Utilizing the Arts as a Tool for Re-Humanization within a Neoliberal University: A Call to Student Affairs Practitioners

This thesis examines the history and impact neoliberal ideology has had on the arts and humanities within the North American University, specifically noting how access to the arts continues to dwindle in college curriculums. In turn, this thesis calls on student affairs practitioners to integrate longitudinal, arts-based methodology into programming in order to counter the continuing diminishment of the arts within the classroom. As supported by the works of John Dewey, Paolo Freire, and Maxine Greene, I propose an intervention that gives students of all majors access to a year-long engagement with art making that responds to an issue of social justice (for example, incarceration or environmental racism). This thesis strives to advocate for the arts in a way that is not linked to career outcomes, as prescribed by neoliberal ideology, but rather centers its advocacy on the arts as a tool for re-humanizing students within a university system that reduces their humanity to numbers and outputs

Reduced sensitivity to visual looming inflates the risk posed by speeding vehicles when children try to cross the road

Almost all locomotor animals respond to visual looming or to discrete changes in optical size. The need to detect and process looming remains critically important for humans in everyday life. Road traffic statistics confirm that children up to 15 years old are overrepresented in pedestrian casualties. We demonstrate that, for a given pedestrian crossing time, vehicles traveling faster loom less than slower vehicles, which creates a dangerous illusion in which faster vehicles may be perceived as not approaching. Our results from perceptual tests of looming thresholds show strong developmental trends in sensitivity, such that children may not be able to detect vehicles approaching at speeds in excess of 20 mph. This creates a risk of injudicious road crossing in urban settings when traffic speeds are higher than 20 mph. The risk is exacerbated because vehicles moving faster than this speed are more likely to result in pedestrian fatalities

Equity or advantage? The effect of receiving access arrangements in university exams on Humanities students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)

This research aimed to identify whether the granting of exam access arrangements to students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) creates exam equity with their typically developing (TD) peers or confers an advantage. Empirical data was collected from the exam scripts of 67 Humanities students with SpLD who were permitted the use of a word processor and/or 25% extra time and 70 TD peers who took the same exam under standard conditions. The length of answers on the exam scripts, marks and degree classification achieved by students with SpLD were compared with those of their TD peers. The statistical conclusion of this study is that the students with SpLD who were granted exam access arrangements did not perform differently compared to their TD peers who took the same exam under standard conditions. This demonstrates that exam access arrangement do not confer an advantage for SpLD students in Humanities

Teaching children road safety using a simulated environment

The importance of road safety education is widely acknowledged; however, there is a lack of consistency in road safety interventions currently being used in UK schools. Furthermore, the majority of road safety educational programmes use knowledge-based methods, which do not necessarily translate to improved behaviour in real traffic environments. The use of virtual reality is starting to emerge as a viable option, as it allows for repeated risk-free practice. This study aimed to test the efficacy and playability of a virtual reality road crossing iPad-based game with children aged 7-9 years. A total of 137 children from primary school years 3 and 4 completed the study. The game comprised ten levels increasing in complexity. Participants navigated to a target using a magic portal into the virtual world (the iPad position matching the direction of travel). Remote, anonymous in-game data were collected and the results suggested that performance was significantly better on their final attempt compared to their first attempt, regardless of age of gender. Overall, the results suggest that the iPad-based game allowed the children to practice road crossing in an immersive environment, without risk, and could provide a useful, evidence-based addition to current road safety education in UK schools

Understanding the Functional Mobility of Adults with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) Through the International Classification of Functioning (ICF)

This phenomenological study explored the lived experience of six adults with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and its potential impact on functional mobility. Utilising the International Classification of Functioning (World Health Organisation, 2001), the data derived from interviews were analysed to consider how persistent motor impairments impact on activity engagement and participation. Recent Findings Much of the research evidence pertaining to DCD focuses on children. However, there is increasing acknowledgment that for some, the motor impairments synonymous with DCD continue into adulthood. Summary The findings from this study suggest that for this group of participants, functional mobility can be compromised, restricting activity and participation. At a body structure/function level, participants identified additional impairments that moved beyond mobility, suggesting that the secondary consequences of fatigue and anxiety were disabling. However, personal factors were seen to mitigate some difficulties encountered to allow participants to remain actively engaged in a range of adult roles

Perceptual errors in predicting vehicle approach in typical and atypical populations

As a pedestrian at the roadside, the two most informative cues as to the distance and rate of closure of a vehicle are its optical size and the rate of expansion of the optical image. In addition, the time to arrival of an approaching vehicle can be perceptually estimated by the ratio of these two variables, referred to as tau (Lee, 1976). Sensitivity to optic expansion is critical for collision avoidance and was measured in populations of adults, typically developing children, and in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), an idiopathic condition characterised by marked impairments in motor coordination that negatively impact on activities of daily living. A central tendency was found in adults (n = 193) between 18 to 59 years of age to make significant errors in judging the approach rates of two vehicles. Inflated errors were observed in children (n = 136) between 6 to 17 years of age, with decreased sensitivity in the youngest age group (6 to 11 years). Furthermore, a significant decrement was found in children (n = 9) with DCD between 6 to 11 years of age. Across all groups, a systematic vehicle size bias was found, whereby faster small vehicles were perceived as travelling slower than larger vehicles. This pattern of results suggest that in general, observers are not utilising tau in judgments of relative approach rates for speeds typically encountered at the roadside, but instead rely on optical expansion that does not compensate for image size. Errors due to a reliance on optic size were inflated in children with DCD, potentially placing them at significantly greater risk at the roadside. To examine the decreased sensitivity observed in DCD, thresholds for detecting visual looming were measured in children (n = 11) with DCD between 6 to 11 years of age. A significant deficit was found when vehicles were presented in perifoveal vision, whereby children with DCD may perceive vehicles that are 5 seconds away as stationary if they are travelling any faster than ~14 mph. This demonstration of a low-level visual processing deficit could suggest an immaturity in the dorsal stream network and explain some of the difficulties that characterise DCD. Critically, perceptual judgments at the roadside are inextricably linked to the motoric capability of the observer. If a pedestrians crossing time is greater than the time available, collision will occur. Crossing gap thresholds were measured and compared to walking times for a single vehicle approaching at varying speeds. Children (n = 9) with DCD between 6 to 11 years of age left considerably longer temporal crossing gaps than their action capabilities necessitated. However, when children with DCD were presented with multiple vehicles in a virtual reality environment, they accepted crossing gaps at all approach speeds that were shorter than the time it would take them to cross. This suggests that children with DCD may not have the perceptual accuracy to predict their required action gaps in a road crossing situation. One explanation for these findings could be a difference in DCD in how vision is dynamically allocated to facilitate the preparation of goal-directed actions. Dynamic allocation of visual attention was assessed in a series of experiments that measured eye movement latencies and hand movement accuracy in children (n = 5) with DCD between 6 to 11 years of age. Both measures were found to be comparable in DCD with their typically developing peers regardless of task complexity, indicating that the allocation of visual attention is not deficient in children with DCD. The prospective control of movement in our everyday lives is critically depended on estimating the immediacy of approaching objects. Combined, these results indicate that children with DCD may be particularly vulnerable at the roadside due to a visual motion processing deficit, consistent with atypical function across broad neural structures such as the dorsal stream

La nation et l’identité nationale dans la peinture de portrait anglaise / britannique du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle

L’article explore la mise en scène du lien entre l’individu et la nation dans la peinture de portrait anglaise, puis britannique, du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle. Cet art profondément identitaire, toujours révélateur des mentalités de l’époque dans laquelle il s’inscrit, en dit long sur ce que représentait la nation pour les modèles et les artistes et sur l’importance du sentiment national à différentes époques.The article examines the representation of the link between individuals and the nation in English / British portrait painting from the 16th to the 18th century. Because of its intense focus on identity, which speaks volumes about mentalities during the period it belongs to, portrait painting reveals much about both what the nation meant to sitters and artists and the increasing importance of a national feeling in Britain at different times