Muscular development motives for exercise participation: The missing variable in current questionnaire analysis?

Motivation questionnaires that are currently validated do not account for muscular development motives in exercise populations, and have rarely been used to examine resistance training populations. Resistance training is a popular and widely available exercise, so the lack of such motivational information is a cause for concern. The aim of this study was to assess the need for considering motives for muscular development. This was achieved by the development of a simple scale that matched the format and style of the Exercise Motivations Inventory. The muscular development scale was combined with the ‘weight management’ and ‘appearance’ items of the Exercise Motivations Inventory to form a 13-item test questionnaire. This was administered to four groups of experienced exercisers: resistance training males (n = 40), resistance training females (n = 36), males training in a variety of sports (n = 27) and aerobic training females (n = 40). Factor analysis with varimax rotation revealed a relatively distinct muscular development factor, but with cross-loading on weight management. Muscular development was shown to be the most effective discriminator for the four groups. A multivariate analysis of variance and additional discriminant analysis revealed a series of significant differences between groups, which suggests that motive-based differences are more powerful than sex factors in determining choice of exercise modality. Although the interrelated nature of muscular development and weight management needs to be recognized and accounted for, there is a clear need for considering muscular development motives in future investigations, especially those that intend to examine motives for ‘ideal’ physical appearance.     

Internal and External Focus of Attention in a Novice Form Sport

Abstract

In the current experiment, we examined optimal focus for novices during a movement sequence in which performance was measured on accurate movement form/technique. A novel gymnastics routine was practiced under either an internal skill-relevant, internal skill-irrelevant, external, or no attention focus. Retention and transfer tests were then completed. During acquisition, adopting an internal irrelevant focus significantly improved performance, whereas an external focus degraded performance. There were no significant group differences in the retention and transfer tests. This suggests that learning of movement form/technique did not benefit from a specific focus of attention. The results are interpreted via an attentional capacity viewpoint and the notion that form tasks do not always contain obvious movement effects central to common coding and the constrained action hypothesis.     

‘Old’ Football and the ‘New’ Codes: Some Thoughts on the ‘Origins of Football’ Debate and Suggestions for Further Research

A close reading of recent contributions to the ‘origins of football’ debate suggests that there is now more consensus among scholars about the broad sequence of events than is rhetorically allowed. However, this consensus itself rests on some shared conceptual and methodological illusions. These include: a continual naivety about the use of the name ‘football’ in the primary source materials; asystematic underestimation of forms of play (and a collateral overestimation of the importance of rules and codifications) in the development of football; and, above all, a widely shared, and very dubious, conviction that the pursuit of the historical origins of football is a meaningful activity. This article analyses each ofthese illusions in turn and suggests some methodological and substantive alternatives to them. These alternatives sum to the conclusion that the origin of both modern football codes is a far more remarkable and many-sided story than has been appreciated, even in the very best research to date. Moreover, it is a story whose many dimensions and implications go well beyond the borders of Britain, and indeed beyond the history of ‘soccer’ or ‘rugby’ alone.     

Teacher beliefs about feedback within an assessment for learning environment: Endorsement of improved learning over student well-being

Teachers’ understandings of feedback probably influence the type and quality of feedback that they provide. The beliefs of 518 New Zealand practicing teachers about feedback were evaluated with the Teachers’ Conceptions of Feedback (TCoF) inventory and related to practices these teachers considered to be feedback. Nine feedback factors and four practices factors were found and models were statistically invariant between primary and secondary teachers. New Zealand teachers’ understandings of feedback were strongly focused on improving learning instead of enhancing student well-being. Similar factors are expected in other contexts, though agreement rates should reflect local policy priorities and cultural values.     

Alignment Between the Science Curriculum and Assessment in Selected NY State Regents Exams

This article reports on an analysis of alignment between NY state core curricula and NY Regents tests in physics and chemistry. Both the curriculum and test were represented by a two dimensional table consisting of topics and cognitive demands. The cell values of the table were numbers of major understandings in the curriculum and points of test items in the test. The Porter alignment index was computed for each test. It was found that, overall, there was a high alignment between the NY core curriculum and the NY Regents test, and the alignment remained fairly stable from test to test. However, there were considerable discrepancies in emphases on different cognitive levels and topics between the core curriculum and the test. Issues related to the nature of alignment, and the nature and validity of content standards were raised, and implications for science curriculum and instructions were also discussed.