Agencies,educators, communities and wildfire: partnerships to enhance environmental education for youth

We studied seven programs that engage youth from 10 to 18 years old in wildfire risk reduction in their communities in the United States through in-depth interviews to examine the nature and role of community-school partnerships in resource-focused environmental education. While the programs use a variety of strategies, from Scout badge to summer school, they exhibit several common dimensions: they all engage youth in community projects; they all arise from partnerships between resource agencies, community organizations, and educators; they all began when people familiar with both wildfire and youth education saw an opportunity to improve the community and educate youth through action; and all partners are able to contribute to the common program yet retain their individual identity as they meet their own mission-based goals. We use themes and quotes to illustrate these common dimensions for establishing community-school partnerships that could build action competence through environment-based education projects.     

Concurrent validity of the Polar s3 Stride Sensor for measuring walking stride velocity

With this research, we sought to establish the accuracy of stride velocity data collected by the s3 Stride Sensor Participants walked along a GAITRite mat at self-selected slow, preferred, and fast velocities, with two s3 Stride Sensors attached to their right foot. The start position was systematically varied such that the GAITRite system would record the second through sixth strides at each walking velocity. Both slow and preferred walking velocities were underestimated by 14% relative to the GAITRite (p < .05), while independent of walking velocity, Strides 2 and 3 were underestimated by 26% and 9% (p < .05), respectively. Researchers should use caution when interpreting data collected at slow and preferred walking velocities and during the first three strides.     

Explaining match outcome in elite Australian Rules football using team performance indicators

The relationships between team performance indicators and match outcome have been examined in many team sports, however are limited in Australian Rules football. Using data from the 2013 and 2014 Australian Football League (AFL) regular seasons, this study assessed the ability of commonly reported discrete team performance indicators presented in their relative form (standardised against their opposition for a given match) to explain match outcome (Win/Loss). Logistic regression and decision tree (chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID)) analyses both revealed relative differences between opposing teams for “kicks” and “goal conversion” as the most influential in explaining match outcome, with two models achieving 88.3% and 89.8% classification accuracies, respectively. Models incorporating a smaller performance indicator set displayed a slightly reduced ability to explain match outcome (81.0% and 81.5% for logistic regression and CHAID, respectively). However, both were fit to 2014 data with reduced error in comparison to the full models. Despite performance similarities across the two analysis approaches, the CHAID model revealed multiple winning performance indicator profiles, thereby increasing its comparative feasibility for use in the field. Coaches and analysts may find these results useful in informing strategy and game plan development in Australian Rules football, with the development of team-specific models recommended in future.     

Preservice teachers perspectives and experiences teaching personal and social responsibility

ABSTRACT

Background: Pedagogical models have become an established component of physical education over the past several decades. One such model, the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility model, has gained momentum in practice and research, though little is known regarding its use in preservice teacher training. The model follows a flexible format focused on teaching life skills (e.g. leadership) that can be applied in all lived ecologies. Occupational socialization theory provides insight into the pretraining and teacher education experiences of preservice teachers that shape their understanding and practice of physical education and associated pedagogical models.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to understand the influence of a sequence of methods courses and early field experiences on U.S. preservice teachers’ understanding and implementation of the teaching personal and social responsibility model with youth from a community affected by poverty.

Method: This study took on a phenomenological and social constructivist approach. Ten preservice teachers (9 males, 1 female) took part in the study. The participants were an average age of 22.10 years old (SD?=?4.38) and seven identified as White and three as Black. Each participant was enrolled in methods and early field experience coursework that provided scaffolded training in primary education in a community affected by poverty. Preservice teachers team-taught groups of 10–15 children twice a week along with one day committed to on-campus reflection. Data collection included autobiographical essays, critical incident reports, reflective journals, non-participatory observations and field notes, and semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed deductively through the lens of occupational socialization theory, and inductively as theory divergent trends were sought. Open and axial coding was completed with member checking throughout, resulting in a final set of themes and subthemes.

Findings: The preservice teachers initially struggled to connect with their students due to conflicting backgrounds, but the teaching personal and social responsibility model guided the relationship-building process. As the model was continuously utilized, more empathy and care were shown towards the children. Preservice teachers felt there was a lack of progression in positive behaviors but were able to empower youth and felt that the model was culturally relevant. Overtime, the students began to appreciate the affective domain despite the challenge of working in a community affected by poverty through frustration towards the larger system limiting any potential progress was present.

Conclusions: Subjective theories transitioned to include relationship building and life skills learning, likely because of the extended field experience and faculty support. The preservice teachers desire to connect with and teach the students well displays the connection between models-based practice and positive relationships. Preservice teachers’ knowledge of their students was limited as it was based on secondhand knowledge of youth, teacher educators, and school staff. Evidence indicates some cultural responsiveness development though there were also elements of a deficit model due to white privilege and class differences. Further work explicitly integrating a culturally relevant approach and social justice in teacher education programming should occur.     

Validation of the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) in a self‐directed instructional setting aimed at working with technology

The ARCS Model of Motivational Design has been used myriad times to design motivational instructions that focus on attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction in order to motivate students. The Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) is a 36‐item situational measure of people's reactions to instructional materials in the light of the ARCS model. Although the IMMS has been used often, both as a pretest and a posttest tool serving as either a motivational needs assessment prior to instruction or a measure of people's reactions to instructional materials afterward, the IMMS so far has not been validated extensively, taking statistical and theoretical aspects of the survey into account. This paper describes such an extensive validation study, for which the IMMS was used in a self‐directed instructional setting aimed at working with technology (a cellular telephone). Results of structural equation modeling show that the IMMS can be reduced to 12 items. This Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation Survey IMMS (RIMMS) is preferred over the original IMMS. The parsimonious RIMMS measures the four constructs attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction of the ARCS model well, and reflects its conditional nature.     

Reducing adolescents' involvement with relational aggression: Evaluating the effectiveness of the Creating A Safe School (CASS) intervention

This study examined the effectiveness of a comprehensive, school‐based intervention program, Creating A Safe School (CASS; The Ophelia Project) designed to reduce relational aggression (RA) and relational victimization (RV). Sixth‐grade students (N = 406) were surveyed before and after the intervention. Program effects were tested using a repeated‐measures design. Results revealed significant reductions in RA and RV among students who reported initially high levels of involvement. Findings also showed that decreasing approval of RA accounted for a significant amount of variance in changes in RA between pre‐ and posttest. These results provide initial evidence of the effectiveness of the CASS intervention model in reducing RA among early adolescents. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A rule induction framework for the determination of representative learning design in skilled performance

Representative learning design provides a framework for the extent to which practice simulates key elements of a performance setting. Improving both the measurement and analysis of representative learning design would allow for the refinement of sports training environments that seek to replicate competition conditions and provide additional context to the evaluation of athlete performance. Using rule induction, this study aimed to develop working models for the determination of high frequency, representative events in Australian Rules football kicking. A sample of 9005 kicks from the 2015 Australian Football League season were categorised and analysed according to the following constraints: type of pressure, kick distance, possession source, time in possession, velocity and kick target. The Apriori algorithm was used to develop two models. The first consisted of 10 rules containing the most commonly occurring constraint sets occurring during the kick in AF, with support values ranging from 0.15 to 0.22. None of the rules contained more than three constraints and confidence values ranged from 0.63 to 0.84. The second model considered ineffective and effective kick outcomes and displayed 70% classification accuracy. This research provides a measurement approach to determine the degree of representativeness of sports practice and is directly applicable to various team sports.     

Predicting individual differences in reading comprehension: a twin study

We examined the Simple View of reading from a behavioral genetic perspective. Two aspects of word decoding (phonological decoding and word recognition), two aspects of oral language skill (listening comprehension and vocabulary), and reading comprehension were assessed in a twin sample at age 9. Using latent factor models, we found that overlap among phonological decoding, word recognition, listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension was primarily due to genetic influences. Shared environmental influences accounted for associations among word recognition, listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Independent of phonological decoding and word recognition, there was a separate genetic link between listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension and a specific shared environmental link between vocabulary and reading comprehension. There were no residual genetic or environmental influences on reading comprehension. The findings provide evidence for a genetic basis to the “Simple View” of reading.