The movement of the trunk and breast during front crawl and breaststroke swimming

Breast displacement has been investigated in various activities to inform bra design, with the goal of minimising movement; however, breast motion during swimming has yet to be considered. The aim was to investigate trunk and breast kinematics whilst wearing varying levels of breast support during two swimming strokes. Six larger-breasted females swam front crawl and breaststroke (in a swimming flume), in three breast support conditions while three video cameras recorded the motion of the trunk and right breast. Trunk and relative breast kinematics were calculated. Greater breast displacement occurred mediolaterally in the swimsuit condition (7.8, s = 1.5 cm) during front crawl and superioinferiorly in the bare-breasted condition (3.7, s = 1.6 cm) during breaststroke, with the sports bra significantly reducing breast displacements. During front crawl, the greatest trunk roll occurred in the sports bra condition (43.1, s = 8.3°) and during breaststroke greater trunk extension occurred in the swimsuit condition (55.4, s = 5.0°); however, no differences were found in trunk kinematics between the three breast support conditions. Results suggest that the swimsuit was ineffective as a means of additional support for larger-breasted women during swimming; incorporating design features of sports bras into swimsuits may improve the breast support provided.     

The effects of syllable instruction on phonemic awareness in preschoolers

Purpose

Preschooler instruction for speech sound awareness typically teaches a progression of speech units from sentences to phonemes, ending at simple first phoneme activities. This study investigates the effects of teaching advanced tasks of phoneme blending and segmenting with and without the larger speech unit of the syllable.

Method

Thirty-nine 4-5-year-old typically developing children received twice-weekly small-group instruction in three conditions: two weeks of syllable tasks then four weeks of multiple phoneme tasks (SP), four weeks of multiple phoneme tasks only (MP), or an active control condition of first phoneme instruction (FP).

Results

The conditions SP and MP showed large significant gains on blending and segmenting and no significant differences on first phoneme isolating compared to the FP condition. A comparison of SP and MP did not show significant differences on phoneme blending and segmenting, but SP showed significantly more confusion during early sessions of phoneme instruction.

Conclusion

This preliminary evidence suggests that preschoolers can improve understanding of phoneme blending and segmenting, without first being taught syllable blending and segmenting, and with no negative effects on first sound awareness. These findings support a more efficient way of teaching preschoolers awareness of the individual sounds of speech. Replication with a larger sample, including children at-risk for literacy difficulties, is recommended before firm conclusions should be drawn.     

Situating Data Science: Exploring How Relationships to Data Shape Learning

The emerging field of Data Science has had a large impact on science and society. This has led to over a decade of calls to establish a corresponding field of Data Science Education. There is still a need, however, to more deeply conceptualize what a field of Data Science Education might entail in terms of scope, responsibility, and execution. This special issue explores how one distinguishing feature of Data Science—its focus on data collected from social and environmental contexts within which learners often find themselves deeply embedded—suggests serious implications for learning and education. The learning sciences is uniquely positioned to investigate how such contextual embeddings impact learners’ engagement with data including conceptual, experiential, communal, racialized, spatial, and political dimensions. This special issue demonstrates the richly layered relationships learners build with data and reveals them to be not merely utilitarian mechanisms for learning about data, but a critical part of navigating data as social text and understanding Data Science as a discipline. Together, the contributions offer a vision of how the learning sciences can contribute to a more expansive, agentive and socially aware Data Science Education.     

Impaired Students: Applying the Therapeutic Process Model to Graduate Training Programs

This article updates and adds to the literature on graduate trainee impairment provided by L. Forrest, N. Elman, S. Gizara, and T. Vacha‐Haase (1999) in their comprehensive literature review. Based on recommendations by Forrest et al., a program model for dealing with impaired trainees is proposed. The 5‐step therapeutic process model includes (a) informed consent, (b) intake and assessment, (c) evaluation, (d) treatment planning and follow‐up, and (e) termination. Each step is explained within the context of graduate training programs, and key points to consider are discussed.     

Development at the Youth Level of a Conception of the Causes of Behavior and the Effectiveness of a Learning Program in This Area

Differential effects of variety versus repetition in the development of categorization skills were studied with fifty-four 5-year-old Head Start children, using a sequence of programmed booklets to teach a social studies unit on workers.

It was hypothesized that children receiving Intermediate Variety (two categories, twelve instances, presented once) would demonstrate superior performance on transfer to new instances of the trained categories when compared to those trained with Low Variety (two categories, six instances, presented twice). Secondary hypotheses were that children trained with Low Variety would demonstrate superior performance on a mastery test when compared to children receiving Intermediate Variety, and that High Variety (four categories, six instances) would be superior to both Low and Intermediate Variety in transfer to new categories.

By analysis of covariance, scores of the Intermediate Variety treatment were significantly higher (p<.05) on Near Transfer, supporting the hypothesis that children receiving an Intermediate Variety will demonstrate superior performance on the transfer to new instances when compared with those trained on Low Variety. The secondary hypotheses could be neither supported nor rejected on the basis of the data.     

Epistemic gameplay and discovery in computational model-based inquiry activities

In computational modeling activities, learners are expected to discover the inner workings of scientific and mathematical systems: First elaborating their understandings of a given system through constructing a computer model, then “debugging” that knowledge by testing and refining the model. While such activities have been shown to support science learning, difficulties building and using computational models are common and reduce learning benefits. Drawing from Collins and Ferguson (Educ Psychol 28(1):25–42, 1993), we conjecture that a major cause for such difficulties is a misalignment between the epistemic games (modeling strategies) learners play, and the epistemic forms (model types) a given modeling environment is designed to support. To investigate, we analyzed data from a study in which ten groups of U. S. fifth graders (n = 28) worked to create stop motion animations and agent-based computational models (ABMs) to discover the particulate nature of matter. Content analyses revealed that (1) groups that made progress—that is, that developed increasingly mechanistic, explanatory models—focused on elements, movement, and interactions when developing their models, a strategy well-aligned with both animation and ABM; (2) groups that did not make progress focused on sequences of phases, a strategy well-aligned with animation but not with ABM; and (3) struggling groups progressed when they received guidance about modeling strategies, but not when they received guidance about model content. We present summary analyses and three vignettes to illustrate these findings, and share implications for research and curricular design.