Position-specific performance indicators that discriminate between successful and unsuccessful teams in elite women’s indoor field hockey: implications for coaching

The aim of this investigation was to establish median performance profiles for the six playing positions in elite women’s indoor hockey and then identify whether these position-specific profiles could discriminate between qualifying (top four), mid-table and relegated teams in the 2011–2012 England Hockey premier league. Successful passing in relegated teams was significantly lower (P < 0.008) than in mid-table and qualifying teams in four of the five outfield positions. Furthermore, the right backs of qualifying teams demonstrated significantly fewer (P < 0.008) unsuccessful passes (x? = 15.5 ± CLs 15.0 and 10.0, respectively) and interceptions (x? = 4.0 ± CLs 4.0 and 3.0, respectively) than relegated teams (x? = 19.5 ± CLs 21.0 and 17.0; x? = 7.5 ± CLs 8.0 and 6.0, respectively). Finally, the right forwards of relegated teams demonstrated significantly fewer (P < 0.008) successful interceptions (x? = 4.0 ± CLs 5.0 and 4.0, respectively) than qualifying teams (x? = 5.0 ± CLs 6.0 and 3.0, respectively) and significantly more (P < 0.008) unsuccessful interceptions (x? = 5.5 ± CLs 6.0 and 4.0, respectively) than mid-table teams (x? = 3.0 ± CLs 3.0 and 2.0, respectively). Based on these findings, coaches should adapt tactical strategies and personnel deployment accordingly to enhance the likelihood of preparing a qualifying team. Research should build from these data to examine dribbling, pressing and patterns of play when outletting.     

Modelling quality

This article argues that the increase in the number of teaching and learning centres in universities of technology in recent years is bound up with concerns about the quality of university education. Universities that have set up such centres have been motivated to do so for two main reasons. They are keen to improve the image and the capacity of their teaching faculty. They also hope to attract students at a time when many school leavers prefer immediate, well-paid employment to four or more years of study. There has been outside pressure as well. Governments have demanded that tertiary institutions become more accountable. Governments are insisting that taxpayers get value for their money, especially in the area of teaching and learning. The question asked in this article is whether or not teaching and learning centres should be modelling quality issues as well as teaching and learning issues. Our conclusion is that the centres should be proactive in this matter, providing their institution with both theoretical and practical models of quality management and assurance.     

Designing Curriculum-Based Mathematics Professional Development for Kindergarten Teachers

This study examines the influence of a year-long mathematics professional development program on Kindergarten teachers’ beliefs, content knowledge, instructional practices, and their students’ achievement. The professional development program is grounded in the theoretical construct of learner-centered professional development and focuses on supporting teachers’ integration of standards-based pedagogies aligned with the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. Data analysis included examining 15 Kindergarten teachers’ mathematics content knowledge, their beliefs about mathematics, their enactment of student-centered pedagogies, and student achievement on curriculum-based assessments. Findings indicated that teachers adopted more student-centered pedagogies and embraced more student-centered beliefs about mathematics teaching during their time in the project. Further, Kindergarten teachers also demonstrated gains in their mathematical content knowledge, and those content knowledge gains were linked to gains in student achievement.     

The Pendulum in the 21st Century-Relic or Trendsetter

When identifyinginstruments that have had great influence on the history of physics, none comes to mind more quickly than the pendulum. Though first treated scientifically by Galileo in the 16th century, and in some respects nearly `dead' by the middle of the 20th century; the pendulum experienced `rebirth' by becoming an archetype of chaos. With the resulting acclaim for its surprising behavior at large amplitudes, one might expect that there would already be widespread interest in another of its significant nonlinearities. Such is not the case, however, and the complex motions of small amplitude physical pendula are barely known. The present paper shows that a simply-constructed metallic rod pendulum is capable of demonstrating rich physics in a largely unstudied area.     

Chinese children with ASD in Hong Kong (SAR): development of inclusive practice

The advancement of inclusive educational provision in the Asia‐Pacific region has been guided by international research. As one example, Hong Kong has developed a unique and cultural response to inclusive practice within the region. This paper reviews Hong Kong's development of inclusive education practice for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It provides an account of how services in education have developed for Chinese children with ASD, from diagnosis to school placement, and how the students are supported. A number of challenges for the region are discussed including those related to pedagogy, mentoring, placement, support and the need for culturally appropriate professional learning.     

Digital archives in the cloud: Collective memory,institutional histories and the politics of information

The archive is a cultural institution that creates a framework for the social and collective memory and as such is one of the collection of knowledge institutions that not only preserves and classifies “texts” but uses them to re-create collective memory and sometimes to invent cultural histories. Like all knowledge institutions, the archive is also a construction deeply implicated in knowledge politics or what Foucault calls power/knowledge. In the past the archive has functioned as a central metaphor for the construction of human knowledge in all it is different institutional forms and like the encyclopedia and the camera, the archive produces highly coded representations that make implicit validity claims to the truth and justice of the past. Politically speaking, those who control the archive control the past. In the digital world, the archive is used to describe a machine-readable location as a store for “data” and “information.” Digital technologies radically alter our existing institutions, making access to their embedded knowledge widely available and enable learning and research anytime, anywhere. Data analytics algorithmically can manipulate electorates and entire democracies in new ways, while destabilising the free press. This article asks what digitizing an archive means for collective memory, for the history of institutions and for politics in the Cloud.