Teaching Sport Psychology to the XBox Generation: Further evidence for game-based learning

Objective: To extend recent research examining the impact of game-based activities on the learning experience of undergraduate psychology students. Design: A counterbalanced repeated measures design was employed to evaluate students’ learning experiences following their involvement in active game-based learning activities. Method: Students on a Level 5 sport psychology module (N=134) were asked to participate in four practical classes demonstrating the impact of psychological factors (e.g. anxiety) on sports performance. Two sessions were designed for each practical: one included the use of active video games (e.g. Kinect Sports); the other included a traditional active game-based activity (e.g. Reaction Time Game). Students were randomly assigned to one of two groups in order to facilitate counterbalancing and to ensure that all students completed two active video game (AVG) and two non-AVG tasks. Following each practical, students provided ratings of perceived usefulness, interest/engagement, and enjoyment using a seven-point Likert scale. These data will be analysed via one way repeated measures analyses of covariance (ANCOVA), with students’ experience of AVGs being the covariate. The impact of sessions on students’ academic motivation and performance were also assessed and analysed via one-way ANOVAs. Results: Data is currently being collected alongside a semester one module. Results will be reported during the presentation. Conclusions: It is anticipated that the findings will provide further evidence to support the use of AVGs in the teaching of undergraduate psychology, and that the increased sophistication of AVG technology may be harnessed to provide multiple benefits for students in higher education

Whistleblower Protections Under Federal Law: An Overview

[Excerpt] Legal protections for employees who report illegal misconduct by their employers have increased dramatically since the late 1970s when such protections were first adopted for federal employees in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Since that time, with the enactment of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, Congress has expanded such protections for federal employees. Congress has also established whistleblower protections for individuals in certain private-sector employment through the adoption of whistleblower provisions in at least 18 federal statutes. Among these statutes is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act). In general, claims for relief under the 18 federal statutes follow a similar pattern. Complaints are typically filed with the Secretary of Labor, and an investigation is conducted. Following the investigation, an order is issued by the Secretary, and a party aggrieved by the order is generally permitted to appeal the Secretary’s order to a federal court. However, because 18 different statutes are involved in prescribing whistleblower protections, some notable differences exist. For example, under the Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1987, individuals employed by defense contractors who engage in whistleblowing activities file complaints with the Inspector General rather than the Secretary of Labor. Under some of the statutes, including the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the Dodd-Frank Act, the Secretary’s preliminary order will become a final order if no objections are filed within a prescribed time period. This report provides an overview of key aspects of the 18 selected federal statutes applicable to individuals in certain private-sector industries. It focuses on the protections provided to employees who believe they have been subject to retaliation, rather than on how or where alleged misconduct should be disclosed. In addition, the report also includes an overview of the Whistleblower Protection Act. While state law may also provide whistleblower protections for employees, this report focuses only on the aforementioned federal statutory provisions

Determination of impact sensitivity of materials at high pressures

Compact device is used to determine impact sensitivity of material in static, high pressure, gaseous environment. It can also be instrumented to monitor and record pressure, temperature, and striker impact force. Device is used in conjunction with commercially available liquid oxygen impact tester which provides impact energy

The role of coherent structures in the generation of noise for subsonic jets

Acoustic measurements were made in the 'near' (r/D 60, x/D 60) field for high Reynolds number (184,000 to 262,000) axisymmetric cold air jets exhausting at atmospheric pressure. These measurements were in conjunction with an investigation which characterized the large scale coherent structure in the flow field of Mach number 0.6 to 0.8 jets. Natural jets as well as artificially excited jets were studied. Directivity plots were made for both natural jets and jets excited at various frequencies. Overall noise radiated by the jets reached a maximum value around 30 deg from the jet axis. However, individual frequencies emitted maximum sound pressure level at different angles from the jet axis. As the angle from the jet axis increased, the spectra of the noise shifted to higher frequencies

Solitary Waves in Discrete Media with Four Wave Mixing

In this paper, we examine in detail the principal branches of solutions that arise in vector discrete models with nonlinear inter-component coupling and four wave mixing. The relevant four branches of solutions consist of two single mode branches (transverse electric and transverse magnetic) and two mixed mode branches, involving both components (linearly polarized and elliptically polarized). These solutions are obtained explicitly and their stability is analyzed completely in the anti-continuum limit (where the nodes of the lattice are uncoupled), illustrating the supercritical pitchfork nature of the bifurcations that give rise to the latter two, respectively, from the former two. Then the branches are continued for finite coupling constructing a full two-parameter numerical bifurcation diagram of their existence. Relevant stability ranges and instability regimes are highlighted and, whenever unstable, the solutions are dynamically evolved through direct computations to monitor the development of the corresponding instabilities. Direct connections to the earlier experimental work of Meier et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 91}, 143907 (2003)] that motivated the present work are given.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

School Food Environments and Policies in U.S. Public Schools

Examines food environments in elementary, middle, and high schools based on seventeen factors, including foods and beverages offered, the availability of vending machines, and how they vary by grade level, location, and other school characteristics

Survey of Federal Whistleblower and Anti-Retaliation Laws

This report provides an overview of federal whistleblower and anti-retaliation laws. In general, these laws protect employees who report misconduct by their employers or who engage in various protected activities, such as participating in an investigation or filing a complaint. In recent years, Congress has expanded employee protections for a variety of private-sector workers. Eleven of the forty laws reviewed in this report were enacted after 1999. Among these laws are the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The report focuses on key aspects of the federal whistleblower and anti-retaliation laws. For each law, the report summarizes the activities that are protected, how the law’s protections are enforced, whether the law provides a private right of action, the remedies prescribed by the law, and the year the law’s whistleblower or anti-retaliation provisions were adopted and amended. With regard to amendment dates, the report identifies only dates associated with substantive amendments. For enactments after 2001, the report provides information on congressional sponsorship and votes