African international doctoral students in New Zealand: Englishes,doctoral writing and intercultural supervision

While the experiences of international doctoral students, especially those from Asian countries, have been well researched, fewer studies have explored the experiences of African students in Southern countries like Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. This article reports on doctoral writing and student and supervisor perspectives on English languages in a small study of supervisors and African students in New Zealand. It challenges deficit constructions of African students and illustrates how the growing internationalisation of higher education is adding to the complexities of doctoral writing, raising questions as to how students and supervisors recognise and navigate differences in Englishes and doctoral writing. It makes a number of recommendations about how supervisors might work effectively with African and other doctoral students.     

Guanxi and school success: an ethnographic inquiry of parental involvement in rural China

This study examines the differential patterns of school success of rural students as a result of China’s market transition. The process dimension, how families from different social backgrounds within rural society get involved in rural schooling and how this contributes to the inequality of school success within rural society, is investigated. The data analysis suggests that schools as institutions provide few official channels for rural parents to participate in rural schools and help their children to achieve school success. This raises the importance of families’ strategic initiatives to employ guanxi within family, community and between school and family. These make the point that guanxi and their employment have become an important mechanism for social inclusion and exclusion in the competition for advantages in school success in post-socialist China.     

Is sports science answering the call for interdisciplinary research? A systematic review

Sports science research is traditionally monodisciplinary despite calls for an interdisciplinary focus. The primary purpose of this systematic review was to identify studies on talent identification, talent selection and competition performance to determine whether interdisciplinary research is being conducted. Thirty-six studies met the selection criteria. These studies were critiqued relative to sport, skill level, sport science sub-disciplines included, and whether the research was multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary. The secondary purpose of the review was to critique the level of analysis and level of representative task design in performance tests used in the studies. Twenty-five studies were categorised as interdisciplinary, with 11 categorised as multidisciplinary. Thirteen sports were represented with soccer the most frequent followed by field hockey, Australian Rules football, handball and rugby league. Thirty-two studies completed their analysis at a group level and four at an individual level. A total of 337 performance tests were rated for representative task design with 64 categorised as low, 123 as medium and 150 as high. The results pertaining to interdisciplinary studies and individual analyses are discussed in relation to constraints theory, which predicts that interacting variables can explain sport performance. Sports science research is beginning to fulfil the call for interdisciplinary research. Future research, however, needs to consider individual analyses and representative task design of tests to progress sports science knowledge.     

Angle-specific hamstring-to-quadriceps ratio: A comparison of football players and recreationally active males

It is currently unclear how football participation affects knee-joint muscle balance, which is widely considered a risk factor for hamstrings injury. This study compared the angle-specific functional hamstring-to-quadriceps (H:Q) ratio (hamstrings eccentric torque as a ratio of quadriceps concentric torque at the same knee-joint angle) of football players with recreationally active controls. Ten male footballers and 14 controls performed maximal voluntary isometric and isovelocity concentric and eccentric contractions (60, 240 and 400° s^?1) of the knee extensors and flexors. Gaussian fitting to the raw torque values was used to interpolate torque values for knee-joint angles of 100–160° (60° s^?1), 105–160° (240° s^?1) and 115–145° (400° s^?1). The angle-specific functional H:Q ratio was calculated from the knee flexors eccentric and knee extensors concentric torque at the same velocity and angle. No differences were found for the angle-specific functional H:Q ratio between groups, at any velocity. Quadriceps and hamstrings strength relative to body mass of footballers and controls was similar for all velocities, except concentric knee flexor strength at 400° s^?1 (footballers +40%; P < 0.01). In previously uninjured football players, there was no intrinsic muscle imbalance and therefore the high rate of hamstring injuries seen in this sport may be due to other risk factors and/or simply regular exposure to a high-risk activity.     

Reviews of teacher training and teacher performance in developing countries: Beeby revisited (2)

The effects of teacher training and qualifications on teacher and student performance in developing countries have been matters of considerable interest recently. A forerunner to this debate was a relationship hypothesized by C.E. Beeby between levels of general education and professional training of teachers and passage through stages of educational development. In a recent critique of Beeby's stages, it was argued that the stages concept is theoretically and methodologically unsound; however, the relationship between teachers' training and performance received only cursory attention. This article pursues the issue further through an analysis of recent literature reviews on teacher effectiveness in developing countries. Given the objections to stage analysis, Beeby's hypothesis was recast to predict a positive relationship between teachers' general education and professional training as independent variables and teachers' performance as dependent variable. The two less restrictive and more wide-ranging of the literature reviews provided considerable support for this hypothesis in developing countries, but made clear that the exact nature of the relationship is complex and varies considerably between different educational and cultural contexts. It was noted that considerable attention is needed to operational specification of the hypothesis according to the needs of individual countries. Research should no longer concentrate on whether such a relationship exists, but should seek to establish the particular nature of the relationship in the different contexts.

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Zusammenfassung In letzter Zeit ist viel über die Auswirkungen der Lehrerausbildung und ihrer Qualifikationen auf die Leistungen von Lehrern und Schülern in Entwicklungsländern diskutiert worden. Ein Vorläufer dieser Debatte war eine von C.E. Beeby aufgestellte Hypothese über den Zusammenhang zwischen dem Niveau der Allgemeinbildung und beruflichen Ausbildung von Lehrern und ihrem Durchlaufen von pädagogischen Entwicklungsstufen. In einer neueren Kritik von Beeby's Stufentheorie wurde ausgeführt, daß das Stufenkonzept theoretisch und methodologisch angreifbar sei; auf den Zusammenhang von Lehrerausbildung und -leistung wurde jedoch nicht näher eingegangen. Der vorliegende Artikel geht der Frage weiter nach, indem er neuere Literatur über die Effizienz von Lehrern in Entwicklungsländern analysiert. Angesichts der Einwendungen gegen die Stufenanalyse wird Beeby's Hypothese so abgewandelt, daß sie einen positiven Zusammenhang zwischen der Allgemeinbildung und beruflichen Ausbildung von Lehrern als unabhängigen Variablen und ihrer Leistung als abhängiger Variable ergibt. Die beiden weniger einschränkenden und weitreichenderen Literaturstudien liefern beachtliche Unterstützung für diese Hypothese in bezug auf Entwicklungsländer, machen aber deutlich, daß dieser Zusammenhang komplexer Natur ist und in den verschiedenen pädagogischen und kulturellen Kontexten erheblich variiert. Daher muß der operationellen Spezifizierung der Hypothese entsprechend den Bedürfnissen der einzelnen Länder besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet werden. Die Forschung sollte sich nicht länger darauf konzentrieren, ob ein solcher Zusammenhang besteht, sondern vor allem die Eigenart der Beziehung in den verschiedenen Kontexten untersuchen.

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Résumé Les effets de la formation et des qualifications de l'enseignant sur le rendement de l'enseignant et de l'étudiant dans les pays en développement ont été l'objet, récemment, d'un intérêt considérable. Le postulat formulé par Beeby d'une relation entre les niveaux de l'éducation générale et la formation professionnelle des enseignants ainsi que le passage par une série d'étapes de développement éducationnel a été le prélude de ce débat. Une récente critique des étapes de Beeby a argué que son concept était théoriquement et méthodologiquement erroné; cependant la relation entre la formation et la performance des enseignants a retenu quelque peu l'attention. Cet article approfondit la question en analysant les enquêtes récentes sur la performance de l'enseignant dans les pays en développement. Etant donné les objections présentées à l'analyse de l'étape, l'hypothèse de Beeby a été remaniée pour prédire une relation positive entre l'éducation générale des enseignants et la formation professionnelle considérées comme des variables indépendantes et la performance des enseignants vue comme une variable dépendante. Les deux enquêtes les moins restrictives et les plus ouvertes portant sur les écrits inspirés par ce thème ont fortement étayé cette hypothèse dans les pays en développement, mais ont clairement montré par ailleurs que la nature exacte de cette relation est complexe et qu'elle varie considérablement selon les contextes culturels et éducatifs. On a remarqué que la spécification opérationnelle de l'hypothèse en fonction des besoins de chacun des pays requiert une attention extrême. La recherche ne doit plus se consacrer désormais à vérifier l'existence d'une telle relation mais bien s'intéresser à la nature particulière de ce rapport dans les différents contextes.

     

A Cross-National Study of Secondary Science Classroom Environments in Australia and Indonesia

This article reports a cross-national study of classroom environments in Australia and Indonesia. A modified version of the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was used simultaneously in these two countries to: 1) crossvalidate the modified WIHIC; 2) investigate differences between countries and sexes in perceptions of classroom environment; and 3) investigate associations between students’ attitudes to science and their perceptions of classroom environment. The sample consisted of 1,161 students (594 students from 18 classes in Indonesia and 567 students from 18 classes in Australia). Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation supported the validity of a revised structure for the WIHIC. Two-way MANOVA revealed some differences between countries and between sexes in students’ perceptions of their classroom environments. Simple correlation and multiple regression analyses revealed generally positive associations between the classroom environment and student attitudes to science in both countries.     

Impact of solid / vapour equilibria on conditions of crystallization of pharmaceutical compounds

The influence of solvent (in its gaseous state) on the stability of crystallized organic compounds was investigated. Through two examples of studies on the solid/vapour equilibria made in our lab, several behaviors were highlighted: (i) a new hydrated phase (thermodynamically stable) of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) was detected after the recrystallization starting from a deliquescent state, (ii) a spontaneous resolution of a hydrated racemic compound towards an anhydrous conglomerate can occur during the desolvation under the precise conditions of temperature and humidity. This study illustrates that knowledge about solid/vapour equilibrium is a crucial step during the complete characterization of solid organic compounds.     

Processus de recherche d'un probleme de geometrie chez l'eleve de l'enseignement secondaire

This article describes part of the research done in the IREM of Montpellier, concerning plane Euclidean geometry. Fifty secondary school pupils worked on the following problem: given two circles and a rectangle, what is the largest possible number of points of intersection? The author studies some of the typical trains of thought of the pupils during the course of solving the problem' In this way he introduces and analyses three ideas: elementary thought processes, the bridging of local gaps, the processes of differentiation and integration.