XX individuals to be in higher tercile compared to RR (7.3) and RR + RX (3.5) for VT and compared to RR genotype (8.1) and RR + RX (3.4) for RCP. Thus, XX individuals could attain the VT and RCP at higher speeds, suggesting that they are able to sustain higher running speeds in lower exercise intensity domains. It could result in higher lipid acids oxidation, saving muscle glycogen and delaying the fatigue during prolonged exercises, which could be the advantage mechanism of this genotype to endurance performance.     

The Use of Mobile Learning in Science: A Systematic Review

The use of mobile learning in education is growing at an exponential rate. To best understand how mobile learning is being used, it is crucial to gain a collective understanding of the research that has taken place. This systematic review reveals the trends in mobile learning in science with a comprehensive analysis and synthesis of studies from the year 2000 onward. Major findings include that most of the studies focused on designing systems for mobile learning, followed by a combination of evaluating the effects of mobile learning and investigating the affective domain during mobile learning. The majority of the studies were conducted in the area of life sciences in informal, elementary (5–11 years) settings. Mobile devices were used in this strand of science easily within informal environments with real-world connections. A variety of research methods were employed, providing a rich research perspective. As the use of mobile learning continues to grow, further research regarding the use of mobile technologies in all areas and levels of science learning will help science educators to expand their ability to embrace these technologies.     

Absenteeism in Undergraduate Business Education: A Proposed Model and Exploratory Investigation*

One issue in undergraduate business education remaining underexamined is student absenteeism. In this article, the literature on undergraduate absenteeism is reviewed culminating in a proposed conceptual framework to guide future research, and an exploratory investigation of management students’ attitudes about absenteeism is conducted. Implications for research practice are discussed.     

About looking: Vision,transformation, and the education of the eye in discourses of school renewal past and present

This article reports the interim findings of historical research, funded by the British Academy (2007), which is exploring the possibilities of prosopography (the study of biographies linked through a common purpose, philosophy or practice) in researching the relationship between educational thought and school design since World War Two. Through oral history and archival research, the lives of leading figures in the post‐war period of English school design have been examined in relationship with one another. The research has uncovered networks of individual architects and educationists who together constructed a particular vision of education and subsequently a process of school design during the third quarter of the twentieth century. The research suggests that current efforts to visualise school as a transformational and transformed learning environment might profit from the notion of prosopography in the sense that it may help to expand our understanding of contemporary networks that are engaged in constructing a common vision of school for the twenty‐first century. The article begins with a brief discussion of discourses of educational vision set in the context of the contemporary UK government Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and Primary Capital Building programmes. It then moves on to demonstrate how a network of individuals, linked to three key protagonists in school/education design, developed in England during the post‐war period of reconstruction a collective vision of school which gave a special significance to what came to be understood as the education of the eye. This research suggests that while vision is important, the history of visualising school offers another still relevant set of references to those generally chosen today.