The misallocation of students to academic sets in maths: A study of secondary schools in England

Drawing upon data gathered from 9301 Year 7 students (12–13 years old) from 46 secondary schools in England, this study represents the first larger-scale attempt to compare their actual set allocations in maths with the counterfactual position where their allocation to sets is based solely on their prior attainment at the end of primary school [using their Key Stage 2 (KS2) fine-grained scores in maths]. Through such an analysis, the study found that nearly a third of students (31.2%) had been misallocated to lower or higher sets than their KS2 results would have warranted. Beyond this, school setting practices were found to exacerbate differences in set allocation in relation to gender and ethnicity, but not socioeconomic background. The odds of girls being misallocated to lower sets in maths than their prior attainment would warrant was found to be 1.5 times higher than that for boys. Similarly, the odds of Black students being misallocated to lower sets was 2.4 times higher than for White students, whilst the odds of Asian students being misallocated to lower maths sets was 1.7 times higher than for White students. The article concludes by reflecting on the significant role that setting by attainment in secondary school can play in exacerbating already established patterns of educational inequalities in gender and ethnicity.     

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness After Inspiratory Threshold Loading in Healthy Adults

Purpose: Skeletal muscle damage occurs following high-intensity or unaccustomed exercise; however, it is difficult to monitor damage to the respiratory muscles, particularly in humans. The aim of this study was to use clinical measures to investigate the presence of skeletal muscle damage in the inspiratory muscles. Methods: Ten healthy subjects underwent 60 minutes of voluntary inspiratory threshold loading (ITL) at 70% of maximal inspiratory pressure. Maximal inspiratory and expiratory mouth pressures, delayed onset muscle soreness on a visual analogue scale and plasma creatine kinase were measured prior to ITL, and at repeated time points after ITL (4, 24 and 48 hours post-ITL). Results: Delayed onset muscle soreness was present in all subjects 24 hours following ITL (intensity = 22 ± 6 mm; significantly higher than baseline p = 0.02). Muscle soreness was reported primarily in the anterior neck region, and was correlated to the amount of work done by the inspiratory muscles during ITL (r = 0.72, p = 0.02). However, no significant change was observed in maximal inspiratory or expiratory pressures or creatine kinase. Conclusions: These findings suggest that an intense bout of ITL results in muscle soreness primarily in the accessory muscles of inspiration, however, may be insufficient to cause significant muscle damage in healthy adults.Key Words: delayed onset muscle soreness, respiratory muscles, skeletal muscle damage     

A basic recursion concept inventory

Recursion is both an important and a difficult topic for introductory Computer Science students. Students often develop misconceptions about the topic that need to be diagnosed and corrected. In this paper, we report on our initial attempts to develop a concept inventory that measures student misconceptions on basic recursion topics. We present a collection of misconceptions and difficulties encountered by students when learning introductory recursion as presented in a typical CS2 course. Based on this collection, a draft concept inventory in the form of a series of questions was developed and evaluated, with the question rubric tagged to the list of misconceptions and difficulties.