Predictive value of coaches’ early technical and tactical notational analyses on long-term success of female handball players

ABSTRACT

Despite the importance of technique and tactics for athlete performance, there has been surprisingly little research on the value of these skills in talent identification and development. This study investigated the relationship between coaches’ early notational analyses of female youth handball players and the long-term success of these athletes. Participants included sixty-eight female handball players involved in a talent selection camp in Germany when they were between 12 and 14 years of age (mean = 14.42, SD = 0.42). All subsequently ended up as non-, semi- or professional adult players. During the initial selection camp, participants were evaluated on a range of quantitative and qualitative measures of technical and tactical skill. Results indicated significant differences between the groups, but only for the number of actions taken, not for the quality of those actions. While this seems counterintuitive, it may reflect the likelihood that more skilled and/or talented players take more actions. Further work is necessary to explore the validity and implications of these findings.     

Networking the Counterculture: The 1970 Alternative Media Conference at Goddard College

In June of 1970, a group of radio station programmers, record company executives, cartoonists, musicians, poets, political activists, and assorted hippie hangers-on gathered at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont for the Alternative Media Conference (AMC). In this article, the authors trace the history of the AMC, from its initial inception in 1970 to the second Alternative Media Conference in 2013, and its role in shaping not only alternative media across the United States but also, more specifically, Free-Form radio. In shedding light on this history, we seek to open previously neglected scholarly discourse on the history of Free-Form FM radio.     

How can a questionable journal be identified: Frameworks and checklists

Questionable journals represent an increasing problem in scholarly communication. The warnings about such journals are plentiful, but the methods used to identify them vary a great deal and make it difficult to accurately determine which journals are fraudulent or simply of low quality. This article presents an overview of the existing frameworks for identifying questionable journals and discussions around them. Most of the frameworks rely on describing the journals under investigation according to a set of criteria, and some can even be turned into a metric or mechanism. The development of frameworks for identifying questionable journals has so far been characterized by a great diversity in format, length, and content. Generally, the frameworks come with little information on development, validation, and reliability. The consequences of prolific tool development are discussed, and a recommendation for testing such frameworks is proposed.     

A framework for designing and developing multimedia-based performance assessment in vocational education

The development of any assessment should be an iterative and careful process. Ideally, this process is guided by a well-defined framework (see for example Downing in: Downing and Haladyna (eds) Handbook of test development, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2006; Mislevy et al. in On the roles of task model variables in assessment design (CSE Technical Report 500), Educational Testing Service, Princeton, 1999; AERA et al. in Standards for educational and psychological testing, AERA, Washington, DC, 2004), but such a framework is not always available when the instrument to be developed is new or innovative. Frameworks for the development of traditional computer-based tests have been published and experimented with since the late 1990s, by which time CBT had already existed for more than a decade. In an earlier empirical pilot study, we described a new type of assessment for Dutch vocational education, called multimedia-based performance assessment (MBPA) (self-revealing reference 2014). This CBT uses multiple media formats and interactive tasks to measure skills that are currently measured by performance-based assessment. In conducting that pilot study, deficits in the existing literature made it difficult to ground all developmental steps in sound scientific theory. To remedy those deficits, this article presents and validates a framework for the design and development of MBPA, combining a search of the relevant literature from several subfields of educational assessment and consultation with assessment experts. The framework unites assessment development and multimedia development theory, focus solely on vocational education, and answers the call for a framework from the scientific community. The first step in validating the prototype framework involved five semi-structured interviews with Dutch assessment and multimedia experts to produce a final version of the framework. Second, the pilot MBPA was reconstructed in accordance with this finalized framework, resulting in an improved MBPA and demonstrating that the proposed framework is a useful and applicable tool for the design and development of MBPA in vocational education.     

Consensus formation in science modeled by aggregated bibliographic coupling

The level of consensus in science has traditionally been measured by a number of different methods. The variety is important as each method measures different aspects of science and consensus. Citation analytical studies have previously measured the level of consensus using the scientific journal as their unit of analysis. To produce a more fine grained citation analysis one needs to study consensus formation on an even more detailed level – i.e. the scientific document or article. To do so, we have developed a new technique that measures consensus by aggregated bibliographic couplings (ABC) between documents. The advantages of the ABC-technique are demonstrated in a study of two selected disciplines in which the levels of consensus are measured using the proposed technique.     

The effects of open access on un-published documents: A case study of economics working papers

The use of scholarly publications that have not been formally published in e.g. journals is widespread in some fields. In the past they have been disseminated through various channels of informal communication. However, the Internet has enabled dissemination of these un-published and often unrefereed publications to a much wider audience. This is particularly interesting seen in relation to the highly disputed open access advantage as the potential advantage for low visibility publications has not been given much attention in the literature. The present study examines the role of working papers in economics during a 10-year period (1996–2005). It shows that working papers are increasingly becoming visible in the field specific databases. The impact of working papers is relatively low; however, high impact working paper series have citation rate levels similar to the low impact journals in the field. There is no tendency to an increase in impact during the 10 years which is the case for the high impact journals. Consequently, the result of this study does not provide evidence of an open access advantage for working papers in economics.     

FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS: CENSORSHIP AND THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT

The third person effect hypothesis, which states that individualsexposed to a mass media messaage will expect the communicationto have a greater effect on others than on themselves, may helpto explain the growing trend in support of media censorship.It is suggested here that overestimating the effect of mediaon others may play an important role in the forces underlyinga willingness to restrict various types of communication. Toexamine this relationship, this study focused on the discrepancybetween perceived media effects on others and self, and itsrelation to pro-censorship attitudes within three major topics:the media in general, violence on television, and pornography.The results of this study support the existence of the third-personeffect in mass communication. The findings also indicate thatas the gap between perceived firstand third-person effects increases,individuals are more likely to manifest pro-censorship attitudes.This relationship remained for all three topics even when avariety of potentially confounding demographic, media use, andattitudinal variables were controlled. The data also suggestthat for pornography the effects gap is related to a willingnessto act in favor of censoring.     

Investigating salt decay of stone materials related to the environment,a case study in the St. James church in Liège,Belgium

Salt crystallization is recognized as a major cause of damage to porous building materials, threatening the sustainable preservation of our valuable built heritage. Unfortunately, the crystallization behavior of the detected salt mixtures is complex and not fully understood. While the deliquescence points of single salts are well documented, this is not the case for salts in a mixture where one is confronted with the presence of different cations and anions. In this paper the salt content of the murals and the limestone tracery of the main entrance porch from the sixteenth century church of St. James in Liège, Belgium is investigated and related to the climatic conditions of its environment. Concerning the salt load, the research consists of hygroscopic moisture content measurements, quantitative ion analyses, and the prediction of phase equilibria using the thermodynamic model ECOS/RUNSALT. This model can predict the salt crystallization sequences of a particular ion mixture. The output is mathematically evaluated with collected temperature and relative humidity data, which enables the calculation of the number of salt crystallization–deliquescence cycles. The results show that even small amounts of salts can cause damage over a long period of time when the environment causes frequent cycles of crystallization–deliquescence over time. It is shown how a mixture of small amounts of (double) salts, including hygroscopic ones, can have a significant effect on the decay of historic building materials in the case of daily changing climatic conditions and periods of extreme drought. As a result, the crystallization of double salts and hygroscopic salts such as calcium nitrate cannot be ignored. The scientific method and the results are described.     

Differentiated instruction in a data-based decision-making context

In this study, the relationship between differentiated instruction, as an element of data-based decision making, and student achievement was examined. Classroom observations (n = 144) were used to measure teachers’ differentiated instruction practices and to predict the mathematical achievement of 2nd- and 5th-grade students (n = 953). The analysis of classroom observation data was based on a combination of generalizability theory and item response theory, and student achievement effects were determined by means of multilevel analysis. No significant positive effects were found for differentiated instruction practices. Furthermore, findings showed that students in low-ability groups profited less from differentiated instruction than students in average or high-ability groups. Nevertheless, the findings, data collection, and data-analysis procedures of this study contribute to the study of classroom observation and the measurement of differentiated instruction.