Balancing finances,politics, and public health: international student enrollment and reopening plans at US higher education institutions amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Higher Education - Drawing from resource dependence theory, this study explores the extent to which international student enrollment related to institutional decisions to shift to in-person...     

Effect of sulphurous mineral water in haematological and biochemical markers of muscle damage after an endurance exercise in well-trained athletes

Abstract

To investigate the effects of sulphurous mineral water (SMW) after a hydroponic treatment on muscle damage, antioxidant activity and peripheral blood changes induced by submaximal exercise. Thirty well-trained male triathletes were supplemented with SMW or placebo: 3 weeks of placebo, 30 days of wash out and 3 weeks of SMW. After both periods, participants ran for 2 h at 70% maximal aerobic speed. Antioxidant enzymes, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant capacity and blood cell markers were compared between placebo and SMW at pre-exercise (T₀), immediately post-exercise (T₁), 24 h post-exercise (T₂) and 48 h post-exercise (T₃). Total thiols decreased until T₃ vs. T₀ for both placebo and SMW; transient red blood cells, haemoglobin and haematocrit increased were shown at T₁ vs. T₀ and for leucocytes until T₂ vs. T₀, only for placebo group. Total thiols increased significantly in SMW vs. placebo at T₀; Thiobarbituric acid reactive species was significantly higher at T₀, T₁, T₂ and T₃; catalase increased significantly at T₁; creatine phosphokinase decreased significantly at T₁, T₂ and T₃, although no significant differences were found at T₀. Furthermore, red blood cells, haemoglobin and haematocrit were significantly higher and leucocytes were significantly lower at T₀ and T₁ in SMW group vs. placebo group. This study suggests that three weeks of SMW supplementation may protect from exercise-induced muscle damage.     

Are instructional explanations more effective in the context of an impasse?

Effective instructional explanations help the students to construct coherent mental representations. To do so, one condition is that they must be tailored to students’ needs. It is hypothesized that explanations are more helpful if they also explicitly aid the students to detect problems in their mental representations, as this provokes an impasse that motivates students to process the explanation deeply. Participants were provided with a computer-based material on plate tectonics and then with explanatory support in the form of either a tailored explanation preceded by an impasse-trigger (I + E group) or an identical explanation without the impasse-trigger (noI + E group). After the reading of the materials they solved retention and transfer tests; their flawed ideas were also counted. Participants in the I + E group recalled more correct information, generated more transfer solutions, and showed fewer flawed ideas than those in the noI + E group. This indicates that tailored explanations combined with impasse-triggers that make explicit conflicts between the text model and the students′ models can indeed foster deep learning.     

Evaluating Academic Library Outreach to Determine Return on Investment for Student Success

Campus outreach is a key part of an academic library’s service mission. However, the literature demonstrates a lack of assessment around library outreach, particularly from an institution-wide or programmatic perspective. The University of Houston Libraries assembled a team to evaluate return on investment for the Libraries outreach activities in service of meeting student success goals. This article shares the methodology, results, and recommendations made as a result of this project, with implications for outreach programs at other academic libraries.     

Dribbling speed along curved paths predicts attacking performance in match-realistic one vs. one soccer games

This study assessed whether a new, closed-skill dribbling or sprinting task could predict attacking performance in soccer. Twenty-five male players were recruited from the Londrina Junior Team Football Academy in Brazil and asked to either dribble the ball or sprint through five custom circuits that varied in average curvature (0–1.37 radians.m^?1). These measures were then validated using a realistic one vs. one competition in which each player acted as attacker or defender in turn (N = 1330 bouts). Sprinting (ICC = 0.96) and dribbling (ICC = 0.97) performances were highly repeatable for individual players. Average dribbling speed decreased non-linearly with increasing circuit curvature (F = 239.5; P < 0.001) from 5.19 ± 0.11 ms^?1 on the straightest path to 2.13 ± 0.03 ms^?1 on the curviest. Overall, dribbling but not sprinting performance predicted attacking success in the one vs. one competition, explaining more than 50% of the variation in attacking success alone (r_p = 0.70; P < 0.001). In conclusion, our new closed-skill dribbling assessment is a valid and reliable protocol to predict a soccer player’s success in attacking performance in one vs. one situation, and can be used to identify talented players.     

Prediction and Contingency in Evolution by Natural Selection

Science & Education -     

Imitación y adquisición del lenguaje

Resumen

Este artículo estudia las imitaciones en el primer lenguaje de tres niños en situaciones conversacionales con un adulto. Las interacciones espontáneas eran registradas en vídeo en la familia en sesiones de 30 a 40 minutos cada 3/4 semanas. Los resultados expresan la importancia de la imitación para uno de los niños (referencial) en orden a mantener interacciones comunicativas con su madre. Dicho proceso era mucho menos importante para otro de los sujetos, una niña expresiva. El tercer niño aparece en una posición intermedia. Las conclusiones discuten la importancia de las conductas lingüísticas del adulto en relación al primer uso del lenguaje infantil, así como de las estrategias empleadas para mantener el diálogo, enfatizando el uso de la imitación como una forma de regular las conductas lingüísticas infantiles a las conductas lingüísticas del adulto.     

The return of the prodigal son: the experience of support agents on their return from Teachers’ Centers to school

This paper presents the results of a two‐year qualitative inquiry, carried out in Spain, on a rather neglected side of external support to schools: the personal and professional experience of external support agents when they go back to teaching. These ex‐advisers are career teachers who return ‘home’ to school after having left it to serve for some years in Teachers’ Centers, which in Spain are the institutions in charge of school support and in‐service teacher training. During their stay there, the ex‐advisers have developed a new discourse on teaching, on school organization and on teacher training that, on their return, they have to contrast with their everyday life in schools. To explore this process, the conceptions, perceptions and visions of these professionals, has a high potential to throw some light on school support, in‐service teacher training and the construction and reconstruction of different professional identities within our educational systems.     

Validity and reliability of a 6-a-side small-sided game as an indicator of match-related physical performance in elite youth Brazilian soccer players

ABSTRACT

The aims of this study were: (i) to compare the external and internal load during a 6-a-side small-sided game (6v6-SSG) according to age-group; (ii) to relate these parameters between the 6v6-SSG and official matches; and (iii) to test the reliability of the 6v6-SSG. A total of 51 Brazilian youth soccer players participated in this study (U11 [n = 16]; U13 [n = 10]; U15 [n = 9]; U17 [n = 8]; U20 [n = 8]). Three experiments were conducted. Experiment A: fifty-one U11 to U20 players were submitted to 6v6-SSGs (n = 10 games; two for each age-group). Experiment B: thirty-two players were randomized to also play official matches (n = 6 matches). Experiment C: thirty-five youth players played the 6v6-SSG twice for test and retest reliability analysis. External load was obtained using Global Positioning Systems and the internal load parameter was calculated through mean heart rate. Statistical approaches showed progressive increases in all parameters according to categories (U11< U13< U15< U17< U20; p < 0.05; ES = 0.42?23.68). Even controlling for chronological age, all parameters showed likely to almost certain correlations between 6v6-SSG and official matches (r = 0.25?0.92). Collectively, the proposed protocol indicates good reliability (CV% = 2.0?12.6; TE% = 2.3?2.7%; ICC = 0.78?0.90). This research suggests that the 6v6-SSG is an alternative tool to indicate match-related physical performance in youth soccer players.     

Using automated analysis to assess middle school students' competence with scientific argumentation

Argumentation is fundamental to science education, both as a prominent feature of scientific reasoning and as an effective mode of learning—a perspective reflected in contemporary frameworks and standards. The successful implementation of argumentation in school science, however, requires a paradigm shift in science assessment from the measurement of knowledge and understanding to the measurement of performance and knowledge in use. Performance tasks requiring argumentation must capture the many ways students can construct and evaluate arguments in science, yet such tasks are both expensive and resource-intensive to score. In this study we explore how machine learning text classification techniques can be applied to develop efficient, valid, and accurate constructed-response measures of students' competency with written scientific argumentation that are aligned with a validated argumentation learning progression. Data come from 933 middle school students in the San Francisco Bay Area and are based on three sets of argumentation items in three different science contexts. The findings demonstrate that we have been able to develop computer scoring models that can achieve substantial to almost perfect agreement between human-assigned and computer-predicted scores. Model performance was slightly weaker for harder items targeting higher levels of the learning progression, largely due to the linguistic complexity of these responses and the sparsity of higher-level responses in the training data set. Comparing the efficacy of different scoring approaches revealed that breaking down students' arguments into multiple components (e.g., the presence of an accurate claim or providing sufficient evidence), developing computer models for each component, and combining scores from these analytic components into a holistic score produced better results than holistic scoring approaches. However, this analytical approach was found to be differentially biased when scoring responses from English learners (EL) students as compared to responses from non-EL students on some items. Differences in the severity between human and computer scores for EL between these approaches are explored, and potential sources of bias in automated scoring are discussed.