Mapping a space of biography: Karl Triebold and the Waldschule of Senne I-Bielefeld (c.1923–1939)

Starting from a ‘life geography’ of Karl Triebold, a leading figure in open-air education, this article provides an understanding of the seemingly ordinary but still idiosyncratic development of a German open-air school. Triebold’s life’s work, the fight against tuberculosis, conceived as character education through healthy occupation, was inspired by his experience both as a tuberculosis patient and as a teacher in a field hospital. Rest cures and saltwater baths were precursors of ‘his’ open-air school that was to be sustained by a social-insurance company. ‘Weak’, mostly poor children were to stay there, divided according to age, sex and constitution. Triebold’s influence is most apparent from the institution’s ‘concentric’ method and curriculum. Precisely these, however, were rejected. The school as such was supposedly closed, and Triebold was discharged, which enabled him to become an open-air school figurehead. This illustrates how broader institutional developments can bear the imprint of subjects’ life history.     

INTERACTION CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DIFFICULT-TO-INTERVIEW RESPONDENT

When a researcher decides to collect data by means of surveyinterviews, he or she makes the assumption that all the respondentshave sufficient cognitive and communicative skills to executethe respondent's role adequately. In this article we validatethe explanation that older and less educated respondents aredifficult to interview because they do not have sufficient communicativeskills. To determine the respondent's cognitive and communicativeskills we use behavioral coding of the respondent–interviewerinteraction. The analysis makes clear that most respondentshave enough skills to accomplish their role as respondents.However, there is a small group of respondents who have insufficientskills. As expected, these difficult-to-interview respondentsare older and less educated.     

Lessons learnt from applying action research to support strategy formation processes in long-term care networks

This study demonstrates how action research (AR) that is aimed at scaling-up experiments can be applied to support a strategy formation process (SFP) in a subsidized long-term care network. Previous research has developed numerous AR frameworks to support experiments in various domains, but has failed to explain how to apply AR and action learning (AL) on the strategic level of organizational networks. Given this situation, we used a generic AR framework to explore its usefulness in supporting SFPs. The framework consists of four steps: (1) identifying the problem situation, (2) planning a solution, (3) taking action, and (4) reflecting on the action. The results show that utilizing AL in AR helps actors to reflect on and understand the challenges in forming a joint strategy in a network. We demonstrate that it can help to visualize the process and to create a common ground for discussion, to create a shared vision as well as commitment to scaling-up experiments. These insights should be used in future SFPs in networks. However, the results also show that the key barrier, the lack of executive commitment, was only identified at a late stage. This paper constitutes a first step toward a more sophisticated AR framework for strategy research. The mistakes highlighted here should help others avoid them in the future.     

Community Knowledge,Beliefs, Attitudes,and Practices towards Children with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in Uganda

This article describes the findings of a qualitative study on knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practices towards children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus in four regions of Uganda. Focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were held with parents of children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, policy-makers, and service providers. Our findings describe how negative knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practices create barriers to treatment and inclusion of children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus and their parents in Uganda. The findings show how knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practices evolve over time, are both similar and differ in the various regions, and become more conducive towards accessing treatment and achieving inclusion. Sensitisation and early intervention including parents and service providers in dissemination of knowledge, rehabilitative care to set the trend for positive change and support, as well as longitudinal studies of children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus and their parents are recommended.     

Research on the Co-Branding and Match-Up of Mega-Sports Event and Host City

Against the background of economic transformation and globalization, the impact of sports industrialization on economic development has become a hot spot. The relationship between sports events and urban development, which lies at the core of sports industrialization, is receiving growing attention from researchers. Existing studies have looked primarily at the direct economic benefits. However, it is the brand elements, condensed in core value, that are actually the source of the general competitiveness in terms of urban sustainable development and long-term intangible assets. Sporting events have a very special meaning and impact in terms of moulding city brands and building urban awareness. They enable cities to acquire resources and build momentum for continued development. Some examples of this include acquiring better basic facilities and an enhanced urban environment; increased development of relevant industries; publicity and promotion of city brands; greater urban renown, tourism, and investment; and formation of an urban sports culture. However, maximizing the promotion benefits requires integrating the common elements that exist between the sports event and the host city, namely the coherence points in co-branded marketing. This paper explores the evolution of the relationship between sporting events and host cities, and discusses how to improve the integration of common elements and match the integrating elements in order to maximize the synergistic effect of co-branding.     

The leeway of qualitative educational research: A case study

This article presents a case study into the question of how research-internal and research-external factors influence the leeway of qualitative research, and ultimately determine which questions can and cannot be addressed in research. First an overview is presented of the position of qualiative research in the field of education in The Netherlands. This position is then analysed by situating educational research in the particular research political context. In the second part of the article the authors focus on effective schools research, one of the strongest research programmes in Dutch educational studies, in order to show the consequences of the lack of a qualitative tradition.     

Reliability and concurrent validity of a motor skill competence test among 4- to 12-year old children

The purpose of this study was to examine the test-retest reliability, internal consistency and concurrent validity of the Athletic Skills Track (AST). During a regular PE lesson, 930 4- to 12-year old children (448 girls, 482 boys) completed two motor skill competence tests: (1) the Körperkoordination-Test für Kinder (KTK) and (2) an age-related version of the AST (age 4–6 years: AST-1, age 6–9 years: AST-2, and age 9–12 years: AST-3). The test-retest reliability of the AST was high (AST-1: ICC = 0.881 (95% CI: 0.780–0.934); AST-2: ICC = 0.802 (95% CI: 0.717–0.858); and AST-3: ICC = 0.800 (95% CI: 0.669–0.871). The internal consistency, concerning the three age-bands of the AST was above the acceptable level of Cronbach’s α > 0.70 (AST-1: α = 0.764; AST-2: α = 0.700; and AST-3: α = 0.763). There was a moderate to high correlation between the time to complete the AST, and the age- and gender-related motor quotients of the KTK (AST-1: r = ?0.747, p = 0.01; AST-2: r = ?0.646, p = 0.01; and AST-3: r = ?0.602, p = 0.01). The Athletic Skills Track is a reliable and valid assessment tool to assess motor skill competence among 4- to 12-year old children in the PE setting.     

The Impact of Context on the Development of Aggressive Behavior in Special Elementary School Children

The role of context in the development of child aggression was studied. The effects of peer aggregation and group composition on aggression development in intervention contexts and classroom contexts were compared using 71 elementary school children. We hypothesized that, due to peer group effects, group-trained children would benefit less from a social skills intervention program than individually trained children. We further hypothesized that children who transferred from special to regular education would show a change toward less aggression. This was hypothesized because of the relatively fewer accounts of negative peer-group effects in regular education. The results show that the social skills intervention program did not have differential effects for group-trained versus individually trained children. However, a change toward less aggression was found in children who transferred from special to regular education. We suggest that interventions toward decreasing child aggression might be more fruitful if the social context in which the children operate daily is considered.     

Teachers' perception of the new teacher evaluation policy: A validity study of the Policy Characteristics Scale

Teachers' perception of the educational policy is vital to understand the success or failure of the policy's implementation. In this article, we describe the development and use of the Policy Characteristics Scale to measure teachers' perception of a new teacher evaluation policy. An exploratory factor analysis (n = 347) and a confirmative factor analysis (n = 263) revealed a three-factor structure of teachers' perception of the new educational policy: policy's practicality, need, and clarifying function. Our research results indicated that teachers confirm the policy's need. They perceive the reform as clear but they have questions about the policy's implementation. Implications for policy makers and school leaders are discussed.