Reflections on the Professionalisation of Adult Educators in the Framework of Public Policies in Portugal

The discussion in this article is based on recent research carried out by the author recently on adult education public policies and her participation in the Adult Learning Practitioners in Europe (ALPINE) project coordinated by Research voor Beleid (The Netherlands) and funded by the European Commission. The analysis presented here stresses the challenges faced by adult educators in Portugal in the last decades and the concerns about the emerging professionalisation process that started in the framework of observed adult education and training public policy.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NUMBER OF RESPONSE CATEGORIES AND RELIABILITY OF LIKERT-TYPE QUESTIONNAIRES1

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between number of response categories employed and internal-consistency reliability of Likert-type questionnaires. Two questionnaires, each composed of items with high loadings on one factor, were scaled with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 categories. The questionnaires were administered to graduate students in education and coefficient alpha reliabilities were computed both for random samples of items and for each total questionnaire. The results indicated that in situations where low total score variability is achieved with a small number of categories, reliability can be increased through increasing the number of categories employed, in situations where pinion is widely divided toward the content being measured, reliability appeared to be independent of the number of response categories.     

Effective force and economy of triathletes and cyclists

The effective force applied on the crank, the index of pedalling effectiveness, and the economy of movement at 60, 75, 90, and 105 rev/min cadences were examined in nine cyclists and eight triathletes. Tests were performed on two days. Maximal oxygen uptake was measured and the second ventilatory threshold was estimated on day 1 using a stationary bicycle. On day 2, the four different cadences were tested at about 5% below the second ventilatory threshold. A strain gauge instrumented clip-less pedal mounted on the bicycle enabled us to measure the normal and tangential forces exerted on the pedal, while the pedal and crank angles were monitored with the aid of a video system. Based on this information, the effective force and the index of pedalling effectiveness were calculated. Cyclists produced significantly more effective force and a higher index of pedalling effectiveness at 60 and 75 rev/min and were significantly more economic at all cadences than triathletes. The significant and positive correlation between effective force and economy at all cadences suggests that improvement of the effective force would reflect on economy.