New media: online fandom

Online media is a boon to fandom. It provides mountains of information for the devout follower, while it also provides the opportunity to create and share content. The internet allows fans to transcend geographical barriers to form communities that could not otherwise exist. One particular group of A.S. Roma fans show how fans can use the ‘placeless' internet to invigorate a connection to place. They use their website in conjunction with meeting at the stadium and at other places in real life. The website provides the glue to their geographically dispersed set of Romans. The web is another tool that serves the social needs of fans.     

Fan politics: dissent and control at the stadium

This essay delves into the theoretical and practical dimensions of political expression at the stadium. While previous chapters are organized around the form of media, this essay considers the breadth of media put to use to convey political sentiments. While the notion of sport as apolitical has surface appeal, the stadium has always been political, and provided that sport continues to aggregate tens of thousands of fans in an enclosed space, there is little hope of eliminating politics. The stadium offers the chance for average citizens to gain a voice and, I argue, the stadium is an important part of the public sphere. The chapter considers how the stadium is used for dissent in several contexts. In Italy, the stadium has long been a site of political expression while more recently, in Cairo and Istanbul, football fandom has provided the tools to directly confront the state.     

The impact of reading at rapid rates on inference generation

Aims

Speed reading is advertised as a way to increase reading speed without any loss in comprehension. However, research on speed reading has indicated that comprehension suffers as reading speed increases. We were specifically interested in how processes of inference generation were affected by speed reading.

Methods

We examined how reading speed influenced inference generation in typical readers, trained speed readers and participants trained to skim read passages. Passages either strongly or weakly promoted a bridging or predictive inference. After reading, participants performed a lexical decision task on either a nonword, neutral or inference‐related word.

Results

Typical readers responded to strong and weak inference words faster than neutral words. There were no statistical differences in reaction time between inference‐related and neutral words for speed and skim readers.

Conclusions

These findings provide no substantive evidence that the appropriate inferences are generated when reading at rapid speeds. Thus, speed reading may be detrimental to normal integrative comprehension processes.     

Videotutoring, non-verbal communication and initial teacher training

Telematics has the potential to transform Higher Education through creating a distributed community of tutors and students. Videotutoring is central to telematics, enabling personal tutoring to occur at a distance. Within the context of a post-graduate teacher training course, videotutoring was used to tutor two students during the first six weeks of their first full-time school placement. Both ends of the videosignal were recorded. Analysis of the tapes used a protocol based upon research into non-verbal communication (NVC). NVC is as important as verbal communication in the tutorial process. Findings suggest that the interaction of participants mediated through the screen was significantly different from face-to-face communication in relation to the two-dimensional image of the screen and the "viewing frame" effect of the physical boundaries of the image. The viewing frame literally served as the proscenium arch of a theatre. Two-dimensionality and the viewing frame effect emphasised both the positive and negative elements in inter-personal communication as represented in Argyle's social skills and Goffman's theatrical models. The conclusion is that videotutoring can potentially be a more effective form of tutoring than face-to-face interaction.     

The Challenges Facing Early Childhood Care,Development and Education (ECCDE) in an Era of Universal Basic Education in Nigeria

Early childhood is a critical period of rapid physical, cognitive, and psycho-social development of a child. The quality of care and education which a child receives at this crucial age will determine to a great extent the level of his/her physical and cognitive development in the future. In Nigeria, Early Childhood Care, Development and Education (ECCDE) is an aspect of Universal Basic Education which was introduced in 1999 to increase the access of children to basic education and improve the state of education in the country. While all hands are on deck to ensure successful implementation and achievement of the objectives of the scheme, it is unfortunate that ECCDE is facing some challenges thus making it unrecognized in Nigeria. This paper examines the challenges of early childhood education in Nigeria. To improve the situation, the following measures are recommended: establishment of more public crèche, kindergarten, and nursery schools by the government; enforcement of the use of mother tongue in the teaching of children; training more personnel in the field of early childhood education in tertiary institutions; and introducing unified curriculum as well as providing more infrastructures.     

Science diaries: a brief writing intervention to improve motivation to learn science

This study investigated the hypothesis that prompting students to self-assess their interest and understanding of science concepts and activities would increase their motivation in science classes. Students were randomly assigned to an experimental condition that wrote self-assessments of their competence and interest in science lessons or a control condition that wrote summaries of those same lessons. Writing activities were 10?min long and were given approximately once a week for eighteen weeks. Student motivation was assessed via self-report surveys for achievement goals and interest in science before and after the intervention. Students in the experimental condition showed higher endorsement of mastery goals and reported greater situational interest in science topics after the intervention compared to students who summarised the lessons. Increases in situational interest predicted higher individual interest in the domain. Results indicate an instructional practice requiring just 3?hours out of a semester of instruction was sufficient to achieve these effects on motivation in science classes.     

The Relationship Between Physical,Sexual, and Emotional Abuse and Unhealthy Weight Loss Behaviors

The authors investigated the relationship between abuse in adult relationships and the tendency to engage in unhealthy weight loss behaviors. Undergraduate women responded to questions regarding weight loss behaviors, whether or not they had recently been in an abusive relationship, and perceived body image. Results indicated that women who had recently been in abusive relationships were more likely to endorse unhealthy weight loss. Implications for college counselors are discussed.