Schooling and local environmental knowledge: Do they complement or substitute each other?

Schooling and the knowledge acquired at school have been considered both a cause of loss of indigenous knowledge (because it opens pathways to the non-indigenous world and worldviews) and a potential remedy to its demise (if educational curricula is aligned with indigenous realities by giving instruction in local languages and incorporating local knowledge in school content). We test the association between academic and local environmental knowledge using data from a society of forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon who were exposed to a partially contextualized school curriculum. We found that although schooling and academic knowledge bear a negative association with local knowledge the magnitude is low, probably because schooling was partially contextualized. Contextualized learning might help avoid that the provision of universal education comes at the cost of humanity's cultural diversity.     

Latent learning in the work place: the placement experiences of student-coaches

The aim of this study was to investigate the work-based internship experiences of eight student-coaches. This was particularly in terms of what precisely such coaches learned within the practical context, and how they engaged with unexpected situational events. The methods employed within the project included focus group interviews and participant observation. In particular, the student-coaches were both interviewed and observed over the course of a nine-month sporting season, with each phase of the research informing the next. The subsequent data were primarily subject to a thematic analysis. The findings of the study were organized under four principal themes: (1) the reality shock felt by the student-coaches in terms of the gap between what they expected and what they experienced; (2) the lack of respect demonstrated by the organizational head coaches for the students; (3) the students’ response in terms of developing their micro-political literacy; and (4) the social price paid by the student-coaches in adopting such action. The results point to the limitations of student learning within high-performance sporting environments. In this respect, the student-coaches’ experiences were not what was expected or desired. Despite this, many valuable and relevant lessons were learned. These related to developing students’ micro-political literacy; necessary knowledge for any neophyte coaches trying to establish bone-fide situational roles.     

Mediating Peer Teaching for Learning Games: An Action Research Intervention Across Three Consecutive Sport Education Seasons

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to provide an integrated analysis of a teacher’s peer-teaching mediation strategies, the student-coaches’ instruction, and the students’ gameplay development across 3 consecutive seasons of sport education. Method: Twenty-six 7th-grade students participated in 3 consecutive sport education seasons of invasion games (basketball, handball, and soccer). The research involved 3 action research cycles, 1 per season, and each cycle included the processes of planning, acting and monitoring, reflecting, and fact finding. Data collection consisted of videotape and audiotape records of all 47 lessons, a reflective field diary kept by the first author in the role of teacher-researcher, and a total of 24 semistructured focus-group interviews. Trustworthiness criteria for assuring the quality of qualitative research included extensive data triangulation, stakeholders’ crosschecking, and collaborative interpretational analysis. Results: Through the application of systematic preparation strategies, student-coaches were able to successfully conduct team instruction that resulted in students’ tactical development and improved performance. Aspects such as the study of predominant configurations of players’ gameplay and similar tactical principles across games within the same category prevented a setback in the complexity of the learning content addressed at the beginning of each season. Players also showed an increasing ability to adapt gameplay to game conditions. Conclusions: While sport education has the capacity to develop competent players, different levels of teacher guidance and learners’ instructional responsibility are necessary when teaching tactics.     

Playing surface and UK professional rugby union injury risk

Artificial rugby union playing surface installation is increasing. This prospective cohort study aimed to examine the effect of playing surface on match injury types within 157 players of two UK professional rugby union clubs playing 209 matches (96 on artificial surfaces and 113 on grass) over three seasons. There was no difference in overall injury risk between the two playing surfaces with injury incidence on artificial 80.2 (CI 69.9–91.7) and on grass 81.9 per 1000 match-hours (CI 72.2–92.5), with an incidence rate ratio (RR) of 0.98 (CI 0.82–1.17). There was a higher rate of concussion (RR 0.52, CI 0.34 – 0.78) and chest injuries on grass (RR 0.26 CI 0.07, 0.95), and a higher rate of thigh haematoma (RR 2.25, CI 1.05–4.82) foot injuries (RR 4.12, CI 1.10, 15.40) and injury to players being tackled (RR 1.46, CI 1.00, 2.15) on artificial. Whilst there was no higher injury risk for matches played on artificial versus natural grass surfaces, the higher incidence of concussion and chest injury on grass, and the higher rate of foot injuries on artificial surfaces may be related to tackle and footwear-to-surface interface factors.     

eSport gehört nicht unter das Dach des organisierten Sports

Despite the increasing pressure both at the political level and in the media to place competitive video games (so-called esports) under the umbrella of club and federation sport, the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and its member associations have all reason to reject any such incorporation: competitive computer games can be neither identified nor defined by their motor activity; they run counter to the health and educational benefits of sport, thus jeopardising sport’s social legitimacy; and they exhibit no organisational structures that meet the requirements of club and federation sport. The article reflects the current stance of sports federations in dealing with esport and recommends that federation sport adopts a clear strategy of demarcation.     

Interactive groups for immigrant students: a factor for success in the path of immigrant students

Student’s learning is the result of a large number of interactions in all areas. Consequently, with an increasing number of intercultural students, we need to bring to the classrooms successful educational actions that enhance interactions and that have an impact on improving education. Based on the CONEXITO project, this article shows how interactive groups (IGs) have contributed to increase not only the educational success of native students but also the success of immigrant students in different schools of Spain, for which IGs have particular educational outcomes. The communicative qualitative data presents evidence that, especially focusing on them, IGs increase instrumental learning and facilitate the bonds of solidarity and mutual help.     

Does Temperament Moderate the Relation between Preschool Parenting and School-Age Self-Regulation? Contrasting Diathesis-Stress and Differential Susceptibility Models

Objective. Children vary in how sensitive they are to environmental influences. Child temperament is an individual difference factor that appears to moderate the impact of environment on early child development. This study contrasts the “diathesis-stress/dual risk” and “differential susceptibility” models in examining difficult temperament as a moderator of the relation between preschool parenting and school-aged child persistence. Design. A longitudinal design included 61 typically developing Portuguese children (31 girls) assessed when they were toddlers (Time 1 at 1–3 years), preschoolers (Time 2 at 4–6 years), and school aged (Time 3 at 8–10 years). At Time 1, parents were recruited and interviewed. At Time 2, semi-structured mother–child interactions were observed, and preschool teachers rated children’s temperament. At Time 3, children’s task persistence was rated by their elementary teachers. Results. Difficult temperament moderated the association between mother–child interactions and child persistence, with stronger associations for children with more difficult temperaments. Conclusions. Consistent with the diathesis-stress model, results reveal that high levels of positive parenting reduce the risk of low self-regulation associated with difficult temperament.     

Diversification around Europe – performance measuring with regard to different missions

Existing university ranking systems blur differences between Higher Education Institutions because they only focus on research. The increased breadth, diversity and complexity of Higher Education Institutions’ missions are repeatedly overlooked causing a low visibility to a wide audience. This paper demonstrates the possibilities to measure other missions such as international orientation and regional engagement. Therefore, the results of 618 Higher Education Institutions (Effective March 2016) in U-Multirank, an international university ranking, are used. The results show the impressive variety in the higher education systems among European regions. Every region found missions in which they effectively perform thus proving the importance of each mission. The multidimensional ranking takes into account the complexity of Higher Education Institutions’ missions and capturing the relevance of Higher Education Institutions third mission’s activities adequately. Transparency across all missions is the only possibility to make the performances honourable. As research is not the only remarkable mission of Higher Education Institutions, teaching is not the only necessary mission. When other missions are overlooked, the performance measurement systems hinder mission diversity in higher education.

     

Pre-service Teachers’ False Beliefs in Superstitions and Pseudosciences in Relation to Science and Technology

Science & Education - In order to increase scientific competence within the general population, it is important that teachers and educators have a realistic image of science and scientists,...     

The role of habituation of the response to LiCl in the US-preexposure effect

In two experiments, rats received preexposure consisting of six intraperitoneal injections of lithium chloride (LiCl). This treatment reduced the magnitude of the unconditioned response (UR; suppressed consumption of a novel flavor) evoked by an additional injection (Experiment 1) or by oral consumption (Experiment 2) of LiCl. In both experiments, preexposure also attenuated the acquisition of a conditioned aversion with an LiCl injection as the unconditioned stimulus (US) but had no effect on the aversion produced when the US was oral consumption of LiCl (Experiment 2). These results are consistent with the view that the reduced ability of the preexposed US to serve as a reinforcer depends on blocking by injection-related cues and is independent of habituation of the UR recorded in the present study. Possible interpretations of this dissociation are discussed.