How you provide corrective feedback makes a difference: the motivating role of communicating in an autonomy-supporting way

We relied on self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000) to investigate to what extent autonomy-supporting corrective feedback (i.e., feedback that coaches communicate to their athletes after poor performance or mistakes) is associated with athletes' optimal motivation and well-being. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a cross-sectional study with 337 (67.1% males) Greek adolescent athletes (age M = 15.59, SD = 2.37) from various sports. Aligned with SDT, we found through path analysis that an autonomy-supporting versus controlling communication style was positively related to future intentions to persist and well-being and negatively related to ill-being. These relations were partially mediated by the perceived legitimacy of the corrective feedback (i.e., the degree of acceptance of corrective feedback), and, in turn, by intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, and external regulation for doing sports. Results indicate that autonomy-supporting feedback can be still motivating even in cases in which such feedback conveys messages of still too low competence.     

The motivating role of positive feedback in sport and physical education: evidence for a motivational model

Based on self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), an experimental study with middle school students participating in a physical education task and a correlational study with highly talented sport students investigated the motivating role of positive competence feedback on participants' well-being, performance, and intention to participate. In Study 1, structural equation modeling favored the hypothesized motivational model, in which, after controlling for pretask perceived competence and competence valuation, feedback positively predicted competence satisfaction, which in turn predicted higher levels of vitality and greater intentions to participate, through the mediation of autonomous motivation. No effects on performance were found. Study 2 further showed that autonomous motivation mediated the relation between competence satisfaction and well-being, whereas a motivation mediated the negative relation between competence satisfaction and ill-being and rated performance. The discussion focuses on the motivational role of competence feedback in sports and physical education settings.     

Development and validation of the goal content for exercise questionnaire

Self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000) proposes that intrinsic, relative to extrinsic, goal content is a critical predictor of the quality of an individual's behavior and psychological well-being. Through three studies, we developed and psychometrically tested a measure of intrinsic and extrinsic goal content in the exercise context: the Goal Content for Exercise Questionnaire (GCEQ). In adults, exploratory (N = 354; Study 1) and confirmatory factor analyses (N = 312; Study 2) supported a 20-item solution consisting of 5 lower order factors (i.e., social affiliation, health management, skill development, image and social recognition) that could be subsumed within a 2-factor higher order structure (i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic). Evidence for external validity, temporal stability, gender invariance, and internal consistency of the GCEQ was found. An independent sample (N = 475; Study 3) provided further support for the lower order structure of the GCEQ and some support for the higher order structure. The GCEQ was supported as a measure of exercise-based goal content, which may help understand how intrinsic and extrinsic goals can motivate exercise behavior.     

Is high soleus muscle activity during the stance phase of the running cycle a potential risk factor for the development of medial tibial stress syndrome? A prospective study

ABSTRACT

To assess the impact of lower-leg muscle activity during the stance phase of running on the development of medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS), in 123 healthy participants (18.2 ± 0.8 years), dynamic and static foot posture, and soleus and tibialis anterior muscle activity during the stance phase of running were measured before a 17-week track- and field-course. After the course, MTSS was identified in 20.5% of the participants. MTSS participants had a higher body mass (ES = 1.13), body mass index (BMI) (ES = 1.31), lower previous vigorous physical activity level (ES = 0.84) and VO_2max (ES = 0.61), greater dynamic foot pronation (ES = 0.66), higher soleus peak EMG amplitude during the absorption (ES = 0.60) and propulsion phases (ES = 0.56) of running, and a history of MTSS (OR = 6.38) (p < 0.05). Stepwise logistic regression showed BMI, dynamic foot index, soleus peak EMG amplitude during propulsion, MTSS history and previous vigorous physical activity were predictors of MTSS. The model predicted 96.6% of the healthy participants and 56.5% of the MTSS participants and correctly classified 88.4% of overall cases. Coaches and sports-medicine professionals that screen for injury risk should consider adopting a comprehensive evaluation that includes these parameters.     

Blog feed search with a post index

User generated content forms an important domain for mining knowledge. In this paper, we address the task of blog feed search: to find blogs that are principally devoted to a given topic, as opposed to blogs that merely happen to mention the topic in passing. The large number of blogs makes the blogosphere a challenging domain, both in terms of effectiveness and of storage and retrieval efficiency. We examine the effectiveness of an approach to blog feed search that is based on individual posts as indexing units (instead of full blogs). Working in the setting of a probabilistic language modeling approach to information retrieval, we model the blog feed search task by aggregating over a blogger’s posts to collect evidence of relevance to the topic and persistence of interest in the topic. This approach achieves state-of-the-art performance in terms of effectiveness. We then introduce a two-stage model where a pre-selection of candidate blogs is followed by a ranking step. The model integrates aggressive pruning techniques as well as very lean representations of the contents of blog posts, resulting in substantial gains in efficiency while maintaining effectiveness at a very competitive level.     

Measuring teaching quality in higher education: assessing selection bias in course evaluations

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are widely used to measure teaching quality in higher education and compare it across different courses, teachers, departments and institutions. Indeed, SETs are of increasing importance for teacher promotion decisions, student course selection, as well as for auditing practices demonstrating institutional performance. However, survey response is typically low, rendering these uses unwarranted if students who respond to the evaluation are not randomly selected along observed and unobserved dimensions. This paper is the first to fully quantify this problem by analyzing the direction and size of selection bias resulting from both observed and unobserved characteristics for over 3000 courses taught in a large European university. We find that course evaluations are upward biased, and that correcting for selection bias has non-negligible effects on the average evaluation score and on the evaluation-based ranking of courses. Moreover, this bias mostly derives from selection on unobserved characteristics, implying that correcting evaluation scores for observed factors such as student grades does not solve the problem. However, we find that adjusting for selection only has small impacts on the measured effects of observables on SETs, validating a large related literature which considers the observable determinants of evaluation scores without correcting for selection bias.     

An Adequate Education in a Globalised World? A Note on Immunisation Against Being–Together

The article starts from the questions: what is it to be an inhabitant or citizen of a globalised world, and how are we to think of education in relation to such inhabitants? We examine more specifically the so–called ‘European area of higher education’ that is on the way to being established and that can be regarded as a concrete example of a process of globalisation. In the first part of the paper we try to show that the discursive horizon, and the concrete techniques and strategies that accompany the establishment of this space of higher education, invite the inhabitants of that space to see themselves as entrepreneurial and autonomous entities. In the second part we show how this specific kind of subjectivation (this production of subjects), related as it is to this globalised space, involves what we call an immunisation that also affects our thinking and our ideas in and about education. To refer to this as a kind of immunisation implies that globalisation could in fact be considered a closing or enclosing rather than an opening up. We argue, therefore, that this immunisation needs to be refused in favour of the invention of other kinds of subjectivity, other ways of speaking and writing about the world and about education, such that we relate to ourselves in a different way.     

Facilitating social learning in teacher education: a case study

It is increasingly recognised that social learning by teachers can stimulate professional development. In this study, we search for the social behaviour patterns which can act as a catalyst for professional development, with an explicit focus on student teachers’ learning. Based on the ‘Dimensions of Social Learning (DSL) Framework’, including 4 dimensions and 11 indicators of social learning, the present study explores the social configuration of one network of primary teachers (n?=?12), student teachers (n?=?12) and teacher educators (n?=?2). Two research questions guide this exploration: (1) What patterns of social behaviour in teacher networks are likely to lead to professional learning? (2) What network facilitation guidelines can be discerned to assist teachers and teacher educators wishing to optimise student teachers’ professional development? Data collection consisted of video recordings, reflective notes and semi-structured interviews with network members. The findings paint a picture of how social learning in teacher networks is related to the group’s social configuration. Observation criteria and student facilitation guidelines are suggested to support professional development within teacher networks. For each dimension in the DSL Framework, one point of attention is discerned to optimise students’ learning in teacher networks.     

Natural-Born Arguers: Teaching How to Make the Best of Our Reasoning Abilities

We summarize the argumentative theory of reasoning, which claims that the main function of reasoning is to argue. In this theory, argumentation is seen as being essentially cooperative (people have to listen to others' arguments and be ready to change their mind) but with an adversarial dimension (their goal as argument producers is to convince). Consistent with this theory, the experimental literature shows that solitary reasoning is biased and lazy, whereas reasoning in group discussion produces good results, provided some conditions are met. We formulate recommendations for improving reasoning performance, mainly, to make people argue more and better by creating felicitous conditions for group discussion. We also make some suggestions for improving solitary reasoning, in particular to maximize students' exposure to arguments challenging their positions. Teaching people about the value of argumentation is likely to improve not only immediate reasoning performance but also long-term solitary reasoning skills.     

Placing Motivation and Future Time Perspective Theory in a Temporal Perspective

An overview of the conceptual development of future time perspective theory [Nuttin, J. R. (1984). Motivation, Planning and Action: A Relational Theory of Behavior, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ; Nuttin, J., and Lens, W. (1985). Future Time Perspective and Motivation: Theory and Research Method, Leuven University Press and Erlbaum, Leuven, Belgium and Hillsdale, NJ] is provided. It is demonstrated that having a deep future time perspective and increasing the instrumentality of one's present behavior are associated with enhanced motivation, deep conceptual learning, better performance, and more intensive persistence. Moreover, recent research indicates that it is important to consider the degree of specificity of the provided future goal, the content of the given future goal, and the context in which the instrumentality of the present behavior is made clear. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.