“If There is No Struggle, There is No Progress”: Transformative Youth Activism and the School of Ethnic Studies

In the wake of the Tucson Unified School District dismantling its highly successful Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, students staged walkouts across the district to demonstrate their opposition. Student-led walkouts were portrayed as merely “ditching,” and students were described as not really understanding why they were protesting. After these events, a group of student activists called UNIDOS organized and led the School of Ethnic Studies. This was a community school dedicated to teaching the forbidden MAS curriculum. In this article we present counternarratives from organizers, presenters, and participants in the School of Ethnic Studies. These narratives demonstrate the transformative resistance of students who created their own form of liberatory education. Our analysis highlights how student organizers led the creation of an autonomous, community-based educational space to allowed young people to engage in political analysis, self-reflection, and strategic organizing. We conclude with the implications for Ethnic Studies, urban education, and counternarrative.     

Early Training in Oral Comprehension and Phonological Skills: Results of a Three-Year Longitudinal Study

A sample of 1,273 4-year-old children were followed for 3 years. The children participated in 1 of 2 comprehension training programs, or in a phonological awareness training program. The comprehension programs explored the possibility of improving young children's oral comprehension in an educational setting. The first focused on the component skills of comprehension; the second involved storybook reading. Phonological awareness and oral language comprehension skills were measured repeatedly in the course of the study. The data were analyzed using multilevel growth-curve models. The results showed that it is possible to improve oral comprehension if the training focuses on its component skills and extends over 2 semesters. When these conditions were met, training effects still existed 9 months after the program had ended. Finally, phonological training improved phonological awareness but not comprehension, and comprehension-skill training improved oral comprehension but not phonological awareness.     

Autonomic modulation of heart rate in paraplegic wheelchair basketball players: Linear and nonlinear analysis

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the autonomic modulation of heart rate in sedentary paraplegics and paraplegic wheelchair basketball players with thoracic spinal cord injury below T6. Seven paraplegic wheelchair basketball players (active paraplegic group), five paraplegics who were not involved in regular exercise (sedentary paraplegic group) and 10 able-bodied participants (control group) took part in the study. The heart rate variability was evaluated by linear (low frequency and high frequency band in normalised units and low frequency/high frequency ratio) and nonlinear methods (Shannon entropy, corrected conditional entropy, and symbolic analysis).

The sedentary group presented significantly higher values for low frequency, low frequency/high frequency ratio and symbolic index with no significant variations (0V%), and also lower values for the high frequency and symbolic index with two significant unlike variation (2ULV%) compared to active paraplegic group. Shannon entropy and corrected conditional entropy analyses revealed significantly lower values in the sedentary group than in the control or active paraplegic groups. Paraplegic individuals who regularly undertake physical exercise have higher complexity of R-R interval time series, lower sympathetic modulation, and higher parasympathetic modulation than sedentary paraplegic participants.     

Institutional Quality of a Higher Education Institution from the Perspective of Employers

The present paper proposes a theoretical model of institutional quality of a higher education institution (HEI) which, in addition to the internal dimensions of quality, incorporates also the external dimension, i.e. the outcomes dimension. This dimension has been neglected by the quality standards and models examined in our paper. Furthermore, the standards and models analyzed consider stakeholders as one of the quality factors of a HEI. The stakeholders’ perspective is seen as a lens through which stakeholders define, control and assess the quality of a HEI. The proposed model therefore gives stakeholders greater significance compared to the dimensions of institutional quality of a HEI. The model has been validated from the employers’ perspective. On the basis of 339 completed questionnaires or a 39.74 % response rate we concluded that outcomes constitute the most important dimension of institutional quality of a HEI from the perspective of employers in Slovenia. The outcomes dimension is followed, in descending order, by the non-financial resources and inputs, sustainable development, value chain, and, finally, the financial resources and inputs dimensions. The results of the study have shown that of the 44 quality factors of a HEI the following data are of key importance to employers: information on the participation of students in practical training, achievements of graduates at the workplace, implementation of a HEI’s research achievements in practice, graduate employability, and a HEI’s responsiveness to the demands and changes in the environment.     

Archeological excavation monitoring using dense stereo matching techniques

Several new tools to obtain three-dimensional information from unorganized image sets are now available for the public use. The main advantage of this software, which is based on dense stereo matching, is the possibility to generate 3D content without the need of high-cost hardware (e.g. 3D scanning devices). Nevertheless, their use in real-world application domains (like cultural heritage) is still not very diffused, due to the non-straightforward usability of the raw data produced. In this paper, we investigate the use of automatic dense stereo reconstruction tools for the monitoring of an excavation site. A methodology for the effective acquisition and processing of data is presented. In addition, the results of the data assessment demonstrate the repeatability of the data acquisition process, which is a key factor when qualitative analysis is performed. The use of three-dimensional data is integrated in an open source mesh processing tool, thus showing that a spatio-temporal analysis can be performed in a very intuitive way using off-the-shelf or free/open digital tools. Moreover, the use of peculiar rendering and the creation of snapshots from arbitrary points of view increase the amount of documentation data, and suggest a perfect integration of data produced with dense stereo matching in the future standard documentation for excavation monitoring.     

Performance,motivation, and enjoyment in young female basketball players: An interdisciplinary approach

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the variation in accumulated basketball training experience, body size, functional performance, deliberate practice motivation, achievement and competitiveness motivation and sources of enjoyment among young female basketball players, partitioning the potential variation by individuals´ biological characteristics (menarche status) and contextual characteristics (competitive age group and competitive level). We considered 114 adolescent female basketball players aged 14.3 (1.8) years. We used multilevel regression and poststratification estimations. The adolescent female basketball players selected for state-level had more accumulated experience, were taller and with better functional performance. Conditional on the data, youth female coaches tend to value (probably overvalue) size and function when selecting/promoting players, even at early age groups, likely contributing to an overrepresentation of early maturing girls in at early age groups. Players from club- and state-level were similarly highly motivated for deliberate practice and to achievement. Only for competitiveness, state-level players had higher values than club level players. The sources of enjoyment were influenced by context (competitive levels) for self-referenced competencies and others-referenced competencies. Structured programs of training and competition in youth female basketball provide a nurturing environment for the development of players´ engagement and commitment to training and excellence attainment.     

Analytics for learning design: A layered framework and tools

The field of learning design studies how to support teachers in devising suitable activities for their students to learn. The field of learning analytics explores how data about students' interactions can be used to increase the understanding of learning experiences. Despite its clear synergy, there is only limited and fragmented work exploring the active role that data analytics can play in supporting design for learning. This paper builds on previous research to propose a framework (analytics layers for learning design) that articulates three layers of data analytics—learning analytics, design analytics and community analytics—to support informed decision-making in learning design. Additionally, a set of tools and experiences are described to illustrate how the different data analytics perspectives proposed by the framework can support learning design processes.     

Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the youth experience survey for sport (P-YES-S)

This study investigated adaptation and the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Youth Experience Survey for Sport (P-YES-S). Translators, professors, and athletes participated. Athletes between 14 and 18 years were recruited. The instrument was the P-YES-S. Content validity was assessed by coefficients of content and kappa, while Cronbach’s alpha was used for internal consistency analysis and intraclass correlation for temporal stability. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses were conducted to test the construct validity of the instrument. Discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) with the squared correlation between factors. Results showed acceptable levels for content validity, internal consistency, temporal stability, concurrent validity, and construct validity. The acceptable model was: X²/df = 1.54, GFI = 0.93, CFI = 0.92; AGFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.91, AIC = 414.63, BIC = 610.93, MECVI = 1.41 and RMSEA = 0.0.04, p = 0.03. The adaptation process produced an instrument with 22 items and the dimensions of Personal and Social Skills, Cognitive Skills, Initiative Experiences, and Negative Experiences.