Video clips for YouTube: Collaborative video creation as an educational concept for knowledge acquisition and attitude change related to obesity stigmatization

Mobile phones and advanced web-based video tools have pushed forward new paradigms for using video in education: Today, students can readily create and broadcast their own digital videos for others and create entirely new patterns of video-based information structures for modern online-communities and multimedia environments. This paradigm shift in video usage can be used for advanced learning about complex topics in higher education, for example, learning about socio-scientific or medical topics. Yet–technology aside–applicable educational concepts using collaborative video creation as a method need to be developed. In the present study, we investigate a specific concept designed to fight obesity stigmatization by developing knowledge using a learning-through-design-approach. We expected that creating videos can actually contribute to a deeper understanding of obesity and to a reduction in stigmatizing attitudes–when compared to a control condition. Dependent measures were based on the students’ video products, obesity-related knowledge and attitudes. The course group assessed their own knowledge on causes of obesity and stigmatization because of obesity higher in the post-test than a control group who read a newspaper article on the topic. A corresponding significant reduction in stigmatizing attitudes was found. In sum, results indicate significant differences between students who produced YouTube videos and a control group of students. The results are interpreted as a confirmation of our initial assumptions and evidence indicating that the program is successfully applicable in higher education.     

The consequences of central examinations on educational quality standards and labour market outcomes

Central examinations—that is, centrally set and marked exams—have often been discussed as an instrument for improving educational outcomes. The aim of our study was to determine whether central exams have an impact not only on educational but also on labour market outcomes. We explain school quality choice through the incentives created by central exams vs. non‐central exams and model the resulting students’ schooling decisions and employers’ wage decisions. We use the German Abitur and the variation among the German federal states with respect to central exams as a quasi‐experimental design for alternative educational quality regimes. As hypothesised from our theoretical analysis, the percentage of Abitur holders increases more quickly in quality regimes without central exams than with central exams. However, as theoretically expected in the case of a pooled labour market, the wage premium decreases not only for Abitur‐holders without central exams but also for all Abitur‐holders. This is due to the quality deterioration in the states without central exams which spills over into a pooled labour market. Thus, graduates from states with central exams and higher educational standards ‘pay’ for the quality deterioration of educational standards in states without central exams.     

A constructivist approach in a blended e-learning environment for statistics

In this study, we report on the students' evaluation of a self-constructed constructivist e-learning environment for statistics, the compendium platform (CP). The system was built to endorse deeper learning with the incorporation of statistical reproducibility and peer review practices. The deployment of the CP, with interactive workshops and group assignments, immerses students in a novel blended e-learning experience. Based on the Delone and McLean framework, we tested an explanatory success model with a sample of 607 business students, collected during three consecutive academic years. The results indicate that system quality and teacher support are the most important success factors, directly or indirectly contributing to a higher degree of relative advantage and satisfaction, both of which strongly determine continuous intention to use. The findings ascertain the usability and acceptance of the CP and promote a more radical constructivist approach to the teaching of statistics, but also other subjects.     

Defensive transition in soccer – are prompt possession regains a measure of success? A quantitative analysis of German Fußball-Bundesliga 2010/2011

Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate the time required by German Bundesliga soccer teams to recover ball possession – which was operationalised as defensive reaction time – and identify both the differences between top teams and the rest of the league and the influence of match status on the aforementioned indicator. Therefore, teams were classified into 3 distinct groups according to their final league position: top, in-between and bottom. In total, all 306 games of the season 2010/2011 were analysed post-event. Top teams recovered ball possession quickest after losing it in comparison to the other groups and demonstrated lower defensive reaction times (approximately 1 s in each match status) compared to the remaining teams. Moreover, all groups showed the lowest defensive reaction times when trailing. The results of this study imply that recovering ball possession as quickly as possible after losing possession was an important determinant of successful defensive performance in German Bundesliga season 2010/2011. Further, the current score seemed to be highly influential on the defensive reaction time. The implications of the results for future research, especially considering opponent interactions, are critically discussed.     

Protein identification and localization using mass spectrometry and staining tests in cross-sections of polychrome samples

The identification and localization of the proteinaceous binders are essential issues in studies of painting materials and techniques, for further proposing valid restoration and conservation treatments of the painted or polychrome works of art. The challenge for analytical chemists and conservation scientists is the availability of methods able to simultaneously identify and map the presence of the binders in the multilayered structure of a sample and the possibility to use a very low amount of sample from the studied art object (considering also the criteria of minimum sampling). These methods should be fast, reproducible in different artefacts and in case of mixture of protein-based binders with other non-proteinaceous constituents (oils, resins, waxes, gums etc.) and also economical (both in terms of materials and time consume). In this context, the present paper proposes an innovative protocol of investigation using two complementary techniques – Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionisation – Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and staining tests (one visible and one fluorescent stain) assisted by Optical Microscopy (OM) on cross-section of samples – for the simultaneous identification and mapping of protein – and oil-based binders in paint materials. The novelty is based on the use of MALDI-TOF MS on cross-sections of paints together with a fluorescent stain for protein identification and mapping (mainly used in the area of proteomics) complementing the use of a traditional visible stain for oil-based material identification. The protocol was successfully applied on several samples taken from a Czech medieval polychrome sculpture, entitled “The Mourning of Jesus Christ” (16th century) belonging to the Moravian Gallery (Brno).     

Top-down and bottom-up approaches to improve educational quality: their intended and unintended consequences

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

Ratings of usability of didactic models: a comparative case study in Croatia and Germany

The study refers to the unfavourable reputation and status of general didactics as well as its decreasing importance in teacher education. This is a result of poor performance achieved in international tests by students. They score low on knowledge and arguments, and empirical studies indicate that didactic models are useless. In view of the above problem, the aim of this article is to examine the validity of the argument that didactic models are useless. It is necessary to examine if general didactics are being in an unfavourable position along with its possible successors in the international context. In order to achieve that, we conducted an empirical study into the usability of didactic models for lesson planning in Croatia and compared it with the results obtained in previous research in Germany. The term usability means the advantages of theory in practice. On the basis of the results of the empirical study, we concluded that didactic models are not generally unusable. Additionally, they are different according to their usability. These results open a path for further research on this topic in the international context.     

Technology intensity and agglomeration economies

This article investigates the relationship between industry technology intensity and the impacts of agglomeration economies on industrial growth. Many recent studies suggest the actual economic impacts of different forms of agglomeration economies depend on industrial characteristics such as technology intensity, but systematic empirical evidence is still lacking. To fill this gap, we analyze employment data covering all 3-digit NAICS industries of U.S. counties. The results confirm that technology-intensive industries are more likely to benefit from Jacobs spillovers as measured by related variety, while sectors with low technology intensities can better benefit from MAR spillovers as measured by regional specialization.     

Learning with videos vs. learning with print: The role of interactive features

Two complementary studies, one in the laboratory and one in the field, compared the usage patterns and the effectiveness of interactive videos and illustrated textbooks when German secondary school students learned complex content. For this purpose, two videos affording different degrees of interactivity and a content-equivalent illustrated textbook were used. Both studies showed that in contrast to previous studies working with non-interactive videos, the effectiveness of interactive videos was at least comparable to that of print, probably due to the possibilities provided for self-regulated information processing. It was shown that the interactive features of the videos were used spontaneously. However, features enabling micro-level activities, such as stopping the video or browsing, seemed to be more beneficial for learning than features enabling macro-level activities, such as referring to a table of contents or an index. This finding is explained by students’ misconceptions about the use of features enabling macro-level activities.     

Automatic,semantics-based indexing of natural language texts for information retrieval systems

The fundamental idea of the work reported here is to extract index phrases from texts with the help of a single word concept dictionary and a thesaurus containing relations among concepts. The work is based on the fact, that, within every phrase, the single words the phrase is composed of are related in a certain well denned manner, the type of relations holding between concepts depending only on the concepts themselves. Therefore relations can be stored in a semantic network. The algorithm described extracts single word concepts from texts and combines them to phrases using the semantic relations between these concepts, which are stored in the network. The results obtained show that phrase extraction from texts by this semantic method is possible and offers many advantages over other (purely syntactic or statistic) methods concerning preciseness and completeness of the meaning representation of the text. But the results show, too, that some syntactic and morphologic “filtering” should be included for effectivity reasons.