Towards a more refined insight in the critical motivating features of choice : an experimental study among recreational rope skippers

Objective: The question whether choice is a motivation and engagement-enhancing practice is a much debated subject, both theoretically as well as in practice. Therefore, the present study examined the impact of different types of choice on engagement and intended perseverance. Design: and method: In a sample of Belgian rope skippers (n = 159; M-age = 17.17; SDage = 8.43) an experimental field design was implemented, in which three different choice conditions were compared to a no-choice comparison group. Results: Results indicated that being offered choice with regard the type of exercises (i.e. option choice) were mixed, with choice yielding a clear engagement and perseverance-enhancing effect compared to a no choice control group in cases the offered options differed clearly from one another (i.e., high contrast option choice), while no benefits were observed in case choice options leaned closely to one another (i.e. low contrast option choice). Athletes' involvement in the order of exercises during a training session (i.e. action choice) tended to enhance athletes' engagement, but not their intentional perseverance, compared to a no choice control group. Finally, all experimentally offered choices yielded a positive effect on two aspects of autonomy need satisfaction, that is, perceived choice and felt volition. These two variables functioned as a chain of mechanisms through which different types of choice related to athlete engagement and intended perseverance. These effects emerged irrespective of rope-skippers' dispositional indecisiveness. Conclusion: The discussion highlights the importance of a nuanced discussion regarding the topic of choice, thereby contrasting the different pros and cons associated with each type of choice

Digital open badge-driven learning : a doctoral thesis summary

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Skippers’ beliefs about young people’s personal and social development through sail training: a Dewey- and Hahn-informed perspective

Dewey and Hahn’s educational philosophies and existing literatures on personal and social development (PSD) through outdoor adventure education (OAE) offer several different but overlapping explanations of the process young people undergo to enhance their social skills, promote personal wellbeing, and successfully engage in wider society. Teachers’ beliefs literature, although providing scientific rigour and well-researched empirical constructs relating to beliefs, offer limited insights into teachers’ beliefs about young people’s PSD. Nor do they provide a thorough explanation of how teachers’/practitioners’ beliefs, actions and intentions may be affected by dynamic contextual factors. Sail training literature—which is a part of OAE—offers a dynamic context typically used to promote young people’s PSD. As such, three gaps were identified in existing literatures: lack of skippers’ voices within sail training literature; the need to understand teachers’ and OAE practitioners’ beliefs about PSD; and lack of sound philosophical underpinnings of practitioners’ beliefs. This thesis goes beyond sail training and OAE literatures to develop a theoretical framework so that later comparisons with sail training skippers’ perspectives can be made. Therefore, following a social constructivist ontological position supported by interpretivist epistemological assumptions, these four gaps were addressed using semi-structured interviews with 16 sail training skippers working for UK sail training organisations. A reflective diary and fact sheets were also used to develop further understanding and record ongoing conceptualisations of skippers’ beliefs about young people’s PSD. Four elements key to young people’s PSD emerged during inductive thematic analysis: environmental factors and social systems; social behaviours; attainable challenge; and essential sailing skills. Deductive analysis contrasting skippers’ beliefs against Dewey and Hahn’s conceptualisation of growth was also conducted. A combination of inductive and deductive analyses revealed skippers’ underlying beliefs to be focused on physical and social environments, and further shaped by contextual factors (e.g., weather conditions) to create a meaningful community-based context in which learning could occur. This point was also emphasised by both Dewey and Hahn. Skippers, however, provided new insights into Dewey and Hahn’s conceptualisations and their applications into OAE contexts leading to subtle refinements of Dewey and Hahn’s theoretical conceptualisations (e.g., diversity consists of diversity in socio-economic background, age, core beliefs and broader experiences). The findings contribute to our current understanding of the mechanisms underpinning beliefs about PSD in light of contextual factors. They also provide practitioners with the applied research-informed frameworks for engaging with young people’s PSD, in order to maximise its benefits, bridging the gap between theory and practice, and supporting practitioners’ continuous professional development

Revised Scientific Review: Minimum Age for Swim Lessons

The question addressed in the original scientific review (2009) was rephrased as Does sufficient scientific evidence exist to support setting a minimum age for swimming lessons? for this triennial review. Addressing the research question is significant because strong differences of opinion about the appropriate age(s) for initiating learn-to-swim lessons have existed among the pediatric medical profession, aquatic professionals and agencies, and proprietary programs and swim schools for over four decades. The question has implications for the appropriate purposes, pedagogies, and outcomes associated with swimming experiences for infants and young children that will be addressed in a subsequent review. The revised statement now supports as a guideline that children older than 1 year of age can benefit from swim lessons with a lower risk of drowning; parents should make their decision to enroll based upon individual child considerations as proposed in this review

Return to the realm of the Kob Kings: social capital, learning, resilience and action research in a changing fishery

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the traditional commercial linefishery on South Africa’s southern Cape coast, informed by social-ecological systems (SES) thinking, and directed by a participatory action research approach, the work facilitated the co-development of a series of applied responses to local challenges identified by research participants including commercial linefishers, school learners, teachers, and other local community members. The thesis is presented in four chapters, each focussing on a different challenge: marine water temperatures; school learning for social learning; fishers’ organisations; and branding of linefish. The objectives of the thesis are to explore the processes, constraints, motivators, and lessons learnt in addressing each of the four challenges drawing on four emergent themes: 1) trust and social capital, 2) social learning, 3) resilience and transformation, and 4) participatory action research/co-development. The thesis underlines how participation leads to co-developed strategies to address realworld challenges. The work on water temperatures resulted in the co-development of a novel water temperature measuring device for deployment on commercial linefishing boats. However, despite initial successful deployment, fishers’ time and financial concerns, paired with a short-term focus undermined the participatory process. The social learning and teaching work facilitated the co-development of a series of integrated teaching modules that addressed challenges observed in the school, transforming the approach to teaching, and laying the foundation for future community social learning. The work also raised the challenge of ‘high stakes testing’ which may constrain teacher participation. The work on fishers’ organisations revealed the role of leadership, competing economic and lifestyle foci, competence and political trust, as well as ‘bonding’, ‘bridging’, and ‘linking’ forms of social capital in the formation, maintenance and dissolution of these bodies. The research found that different forms of trust and social capital, paired with leadership, were critical to successful participation and collaboration throughout the fieldwork. Finally, the branding work resulted in an adaptation on the part of the fishers, but one which was constrained by and highlighted the economic influence of inshore trawling that continues to limit the extent of linefishers’ adaptive strategies

Development and transfer in reading ability: a study of Zairean EFL learners.

In general, educational practices in Zairean secondary schools point to a\ud positivistic orientation to literacy, in spite of the fact that one of the stated aims of\ud secondary education is to encourage independent thinking in students.\ud For this reason, one of the aims of the present study was to promote greater\ud independence in students by presenting a humanistic-interpretive approach to\ud reading, as demonstrated by the practice of sustained silent reading. For this\ud purpose, some of the students involved in the study (the experimental subjects)\ud were presented with graded readers in English, in a 20h (1h/week) experimental\ud reading programme. Moreover, in keeping with the view of reading as a unitary\ud process, transferable across languages, a second aim of the study was to explore\ud the possibility of transfer in reading ability between French as a L2 and English as\ud a FL.\ud Data were supplied by experimental and control subjects from questionnaires and\ud cloze passages in French, and in English, that were administered before and after\ud the reading programme. These data failed to provide unequivocal evidence for the\ud expected transfer and improvement, and reasons are offered for this outcome.\ud Nonetheless, the experimental subjects performed as well as the control subjects\ud at the second administration of the measurement instruments. In other terms, one\ud hour of sustained silent reading in English, along with 4 hours of traditional EFL\ud teaching, appeared to be as educationally beneficial as the usual 5 hours/week\ud orally driven, teacher-directed EFL classroom practice