International Communications

Lawrence W. Lichty's (ed.) World and International droadcasting: A Bibliography (Association for Professional Broadcasting Education, 1771 N St. Washington, D. C.) $15.00 ($10.00 to APBE individual members) paperbound)

William A. Hachten's Muffled Drums: The News Media in Africa (Iowa State University Press, $9.50)

Lynne Svenning's Modernization Among Peasants: Impact of Communications (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, $8.00)

Will A. Boelke's The Secret Conferences of Dr. Goebbels: The Nazi Propaganda War 1939-43.

James W. Markham's (ed.) International Commnication as a Field of Study (University of Iowa Department of Publications, $3.00)     

A Review of: “HMO/PPO Directory. Mackenzie,Leslie”

This column describes a collaboration between faculty members in an Allied Health program and academic librarians to provide information literacy instruction to students enrolled in an evidence-based practice course. The process of collaboration is described beginning with the inception of the idea to collaborate, which grew out of an informal conversation between librarians and Allied Health faculty. Implementation of the project is described as well as future plans for the collaboration. The column also discusses initial impressions of student outcomes as well as plans for a more rigorous study of those outcomes.     

Progression and variability of competitive performance of Olympic swimmers

Estimates of progression and variability of athletic performance in competitions are useful for researchers and practitioners interested in factors that affect performance. We used repeated-measures mixed modelling to analyse 676 official race times of 26 US and 25 Australian Olympic swimmers in the 12-month period leading up to the 2000 Olympic Games. Progression was expressed as percent changes in mean performance; variability was expressed as the coefficient of variation in performance of an individual swimmer between races. Within competitions, both nations showed similar improvements in mean time from heats through finals (overall 1.2%; 95% confidence limits 1.1 to 1.3%). Mean competition time also improved over 12 months by a similar amount in both nations (0.9%; 95% confidence limits 0.6 to 1.2%). The US swimmers showed a greater improvement between the finals (a difference of 0.5%; 95% confidence limits ?0.2 to 1.1%), which paralleled changes in the medal haul of the two nations. The coefficient of variation in performance time for a swimmer between races was 0.60% (95% confidence limits 0.56 to 0.65%) within a competition and 0.80% (95% confidence limits 0.73 to 0.86%) between competitions. Our results show that: (a) to stay in contention for a medal, an Olympic swimmer should improve his or her performance by ～1% within a competition and by ～1% within the year leading up to the Olympics; (b) an additional enhancement of ～0.4% (one-half the between-competition variability) would substantially increase the swimmer's chances of a medal.     

Factor Analysis of Selected Basketball Skill Tests

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factor structure of the sports skill domain of basketball and to identify test items to measure in this skill domain. A theoretical model of the hypothesized dimensions of basketball playing ability was developed based on a review of literature concerning basketball skill testing from 1906 to the present day. These dimensions were: (a) shooting, (b) passing, (c) jumping, (d) movement without the ball and (e) movement with the ball. Twenty-one items, including the nine items in the AAHPER basketball skill test for boys, were selected to sample these hypothesized dimensions. The tests were administered to 70 male junior high and high school students enrolled in the University of Minnesota, Duluth basketball camp during the summer of 1975. The hypothesized dimensions were analyzed by use of the following: (a) alpha factor analysis; (b) canonical factor analysis; (c) image analysis; and (d) principal components analysis. Both oblique and orthogonal rotations were performed with each of the four analyses. The hypothesized model was partially substantiated in that the results confirmed three of the factors: (a) shooting, (b) passing and (c) jumping with the only difference being that the factors of movement with the ball and movement without the ball combined into one. Since the following test items best represented the dimensions, it appeared that a battery comprised of these items would provide a quick and objective measure of basketball skill: (a) jump and reach, (b) dribble, (c) speed pass, and (d) front shot.     

Linking School Effectiveness Knowledge and School Improvement Practice: Towards a Synergy

A survey is undertaken of the ‘paradigms’ of the academic communities of school effectiveness and school improvement researchers, practitioners and scholars. It is argued that the two ‘paradigms’ are very different, and that this has hindered the improvement of educational practice. Examples are given of programmes which are a ‘blend’ of the two different approaches, and detail is given as to how the school effectiveness and school improvement communities can meet the knowledge needs necessary for improving the quality of schooling.     

Chi-Square Tests of Association and Goodness of Fit from Proportions and Percentages

Formulas are derived for computing the chi-square statistic from proportions or percentages, both for tests of goodness of fit and association. The advantages of the new formulas are: (1) computation is conceptually more congruent with the hypothesis being tested; (2) interpretation is facilitated (expected frequencies and discrepancies in frequencies are a function of sample size, whereas expected proportions and corresponding discrepancies are not); and (3) computation is facilitated in contingency tables since expected proportions do not need to be determined separately for each cell.     

Enhancing Intercultural Communication among Business Communication Students

The issue of international students in the tertiary classroom is of broad significance across disciplines as evidenced, for example, in the work of Ladyshewsky (1996), Pe‐Pua (1995), and Romm, Paterson and Hill (1994). The need for university instructors to employ teaching strategies that are student‐centred and interactive has also been gaining attention in recent literature, for example, in the work of Biggs (1992, 1997), Chalmers and Volet (1997), and McKay and Kember (1997). This article presents some practical teaching strategies employed in an undergraduate Business Communication class that, in our experience, provide a context that encourages student interaction and participation to the mutual benefit of both local and international students. Data collection procedures included an open‐ended questionnaire, observation of students, informal and unstructured discussions and reflective journals of students and tutor. The conclusions drawn here suggest that these strategies not only enhance classroom participation by international students but also allow international and local students to interact more productively with each other.     

Creating sites of community education and democracy: Henry Morris and the Cambridgeshire village colleges. A reflection 90 years on from their inception

This article investigates the work of Henry Morris (1889–1961), in particular his ideas on the Cambridgeshire village colleges. It is now 90 years since the first of these was founded in Sawston in 1930, and the article aims to address the issue of whether Morris’s views on education and democracy encapsulated in the village colleges still have relevancy in the early twenty-first century. An overview of Morris’s career and the creation of the village colleges is investigated, using the work of Paul Hirst and associative democracy as a theoretical lens. It is argued that the Cambridgeshire village colleges do have some attributes of associative democracy, particularly their original emphasis as sites of local democracy and participation from voluntary bodies and private individuals. However, Morris’s role as Cambridgeshire’s Chief Education Officer (1922–1954) meant that the local state (in the guise of the County Council) played a more significant role in the village colleges than Hirst advocates for his version of associative democracy. As English primary and secondary schools turn from local authority control to academy status, Morris’s vision for local schools of and for local people is becoming increasingly compromised. The article ends with the work of Allen and Gann, both influenced by Morris, who argue for a revitalised form of comprehensive schooling and lifelong learning that again sees educational institutions as sites of grassroots democracy.     

Infant responsivity to curvature.

The reactions of 112 10-month-old male infants to the property of curvature were examined using a habituation paradigm with lever pressing as an instrumental response. 4 levels of curvature (straightt line, minimal curve, moderate curve, large curve) each served as a standard (habituation) stimulus and as a transformation stimulus in 9 separate experimental conditions. Results revealed a greater initial dishabituation of reinforced instrumental responding in those conditions crossing the curved/straight boundary; furthermore, this initial dishabituation was sustained throughout the transformation phase of the experiment in those conditions which involved changes from straight to curved, but not curved to straight. Results are interpreted as implying a special attention-recruiting value for curvature in 10-month old infants.