Do pattern recognition skills transfer across sports? A preliminary analysis

The ability to recognize patterns of play is fundamental to performance in team sports. While typically assumed to be domain-specific, pattern recognition skills may transfer from one sport to another if similarities exist in the perceptual features and their relations and/or the strategies used to encode and retrieve relevant information. A transfer paradigm was employed to compare skilled and less skilled soccer, field hockey and volleyball players' pattern recognition skills. Participants viewed structured and unstructured action sequences from each sport, half of which were randomly represented with clips not previously seen. The task was to identify previously viewed action sequences quickly and accurately. Transfer of pattern recognition skill was dependent on the participant's skill, sport practised, nature of the task and degree of structure. The skilled soccer and hockey players were quicker than the skilled volleyball players at recognizing structured soccer and hockey action sequences. Performance differences were not observed on the structured volleyball trials between the skilled soccer, field hockey and volleyball players. The skilled field hockey and soccer players were able to transfer perceptual information or strategies between their respective sports. The less skilled participants' results were less clear. Implications for domain-specific expertise, transfer and diversity across domains are discussed.     

Health smart cards: merging technology and medical information

Smart cards are credit card-sized plastic cards, with an embedded dime-sized Integrated Circuit microprocessor chip. Smart cards can be used for keyless entry, electronic medical records, etc. Health smart cards have been in limited use since 1982 in Europe and the United States, and several barriers including lack of infrastructure, low consumer confidence, competing standards, and cost continue to be addressed.     

Fun with Computers and GNVQ: Performing to Criteria and the Confidence to Improvise

This article examines the development and assessment of communication skills at GNVQ. It does this by reflecting on a project using multi-media technology to deliver communication skills to ESOL students. The author argues that current models of communication skills in GNVQ can be narrow and limiting and suggests that stimulating imaginative uses of language is more constructive in raising student confidence and achievement.     

Craig Alternative School: A Case Study in Therapeutic Educational Intervention

Craig Alternative Middle/High School is an academic/therapeutic multi‐categorical exceptional education program for eighty‐five high risk male and female students who, because of their atypical behaviours, have not been successful in a less restrictive educational environment. The staff consisting of teachers, paraprofessionals, psychologists, social workers, probation officers and a psychiatrist, co‐ordinate the students' therapeutic, vocational and academic programs within a day school setting in an attempt to maximize positive behavioural change.     

Interaction of words and nonwordal stimuli in programed sequences of concept-formation tasks

Summary This study suggests that nonwordal sequences can be employed advantageously in teaching certain concepts; trials to criterion, time, and accuracy all favor nonwordal sequences and, in some cases, successive treatment as well. This study indicates the feasibility of replicating aspects of basic concept-formation research in applied subject-matter areas and suggests that terminology from such research is relevant. This study implies that small-group program-development studies which emphasize experimental analysis of behavior can be given an experimental-design emphasis without going to prohibitively high “N’s”; however, results from such a study should be taken as suggestive for more rigorous investigations by others who concentrate on experimental design and comparisons of treatments. Finally, this study demonstrates that research in curriculum design involving the experimental use of new approaches to teaching, stemming from advanced subject-matter frames of reference, can be carried on in conjunction with research in learning; indeed, in the opinion of the investigators, it is unrealistic to separate these dimensions. The need to draft nonwordal stimuli produced a learning sequence which has powerful implications for the teaching of algebra. The research reported herein was supported by a grant from the Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.