Cross-modality contrast: Exteroceptive context habituation enhances taste neophobia and conditioned taste aversions

The relationship between absolute and relative stimulus novelty was examined within the context of the conditioned taste aversion paradigm in which the relative novelty of the conditioned interoceptive stimulus was manipulated by differential exteroceptive context habituation. Rats received similar isolation histories but either 5 or 30 days of habituation to the test environment prior to treatment. One group was administered lithium chloride following saccharin consumption, a second group was administered isotonic saline following saccharin consumption, and a third group was administered saline after water consumption. The animals habituated for 30 days exhibited greater conditioned avoidance and greater neophobic avoidance of saccharin than did animals habituated for only 5 days. The results are interpreted in terms of a cross-modality stimulus contrast effect which implicates context habituation as an important parameter of both taste neophobia and taste aversion learning.     

Educating Older Adults about Medicare: The Role of Cognitive Variables

ABSTRACT

A survey was conducted on 3,738 beneficiaries about their knowledge of the Medicare program as well as their reading habits, reading comprehension ability, and metamemory. Factor analysis yielded a reading and a metamemory factor. These factors explained variance in knowledge about Medicare above and beyond the variance explained by formal education. Individuals with good knowledge of memory processes, and those who reported high memory capacity and internal locus of control regarding their memory functioning, as well as frequent readers were more knowledgeable about Medicare. We suggest that cognitive variables be included in studies evaluating the effectiveness of educational materials for older adults.     

Just maps: the geography curriculum in English schools

The wider context of this article is the assumption in the social sciences regarding the existence of a dichotomy between truth and objectivity on one hand and constructivism, subjectivism and relativism on the other. The school subject of geography serves as an appropriate focus for examining this assumption. There are three issues facing the school geography curriculum in England for students aged 11–14 (Key Stage 3): the domination of the subject by objectivism and scientism, the threat of impending relativism, and the gap between geography in schools and geography in universities. I draw on Derrida's ideas about the instability of signs, the significance of totalising discourses and the imperative of ethical and political responsibility to question approaches to maps adopted in the Geography National Curriculum policy text and in two different school textbooks. The analysis serves as a springboard for ways in which students can be taught about maps that question cartographic conventions and release chains of traces to reveal their political and ethical substance. I argue that deconstruction and invention challenges the dichotomy and re‐energises school geography. I then consider the wider applicability of the case before ending with a mention of accuracy.     

School curriculum,globalisation and the constitution of policy problems and solutions

To varying degrees, education policy reforms around the world are driven by educational discourses relating to globalisation. At the same time, national and local histories, cultures and politics mediate the effects of globalisation discourses. This paper employs methods of analysis that draw on the concepts of ‘vernacular globalization’ and ‘policy archaeology’ in order to examine the ways in which the effects of globalisation on National Curriculum policy reform are mediated by conditions and priorities that are specific to national contexts. The enquiry focuses on three curriculum policy problems that are associated with the English school curriculum and have recently been identified as requiring reform: inappropriate curriculum knowledge, the skills deficit and the one-size-fits-all curriculum. The paper concludes by summarising the results of the analysis, identifying some curriculum issues arising from it and offering reflections on the methodological approach it has employed.     

Content-Related Knowledge of Biology Teachers from Secondary Schools: Structure and learning opportunities

Teachers’ content-related knowledge is a key factor influencing the learning progress of students. Different models of content-related knowledge have been proposed by educational researchers; most of them take into account three categories: content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge. As there is no consensus about the empirical separability (i.e. empirical structure) of content-related knowledge yet, a total of 134 biology teachers from secondary schools completed three tests which were to capture each of the three categories of content-related knowledge. The empirical structure of content-related knowledge was analyzed by Rasch analysis, which suggests content-related knowledge to be composed of (1) content knowledge, (2) pedagogical content knowledge, and (3) curricular knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge and curricular knowledge are highly related (r_latent?=?.70). The latent correlations between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (r_latent?=?.48)—and curricular knowledge, respectively (r_latent?=?.35)—are moderate to low (all ps?<?.001). Beyond the empirical structure of content-related knowledge, different learning opportunities for teachers were investigated with regard to their relationship to content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge acquisition. Our results show that an in-depth training in teacher education, professional development, and teacher self-study are positively related to particular categories of content-related knowledge. Furthermore, our results indicate that teaching experience is negatively related to curricular knowledge, compared to no significant relationship with content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.     

Changes in the Field of Education — Challenges for Public Service Broadcasters

Abstract

The article describes the commercial pressures faced by public service educational television and the results of poor public sector funding for core educational establishments. New commercial partnerships between the Private and Public sectors may well be developing and encouraging the use of new technologies in schools, but will the final cost be the end of ‘free educational television’ and the eventual end of public service television as we now know it?     

Reliability of power output measurements during repeated treadmill sprinting in rugby players

The non-motorized treadmill system initially reported by Lakomy in 1984 has been used extensively to assess sprinting performance. However, there has been limited research into the reliability of power output measurement using such systems. The aim of this study was to design a system and protocol capable of measuring treadmill sprinting performance in rugby players and to assess the reliability of this system for measuring power output. Twenty-seven rugby players, all of whom were familiar with treadmill sprinting, performed three maximal 6 s sprints with 2 min recovery between sprints, on two occasions 1 week apart. Both tests were performed on a non-motorized Woodway tramp treadmill, interfaced to a data acquisition system. There were no significant differences ( P > 0.05) between power output for repeated trials on the same day (between trials) or for repeated trials on different days (between days). Limits of agreement for maximum average power (the average of 100 readings per second) were 4 - 98 and 30 - 157 W for between trials and between days, respectively. When reported as ratio limits of agreement, these were 1.07 (*/ 1 1.12) and 1.03 (*/ 1 1.16), respectively. The limits of agreement for maximum instantaneous power (the highest of 100 readings per second) were 51 - 464 and 105 - 588 W for between trials and between days, respectively. When reported as ratio limits of agreement, these were 1.02 (*/ 1 1.20) and 1.04 (*/ 1 1.21) for between trials and between days, respectively. The coefficients of variation for all measures of power output were less than 9.3%. Hence, the treadmill system and protocol developed in this study provide a reliable measure of power output for rugby players.     

The Variability of Practice Hypothesis: Further Tests and Methodological Discussion

Abstract

In the present study experimental subjects practiced variations in movement distance and/or movement time during training trials on a closed timing task. Control subjects trained with single distance-time combinations. During transfer trials all subjects attempted (without knowledge of results) a distance-time combination that was different (except in the case of one control condition) from any performed during training. The results revealed that the timing accuracy of the two experimental conditions that practiced a variety of times was significantly poorer than that of most of the other conditions during the training phase. However, transfer analyses revealed several significant differences between the performance of variable-trained and constant-trained conditions, in all cases favoring the former. It was concluded that the transfer benefits of variable practice are (a) not due to the particular movement component selected for variation during training, and (b) to some extent always determined by the similarity of training and transfer conditions experienced by constant-practice subjects.