Three‐year results of the Friendly Schools whole‐of‐school intervention on children's bullying behaviour

A group randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of the Friendly Schools program to reduce student bullying behaviour. This socio‐ecological intervention targeted the whole school, classroom, family, and individual students to reduce bullying behaviour. Self‐report data were collected in 29 schools over three years from a cohort of 1968 eight to nine‐year‐olds. Surveys measured frequency of being bullied, bullying others, telling if bullied and observing bullying. Results indicate that intervention students were significantly less likely to observe bullying at 12, 24 and 36 months and be bullied after 12 and 36 months, and significantly more likely to tell if bullied after 12 months than comparison students. No differences were found for self‐reported perpetration of bullying. The findings suggest whole‐of‐school programs that engage students in their different social contexts appear to reduce their experiences of being bullied and increase their likelihood of telling someone if they are bullied.     

Muscle metabolism and performance improvement after two training programmes of sprint running differing in rest interval duration

Repeated-sprint training often involves short sprints separated by inadequate recovery intervals. The effects of interval duration on metabolic and performance parameters are unclear. We compared the effects of two training programmes, differing in rest interval duration, on muscle (vastus lateralis) metabolism and sprint performance. Sixteen men trained three times a week for 8 weeks, each training session comprising 2-3 sets of two 80-m sprints. Sprints were separated by 10 s (n = 8) or 1 min (n = 8). Both training programmes improved performance in the 100-, 200-, and 300-m sprints, but the improvement was greater in the 10-s group during the final 100 m of the 200- and 300-m runs. Independent of interval duration, training mitigated the drop of muscle ATP after two 80-m sprints. The drop in phosphocreatine and the increases in glucose-6-phosphate and fructose-6-phosphate after two 80-m sprints were greater in the 10-s group. In conclusion, training with a limited number of repeated short sprints (≤10 s) may be more effective in improving speed maintenance in 200- and 300-m runs when performed with a 1:1 rather than a 1:6 exercise-to-rest ratio. This may be due to a greater activation of glycolysis caused, in part, by the limited resynthesis of phosphocreatine during the very short rest interval.     

Validation of MET estimates and step measurement using the ActivPAL physical activity logger

The purpose of this study was to determine the validity of the metabolic equivalent (MET) equation and step rate function of the ActivPAL? physical activity logger in a group of females. Using a standard treadmill protocol, 62 females aged 15-25 years walked on a treadmill at speeds between 3.2 and 7.0 km · h(-1) while wearing an ActivPAL. Oxygen consumption was measured using expired gas analysis at each speed and METs for each speed were estimated based on each participant's own resting metabolic rate. A sub-set of 18 participants also wore an Actigraph. Results showed that the in-built equation in the ActivPAL significantly underestimated (P < 0.001) METs under treadmill conditions at higher intensities. The ActivPAL equation is based on step rate yet the relationship between counts and measured METs (r = 0.76; P < 0.001) is stronger than that between steps and measured METs (r = 0.59; P < 0.001). Both the ActivPAL and Actigraph step functions showed no significant difference (P > 0.05) to video recorded step rate except at the slowest walking speed where the Actigraph significantly underestimated steps (P < 0.05). The development of a new equation based on the counts-METs relationship that includes a variety of speeds and activities would be useful. The ActivPAL step function performs better than the Actigraph at the slowest walking speed under treadmill conditions.     

Are governments complying with transparency? Findings from 15 years of evaluation

How well do governments comply with their own transparency statutes? Alarmingly, answers to this question are in short supply because of patchy comparative data. This study begins to address this gap by analyzing an exhaustive compilation of 265 transparency compliance evaluations (i.e. audits) authored by NGOs, academics, and government oversight authorities across Latin America between 2003 and 2018. Aggregating data on patterns of evaluation and public sector compliance with transparency statutes, we find modest increases in compliance over time, strikingly low compliance with passive transparency compliance (i.e. governmental responses to citizen requests) at the local versus national levels of government, and significantly higher compliance scores when government oversight agencies act as evaluators. Our data also reveal worrying gaps in evaluation efforts. Evaluators tend to focus far more on active transparency (i.e. website-based disclosure) than passive transparency, more on national level governments than subnational governments, and preponderantly on the executive as opposed to legislative or judicial branches of government. Textual analyses show that education is the most evaluated policy theme, with financial policies and social services close behind. In presenting the first large-scale cross-national assessment of transparency compliance, the current study brings to light trends in the effectiveness of transparency regimes and patterns of transparency evaluation across Latin America.     

Designing biomimetic robots: iterative development of an integrated technology design curriculum

Educational technology research and development - In most middle schools, learning is segregated by discipline. Yet interdisciplinary approaches have been shown to cultivate creative thinking,...     

Note-taking within MetaTutor: interactions between an intelligent tutoring system and prior knowledge on note-taking and learning

Hypermedia learning environments (HLE) unevenly present new challenges and opportunities to learning processes and outcomes depending on learner characteristics and instructional supports. In this experimental study, we examined how one such HLE—MetaTutor, an intelligent, multi-agent tutoring system designed to scaffold cognitive and metacognitive self-regulated learning (SRL) processes—interacts with learner’s prior domain knowledge to affect their note-taking activities and subsequent learning outcomes. Sixty (N = 60) college students studied with MetaTutor for 120 min and took notes on hypermedia content of the human circulatory system. Log-files and screen recordings of learner-system interactions were used to analyze notes for several quantitative and qualitative variables. Results show that most note-taking was a verbatim copy of instructional content, which negatively related to the post-test measure of learning. There was an interaction between prior knowledge and pedagogical agent scaffolding, such that low prior knowledge students took a greater quantity of notes compared to their high prior knowledge counterparts, but only in the absence of MetaTutor SRL scaffolding; when agent SRL scaffolding was present, the note-taking activities of low prior knowledge students were statistically equivalent to the number of notes taken by their high prior knowledge counterparts. Theoretical and instructional design implications are discussed.     

Multiple Copies of Bestsellers in Public Libraries: How Much Is Enough?

How do public libraries develop their collections of high-demand materials for the “I want it now” generation? Ten public libraries’ holdings of fiction and nonfiction bestseller titles were observed over a four-week period. The number of copies rose fairly consistently, with the five fiction titles having roughly about twice the number of copies as the five nonfiction titles. The ratio of holds to copies averaged 2.7:1 and ranged from 0.8:1 to 6.5:1. Demand for e-books was consistently higher than the number of copies available, averaging more than 4:1 across all libraries.