Collaborating around digital tabletops: children’s physical strategies from the UK, India and Finland

We present a study of children collaborating around interactive tabletops in three different countries: the United Kingdom, India and Finland. Our data highlights the key distinctive physical strategies used by children when performing collaborative tasks during this study. Children in the UK tend to prefer static positioning with minimal physical contact and simultaneous object movement. Children in India employed dynamic positioning with frequent physical contact and simultaneous object movement. Children in Finland used a mixture of dynamic and static positioning with minimal physical contact and object movement. Our findings indicate the importance of understanding collaboration strategies and behaviours when designing and deploying interactive tabletops in heterogeneous educational environments. We conclude with a discussion on how designers of tabletops for schools can provide opportunities for children in different countries to define and shape their own collaboration strategies for small group learning that take into account their different classroom practices

”History Culture” and the continuing crisis of history

Abstract The article takes aim at a core difficulty with many current conceptualizations of “historical” culture — that of striking a balance between the common attribution of special privilege to the discipline of history and professional historians and a potential, emerging democratization of talk about the past. Seeking some working middle ground is seen as particularly timely given the contemporary media culture environment where sentiment appears to increasingly favour choosing one’s positioning relatively freely from facts and expertise. To this end, views presented under the umbrella term of historical culture, which largely appear to reserve a curatorial role for the various history professionals, are complemented by more explicitly emancipatory orientations from debates on perceived shifts in public focus to heritage and memory as well as from key postmodern-inspired approaches to thinking about the past. Several terminological recommendations are argued for, chief among them a reconceptualization of the overall field in terms of history culture, whereby professional history and popular and public “parahistory” practices might more readily be viewed as on equal footing

Changes in physical fitness and anthropometrics differ between female and male recruits during the Finnish military service

Introduction: Military training programmes are often similar for male and female recruits despite sex differences in physical performance that may influence training adaptations during military service. The present study aimed to compare changes in physical fitness and anthropometrics between Finnish female and male recruits during military service. Methods: A total of 234 690 male and 3549 female recruits participated in fitness tests at the beginning and end of military service between 2005 and 2015. Anthropometric measurements were body mass, height, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC). Fitness tests consisted 12 min running, standing long jump, and sit-ups and push-ups. Results: No changes were observed in anthropometrics, while both sexes improved most of the fitness test results. After adjustment for service time, branch, age, initial fitness test results, BMI and WC, improvement in running test performance was 158 m (95% CI 142 to 173, p≤0.001) greater in male than female recruits. Similarly, improvements were larger in male recruits for push-ups (5 reps/min, 95% CI 5 to 6, p≤0.001), sit-ups (2 reps/min, 95% CI 2 to 3, p≤0.001) and standing long jump (12 cm, 95% CI 11 to 13, p≤0.001) when compared with women. Conclusions: The study revealed sex differences in adaptations to the standardised military training. Both male and female recruits improved their physical fitness, but smaller gains were observed in women using the same training programme. The mechanisms explaining sex differences in adaptations to military training, and whether tailored training programmes are needed specifically for female recruits to reduce sex differences during military service, warrants further studies.peerReviewe

Associations of Physical Fitness and Body Composition Characteristics With Simulated Military Task Performance

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the associations of physical fitness and body composition characteristics with anaerobic endurance performance, tested in the combat load using the occupationally relevant military simulation test (MST). Eighty-one male soldiers, deployed to a crisis management operation in the Middle East, volunteered for the study and participated in a test battery consisting measurements of muscle strength, body composition characteristics, endurance capacity, and MST. A Spearman correlational analysis revealed that the strongest variable, correlated with MST time, was the countermovement jump performed with the combat load (CMJ2) (rs = 20.66, p , 0.001). Among the individual body composition variables, the MST time had the strongest relationship with fat percentage (rs = 0.53, p , 0.001) and skeletal muscle mass (SMM) (rs = 20.47, p , 0.001). The use of the dead mass ratio, which was calculated dividing body mass by fat mass accompanied with the weight of the combat load, increased body composition-based associations significantly, and this variable turned out to be the best single predictor for the MST performance (rs = 20.67, p , 0.001). Significant predictors of the MST time in the stepwise multivariate regression analysis included CMJ2, 3000 m, SMM, and push-ups. Together, these variables explained 66% (R2 adj ¼ 0:658, model p , 0.001) of the variance in the MST time. In conclusion, the novel MST is a promising military specific assessment method of muscle power of the lower extremities and endurance capacity, which are crucial performance components in anaerobic combat situations.peerReviewe

Physical fitness and anthropometrics in Finnish soldiers during their early career : prospective changes during a 3-year follow-up

Introduction: Physical fitness is a fundamental capability required of military personnel, but studies focusing on longitudinal changes in physical fitness and anthropometrics in soldiers are lacking. The aim was to evaluate physical fitness and anthropometrics in soldiers during their early career. Methods: A 3-year prospective study included 180 male soldiers (baseline age 26±2 years) with measures of a 12 min running test, standing long jump, sit-up and push-up tests, and body mass, height and waist circumference (WC). Baseline data were stratified into tertiles, and the changes within each tertile were analysed using dependent t-tests and analysis of variance. Results: 12 min running test distance decreased on average by 2% (−54 m), sit-up performance 3% (−1.5 repetitions (reps)/min), push-up performance 4% (−1.9 reps/min) and standing long jump performance 1% (−2.1 cm) over the 3-year period (p<0.05). Both aerobic and muscular fitness decreased consistently among the highest baseline tertile (12 min running test: −70 m, sit-ups: −3.2 reps/min, push-ups: −7.5 reps/min, standing long jump: −5.5 cm; p<0.001), whereas both aerobic and muscular fitness levels were maintained and push-up performance was improved (p<0.05) in the lowest baseline tertiles. Body mass increased on average by 4% (+3.4 kg) and WC by 4% (+3.9 cm) (p<0.001), and these increases were observed for all baseline tertiles (p<0.05). Conclusions: Small decrements in physical fitness and anthropometrics exist during the early career of soldiers. The changes in physical fitness differed according to baseline fitness levels. The results indicate that support for exercise training may be needed even in a soldier’s early career.peerReviewe

Analysing inclusive groups’ peer interactions using mobile eye tracking in educational context

Abstract Research abounds on deploying interventions to support peer interactions between children on the autism spectrum (AS) and neurotypical children [1‐2]. Technological advancements such as eye tracking devices have provided ample affordances to the field of autism research in terms of facilitating the collection of insightful data related to the gaze-based interaction behaviour of children on the AS [3]. Yet, further empirical understanding on how children interact within inclusive educational contexts is needed [4]. Addressing this gap, we present our research study set in a naturalistic inclusive school environment in which small groups of three children interact playing a boardgame, Alias, while wearing mobile eye tracking glasses. Alias is a word game during which a person guesses the word that another person is explaining by giving them hints and tips. In our study, we analysed the game play by focusing on 3 roles: an explainer, as the person giving clues for a guesser to guess what the word was, while an observer watched the interactions. 25 children (age 10‐12 years, 4th ‐ 5th grade, 15 males) from 3 different schools in Finland participated in the study. For data analysis, 2 categories were used: children with no diagnosis (n=19) and children on the autism spectrum (AS) (n=6). 43 data collection sessions of about 45 minutes each were carried out. Each session was set so that a small inclusive group of 3 children, each wearing mobile eye tracking glasses (Tobii Glasses 2), engaged for 10 minutes in a ludative task planned by the researchers and for 25 minutes in a curricular task planned by the teacher. Here we present the analysis of 9 sessions during which Alias was used. The mobile eye tracking glasses data collected was coded using Tobii Pro Lab. We analysed the children’s gaze behaviour from the perspective of the role taken, focusing on the proportion of time that the children spent looking at three areas of interest: other children’s faces, the task (i.e., the table where the game cards were placed) and the surrounding environment area. The statistical analysis of the coded data (i.e., areas of interests) was carried out using SPSS, and within-group comparisons were conducted with related samples Friedman’s two-way analysis of variance by ranks, with Dunn’s pairwise post hoc test with Bonferroni correction. Results show promising insights on the gaze-based interactions behaviour of children on the AS when compared with neurotypical peers, including a perceived sensitivity to the requirements of the game roles that they play. Our work contributes towards empirical research implementations of mobile eye tracking glasses to understand natural peer interactions in inclusive educational environments. The insights obtained could support teachers’ classroom practices to foster children’s collaborative work in inclusive educational contexts