“Can I play too?” Adapting common classroom activities for young children with limited motor abilities

This paper offers suggestions on adapting common classroom activities found in early childhood classrooms to increase participation of young children with limited motor abilities. It stresses the importance of de-emphasizing differences among children and highlighting that all children, even those with severe disabilities, can benefit from the same activities.     

Ways of thinking about the future: Implications for nontraditional graduate education

Post-secondary educational institutions are characterized by their seemingly inherent resistance to the nontraditional. Understanding ways of thinking about the future, however, will help the educator who has nontraditional ideas to plan and implement these ideas more effectively. This article presents different orientations to thinking about the future and employs futures analysis techniques for discussing some of the major ideas in the previous articles in this special journal issue.     

Student attitudes toward closed-circuit instructional television

Summary The objectives of this study were to examine (1) the relative effectiveness of closed-circuit television for classroom teaching compared to conventional teaching and (2) the acceptability of closed-circuit television teaching to the students. A course was offered both by closed-circuit television and by conventional teaching. Students within each group were asked to rate the course and other related concepts. In addition, their examination grades were obtained. No differences were found with respect to performance. The students taught via television rated the course and their instructors relatively lower than those who received conventional instruction. Howard M. Bobren is assistant to the director, Institute of Communications Research and Sheldon L. Siegel is research assistant, College of Education, both at the University of Illinois.     

Stress in elite sport performers: A comparative study of competitive and organizational stressors

The purpose of this study was to compare the content and quantity of competitive and organizational stressors in elite athletes. Ten international performers were interviewed about sources of stress. Content analysis of the data involved categorizing the demands associated primarily and directly with competitive performance (#CS = 21) under the post hoc dimension “performance issues”, and the demands associated primarily and directly with the sport organization (#OS = 72) under one of the following four post hoc dimensions: “environmental issues”, “personal issues”, “leadership issues” and “team issues”. Frequency analysis revealed that the participants mentioned the competitive stressors (Σ = 95) less than the organizational stressors (Σ = 215). Further analysis within these categories showed that the mean number of participants citing individual competitive stressors (M = 4.52) was greater than the mean number of participants citing individual organizational stressors (M = 2.99). The findings indicate that elite athletes experience and recall more demands associated primarily and directly with the sport organization than with competitive performance. Furthermore, this population appears more likely to mention similar competitive stressors but varied organizational stressors, probably because the former are inherent and endemic to elite sport, whereas the latter are essentially extraneous and widely distributed.     

Comments: Rebuttal to above Comments on “Visual Movements of Batters”

Abstract

The research was undertaken to determine if an increase in the duration of a sustained voluntary isometric contraction is more closely related to changes in cardiovascular endurance or changes in strength. Subjects (N = 24) were tested before and after a training program to determine their endurance (oxygen consumption) and strength. The training program consisted of one daily sustained voluntary isometric contraction of the left forearm flexors at a prescribed percentage of the subject's maximum isometric strength. When the mean duration of contractions for each group showed a significant increase, training ceased.

The groups which trained with contractions of 50, 75, and 100 percent of a maximum voluntary contraction showed significant increases in strength, but not in endurance. The group which trained with a 25 percent contraction increased significantly in endurance, but not in strength. The increased duration of contractions at percentages greater than or equal to 50 percent of a maximum voluntary contraction appeared to be due to increased strength. Hence, measuring cardiovascular endurance by the duration of a sustained voluntary isometric contraction at percentages greater than 25 percent seems unjustified.     

Teaching of Mandarin in an English Comprehensive School: A case study

A group of English children in a rural comprehensive are learning Mandarin, taught by a Chinese teacher. This article describes the background to this development and follows three cohorts of students, giving the pupils' views about learning Chinese and why they chose it. As a psychologist who has interests in education and who is also a part-time student of Chinese, the author welcomed the chance to share the pupils' experience. In the final cohort, sensation-seeking tendencies and intellectual achievement responsibility were investigated as personality traits which may influence a child's choice of foreign language study.     

General Foreign/International Communication

A Free and Balanced Flow: Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the International Flow of News (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1979—$12.50 with a paperback also available)

Alex S. Edelstein, John E. Bowes, and Sheldon M. Harsel's Information Societies: Comparing the Japanese and American Experiences (International Communication Center, School of Communications, University of Washington, Seattle, Wa 98195—$10.95, paper)

Fred L. Casmir, ed. Intercultural and International Communication (Washington: University Press of America, 1978—$21.50, paper)

Terry D. Peigh, et al. The Use of Radio in Social Development (Chicago: Communication Laboratory, Community and Family Study Center of the University of Chicago, 1979—price not given, paper)

Ernest D. Rose's World Film & Television Study Resources (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Godesberger Allee 149, D 5300 Bonn 2, Federal Republic of Germany—price not given)

Medios Audiovisuales (Desengano 12, Madrid-13, Spain—650 pesetas per year/11 issues, surface mail)

List of International Instruments Concerning Different Aspects of Communication (Paris: Unesco International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, not dated—apparently free on request, paper)