Sport-specific nutrition: practical strategies for team sports

Implementation of a nutrition programme for team sports involves application of scientific research together with the social skills necessary to work with a sports medicine and coaching staff. Both field and court team sports are characterized by intermittent activity requiring a heavy reliance on dietary carbohydrate sources to maintain and replenish glycogen. Energy and substrate demands are high during pre-season training and matches, and moderate during training in the competitive season. Dietary planning must include enough carbohydrate on a moderate energy budget, while also meeting protein needs. Strength and power team sports require muscle-building programmes that must be accompanied by adequate nutrition, and simple anthropometric measurements can help the nutrition practitioner monitor and assess body composition periodically. Use of a body mass scale and a urine specific gravity refractometer can help identify athletes prone to dehydration. Sports beverages and caffeine are the most common supplements, while opinion on the practical effectiveness of creatine is divided. Late-maturing adolescent athletes become concerned about gaining size and muscle, and assessment of maturity status can be carried out with anthropometric procedures. An overriding consideration is that an individual approach is needed to meet each athlete's nutritional needs.     

Willingness to pay: individual or household?

This paper considers how respondents model the open-ended willingness to pay question, what is your maximum willingness to pay? In the specific context of valuing Irish public service broadcasting, respondents were asked a follow-up question in order to explore whether the initial response was an individual or household bid. The results suggest the presence of significant ambiguity in how responses to standard willingness to pay questions should be interpreted and aggregated.     

The outcomes of doctoral education: An institutional study

This study sought to establish baseline data on the outcomes of doctoral education at a private, urban university. Through the use of a survey instrument developed by the researchers, Ph.D. and Ed.D. recipients from 16 departments who had graduated between 1963 and 1984 were contacted. Three primary areas were examined: (1) the impact of doctoral education on career development, (2) the perceived influence of the institutional values on graduates, and (3) the frequency and type of research/scholarly activities engaged in during and after graduate school. Data provided by 707 respondents to the 168 item survey were analyzed by department, by degree, and by four general academic fields, and a number of indices were developed. The main thrust of this paper is the development of the instrument and indices, and the preliminary comparison of four fields with the indices.     

The Challenge of Involving Students in the Evaluation Process

This article traces one teacher educator's efforts to engage a class of pre-service and in-service teachers in the evaluation process. It shows that this is both time-consuming and difficult. It confirms McLaughlin's (1991) assertion that teachers find it difficult to appraise carefully the criteria and standards used to evaluate themselves and their students' learning. It also suggests that there are dimensions of power-knowledge at play at the levels of individual teachers (including the lecturer) and the institution.     

Using metacognitive strategies in teaching to facilitate understanding of light concepts among year 9 students

Background: Enhancing students’ metacognitive abilities will help to facilitate their understanding of science concepts.

Purpose: The study was designed to conduct and evaluate the effectiveness of a repertoire of interventions aimed at enhancing secondary school students’ metacognitive capabilities and their achievements in science.

Sample: A class of 35 Year 9 students participated in the study.

Design and methods: The study involved a pre-post design, conducted by the first author as part of the regular designated science programme in a class taught by him.

In order to enhance the students’ metacognitive capabilities, the first author employed clearly stated focused outcomes, engaging them in collaborative group work, reading scientific texts and using concept mapping techniques during classroom instruction. The data to evaluate the effectiveness of the metacognitive interventions were obtained from pre- and post-test results of two metacognitive questionnaires, the Metacognitive Support Questionnaire (MSpQ) and the Metacognitive Strategies Questionnaire (MStQ), and data from interviews. In addition, pre-test and post-test scores were used from a two-tier multiple-choice test on Light.

Results: The results showed gains in the MSpQ but not in the MStQ. However, the qualitative data from interviews suggested high metacognitive capabilities amongst the high- and average-achieving students at the end of the study. Students gains were also evident from the test scores in the Light test.

Conclusion: Although the quantitative data obtained from the Metacognitive Strategies Questionnaire did not show significant gains in the students’ metacognitive strategies, the qualitative data from interviews suggested positive perceptions of students’ metacognitive strategies amongst the high- and average-achieving students. Data from the Metacognitive Support Questionnaire showed that there were significant gains in the students’ perceptions of their metacognitive support implying that the majority of the students perceived that their learning environment was oriented towards the development of their metacognitive capabilities. The effect of the metacognitive interventions on students’ achievement in the Light test resulted in students displaying the correct declarative knowledge, but quite often they lacked the procedural knowledge by failing to explain their answers correctly.     

University Lecturers' Perceptions of Gender and Undergraduate Writing

It has been argued that male and female undergraduates adopt different, gendered writing styles. This paper discusses findings from a project that examined this issue, and explores lecturers' perceptions of gender and undergraduate writing. It shows that, in the case of 'second-class' awarded essays, a majority of academics were unable to correctly identify the authors gender. Applying analysis of discourse to the explanations of academics concerning their attempts at gender identification, we found that narratives used by academics tended to support discourses of gender difference, particularly in terms of ability. These various narratives, and the resulting constructions of male and female students, are discussed. It is argued that the narratives position male and female students in stereotypical ways, with implications for their power positions. We conclude that while it is important that gendered trends around undergraduate writing are recognised and addressed, the stereotyping of students according to gender must be avoided.     

Faculty ratings of course evaluation items

Instructors whose teaching was evaluated by students were given the opportunity to rate how applicable the evaluation items were to their classes. This study examined the kinds of items which instructors felt to be applicable or inapplicable, the relationships between the student ratings and the instructor applicability ratings, and the effect on an overall evaluation score of using the instructor applicability judgments as weights.Results generally support the consensus procedure of establishing rating forms; they suggest that the common criticism that faculty judgments of item applicability are influenced by anticipation of student ratings may be true for specific items and that while weighting composite evaluation scores by means of faculty applicability judgments does not affect those overall scores, the distributions of certain items may be altered.     

The Impact of a State Systemic Initiative on U.S. Science Teachers and Students

This study investigated the extent to which a State Systemic Initiative (SSI), a National Science Foundation program designed to improve science education across an entire state, implemented in the United States, could reform science education. Impacts that were measured included teachers' instructional practices, professional community, influence of the SSI on school policy, external influences on science instruction, and family involvement. In addition, students' views of instructional practice, school community and family involvement were measured. A retrospective comparative design was used to collect survey data from 46 middle schools; 23 that had significant amounts of contact with the SSI and 23 matched schools that had little to no contact with the SSI. The results suggested there were important differences favoring schools whose science teachers had participated in the SSI. Included were differences in the use of standards-based instruction, and external influences on science instruction teachers' influence on policy. No differences between the two groups were found for professional community or family involvement. For students, significant differences were only found for access to standards-based instruction. Results imply that SSIs can help change specific aspects of the system, but broader impacts are more difficult to achieve.