IDENTITY ADAPTATION AND THE POTENTIAL FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL GROWTH FOLLOWING ADVERSITY FOR INJURED ATHLETES

The study was undertaken to gain a deeper understanding of the transition process out of competitive athletics experienced by competitive athletes after a career-limiting injury by examining three research questions: 1) What is the identity adaptation process of injured athletes? 2) To what extent, if any, do injured athletes experience growth following adversity? 3) What, if any, psychological skills are used in the injury/career transition processes? Nine former elite ath- letes were recruited through key informant sampling. There were three males and six females, with a mean age of 24.6 years. All participants sustained, at minimum, a season-ending injury and no longer participate in high performance athletics. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale-Plus questionnaire (AIMS-Plus), the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory-42 survey (PTGI-42), and an adapted Change Event Inventory (CEI). Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed us- ing an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and themes and subthemes were identified. Analysis revealed the process of identity adaptation is influenced by pre-injury identity, auton- omy of retirement decision, transition style, current employment and time since the injury. Ac- cess to psychological skills training and competence in psychological skill usage heavily influ- enced the application of psychological skills during the rehabilitation and transition process and the outcome of using these skills. No significant evidence of growth was found using the PTGI- 42; however interview data revealed themes centred on experiencing new opportunities, the ability to transfer sport and psychological skills, changes in social supports/networks, a change in the role of sport, a realization of strength and a desire to assist others. Results indicate injured athletes are able to experience growth following adversity and speak to the dynamic process of identity adaptation. Additionally, the data emphasized the requirement for actively participating in adaptation and in the growth process to increase the opportunities for a desirable outcome for injured athletes. Future studies regarding growth and further understanding the transition process are suggested

Triage in Health Department of Western Australia accident and emergency departments

A survey of triage systems used in Health Department of Western Australia accident and emergency departments was undertaken to examine differences in practices between departments with and without designated triage nurses (TNs). One questionnaire surveyed 93 nurses in seven departments with TNs, a similar second questionnaire surveyed 89 nurses in 16 departments without TNs, and a third questionnaire was used in a structured telephone interview of receptionists in hospitals without TNs. Data were analysed using frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations and ranges with common themes identified for open ended questions. The study was guided by Donabedian\u27s systems evaluation model. The structures and processes of triage within each department were examined in relation to the outcome standards recommended by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards. The study results revealed that triage nurses were employed in all departments where patient attendances exceeded 300 per week and nursing staff coverage in the department was higher than five per day. Three departments had introduced triage on weekends only, and these departments had the lowest nurse-patient ratio of one nurse per day to 74 patients per week. The highest nurse-patient ratio was in departments with TNs (1-35). Conclusions drawn from the findings suggest that when receptionists are the first person to see patients, they triage patients using an unsatisfactory two category priority system. The average waiting time to see nursing staff is too long in departments without TNs, 7.6 minutes, as compared to 3. 7 minutes in department with TNs. Nursing staff perceived that triage systems could be improved by having only experienced staff as the triageur. The surveillance of patients entering the department is unsatisfactory as 81% of departments without TNs and 43% of departments with TNs are unable to provide nurse surveillance. The surveillance of the waiting room is similarly unsatisfactory in many departments. All triage areas are inadequate, as facilities for private conversation, hand washing and physical assessment are not always available. The majority of departments without TNs do not have a satisfactory triage priority category system in place. The average time taken by nursing staff to triage patients is an acceptable 3.2 minutes in departments with TNs, and 5.3 minutes in departments without TNs. The practice of redirecting patients away from the department could compromise patient safety as patients are redirected away from most departments by any level of staff employed in the department, without any written documentation kept or any written criteria for the redirection of these non-urgent patients. The practice of ordering investigations and treating minor problems without referring to a doctor could also compromise patient safety, as most departments do not have written policies and guidelines to cover this practice. Most departments offer an inadequate triage training program of preceptoring only. Recommendations are focused on the reviewing of existing triage practices to comply with the standards identified

Perceptions of in-service training needs and attitudes of foreign language teachers in Massachusetts.

The general purpose of this study was to obtain information about foreign language teachers\u27 instructional practices, evaluation procedures, and attitudes. The specific purposes were: (1) To obtain relevant demographic and attitudinal data pertaining to the in-service training needs of selected foreign language teachers. (2) To apply data obtained to in-service training program planning initiatives. (3) To study the relationships between demographic and attitudinal data obtained and in-service training program planning. The study outcomes present a demographic profile which suggests a generally healthy climate for foreign language education in the state as evidenced by teachers\u27 professional involvement, awareness of current practices, concern about issues, and agreement with a proficiency-oriented approach to foreign language education. The data suggest areas of concern and future direction for officials of the state department of education and the state foreign language association as they do long-range planning to meet global and student needs in foreign language education, and to meet the specific needs of the foreign language teachers in Massachusetts. Officials of other state departments of education and foreign language associations might look to the results of this study to assess the professional growth and development needs of foreign language teachers

Pedagogy Analysis Framework: a video-based tool for combining teacher, pupil & researcher perspectives

Background: dialogue between the teaching profession and researchers regarding pedagogical strategy is sometimes problematic. Pedagogy research may benefit from incorporating research methods that can investigate teachers’ and pupils’ interpretations. Purpose: this research expands the Pedagogy Analysis Framework (Riordan, 2020) by explaining in detail the meso-strategies (tactics) and a macro-strategy (grand strategy) used by participants in three school science lessons about chromatography. The research design builds on previous work by using full lessons and introducing pupil group verbal protocols. In addition, Pedagogy Analysis Notation is introduced to help understand and explain macro-strategic behaviours. Sample: one class of thirty 13-year-old pupils and one science teacher. Design and method: four research methods were used (lesson video analysis, teacher verbal protocols, pupil group verbal protocols and researcher group interviews). Data were video recorded (managed using NVivo). Fourteen hours of video data were analysed using Grounded Theory Methods by two educational researchers and the class teacher. The interpretivist theoretical perspective (symbolic interactionism) was underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology (hence the methodology is Straussian Grounded Theory). Appropriate criteria for evaluating the emergent grounded theory were used. Data were recorded in 2017. Results: the Pedagogy Analysis Framework uses the concepts: means (human and non-human), strategy (a spectrum from micro-strategies (actions), through meso-strategies (tactics) to macro-strategies (grand strategies)), ends (regarding the self, another person or a thing, or a group of people or things), and accidents. Types of tactics identified in these data were: inform (misinform and disinform), question, instruct, use space/time, repeat, train, assess, and interact. Pedagogy Analysis Notation is used to understand and explain ‘the stationary [sic] cupboard’ incident. Conclusion: the extended Pedagogy Analysis Framework, combined with the Pedagogy Analysis Notation, improves strategic dialogue between teachers, pupils and educational researchers. This research design facilitates comparison of interpretations of classroom pedagogy by a teacher, pupils and two researchers

A material-dialogic perspective on powerful knowledge and matter within a science classroom

“Powerful” disciplinary knowledge has the potential to enrich students’ lives by providing access to understanding beyond everyday experience (Young 2011). Learning science or any other school subject requires understanding of the core body of content within an academic discipline. However, contemporary discussion of disciplinary knowledge remains at the sociological level, offering little clarity around how such knowledge manifests in the complex and unique contexts in which people learn. The framing of powerful knowledge inherits a dualist philosophical assumption that a curriculum concept is a universal phenomenon, acquired through a myriad of activities and applied in new situations, but nevertheless something which is acquired (or not) (Hardman, 2019). The question then becomes how these universal concepts are acquired through the unique context of a specific classroom. Gericke et al. (2018) begin to address this question by highlighting the transformations made as disciplinary knowledge is taught in schools. These transformations occur at the societal, institutional and classroom levels. The term ‘transformation’ is an umbrella term reflected in both the tradition of didactics, for example, ‘didactic transposition’ (Chevallard 2007), ‘omstilling’ (Ongstad 2006) and ‘reconstruction’ (Duit 2013), as well as within the curriculum tradition in Bernstein’s (1973) notion of ‘re-contextualization’. As well as considering transformations, the term epistemic quality moves us towards conceptualizing how classroom activities have differing qualities in conveying the epistemology of disciplines (Hudson, 2018). In this chapter, we focus on the classroom, and seek to address the overarching question of: How can the transformation processes related to powerful knowledge and epistemic quality be described? Our contention is that the notions of transformation and epistemic quality hold the potential to frame the ways in which disciplinary knowledge and epistemology manifest in the classroom. However, as these notions are being developed, in this book and elsewhere, we wish to guard against any simplistic framing whereby idealised disciplinary understandings are in some way represented in classrooms. In our view, a learner does not receive a reduced, simplified form of some universal understanding. Understanding of a subject discipline, in terms of both knowledge and the epistemology of the discipline, emerge from the dynamic, messy and material contexts of classrooms. In this chapter, we consider how a material-dialogic frame (Hetherington et al. 2018; Hetherington and Wegerif, 2018) might contribute to this discussion. We first briefly lay out the material-dialogic frame and our reasons for proposing it. After that, we use a case study of a science classroom to support the usefulness of the frame in considering transformations of disciplinary knowledge in classrooms

An adjustment inventory for primary grades

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Exact Casimir Interaction Between Semitransparent Spheres and Cylinders

A multiple scattering formulation is used to calculate the force, arising from fluctuating scalar fields, between distinct bodies described by $\delta$-function potentials, so-called semitransparent bodies. (In the limit of strong coupling, a semitransparent boundary becomes a Dirichlet one.) We obtain expressions for the Casimir energies between disjoint parallel semitransparent cylinders and between disjoint semitransparent spheres. In the limit of weak coupling, we derive power series expansions for the energy, which can be exactly summed, so that explicit, very simple, closed-form expressions are obtained in both cases. The proximity force theorem holds when the objects are almost touching, but is subject to large corrections as the bodies are moved further apart.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps figures; expanded discussion of previous work and additional references added, minor typos correcte

Sensitivity of an image plate system in the XUV (60 eV < E < 900 eV)

Phosphor imaging plates (IPs) have been calibrated and proven useful for quantitative x-ray imaging in the 1 to over 1000 keV energy range. In this paper we report on calibration measurements made at XUV energies in the 60 to 900 eV energy range using beamline 6.3.2 at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We measured a sensitivity of ~25 plus or minus 15 counts/pJ over the stated energy range which is compatible with the sensitivity of Si photodiodes that are used for time-resolved measurements. Our measurements at 900 eV are consistent with the measurements made by Meadowcroft et al. at ~1 keV.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure