Class Year Research Articles

Effectiveness of a school-based high-intensity interval training intervention in adolescents: study protocol of the PRO-HIIT cluster randomised controlled trial.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is an effective strategy for improving a variety of health and fitness outcomes within school settings. Incorporating HIIT into existing physical activity opportunities appears practically feasible, yet the process evaluation and effectiveness of this strategy needs to be further evaluated. Therefore, a PRO-HIIT intervention will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a 12-week school-based HIIT intervention on cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity, body composition, muscular strength, bone health, cognitive function, wellbeing and academic performance among 12-13-year-olds. Eight classes of year 7 students (12-13-year-olds) from a secondary school in Ningbo, China, will be recruited and randomly allocated into an intervention or control group. While the control group maintains their usual activities, a 6 to 10 min HIIT session will be embedded in the physical education or physical activity lessons five days a week for 12 weeks for the intervention group. Training workshops will be conducted for participants, teachers, and research staff for facilitating the intervention. Outcome data will be collected at three time points: pre- and post-intervention, and two months (summer holiday) upon completion of the intervention. Linear mixed models will be used to analyse the impact of groups (intervention and control), timepoints (pre-, post- and two-month after intervention) and group by time interactions. The implementation process of the intervention will be evaluated using a process evaluation framework. Ethics approval is obtained from the Ningbo University Ethics Committee (TY2024002). Results from PRO-HIIT study will be disseminated via peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences as well as local education system. The study protocol has been retrospectively registered on ClinicalTrials.gov Protocol Registration and Results System (NCT06374732), https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06374732.

Are Scientists Changing their Research Productivity Classes When They Move Up the Academic Ladder?

AbstractWe approach productivity in science in a longitudinal fashion: We track scientists’ careers over time, up to 40 years. We first allocate scientists to decile-based publishing productivity classes, from the bottom 10% to the top 10%. Then, we seek patterns of mobility between the classes in two career stages: assistant professorship and associate professorship. Our findings confirm that radically changing publishing productivity levels (upward or downward) almost never happens. Scientists with a very weak past track record in publications emerge as having marginal chances of becoming scientists with a very strong future track record across all science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) fields. Hence, our research shows a long-term character of careers in science, with one’s publishing productivity during the apprenticeship period of assistant professorship heavily influencing productivity during the more independent period of associate professorship. We use individual-level microdata on academic careers (from a national registry of scientists) and individual-level metadata on publications (from the Scopus raw dataset). Polish associate professors tend to be stuck in their productivity classes for years: High performers tend to remain high performers, and low performers tend to remain low performers over their careers. Logistic regression analysis powerfully supports our two-dimensional results. We examine all internationally visible Polish associate professors in five fields of science in STEMM fields (N = 4,165 with Nart = 71,841 articles).

Multilingual authors ‘standing taller’ in arts-rich translanguaging spaces

Viewed through the monolingual English-only lens characteristic of many Australian schools, plurilingual students are often positioned as being in deficit as language and literacy learners and struggle to find their way into a writer’s identity. The importance of creating a translanguaging space to support plurilingual learners is well established in the literature. In the current case study involving a class of Year 4 students from a Melbourne school who took part in a six-week arts-rich book making experience, we addressed a gap in the literature by making visible how elements of the ‘translanguaging space’ interact to support students to come to see themselves as resourceful multilingual writers. Using Activity Theory, we found that the elements that supported the development of students’ multilingual writers’ identities consisted of the creation of a translanguaging space, the use of arts experiences to lead language interactions, the explicit introduction of translanguaging in a multimodal arts-rich space, and opportunities to apply translanguaging as multilingual writers. We argue that the playful multimodal opportunities for meaning making facilitated by arts experiences can support students to build identities as multilingual writers by providing a variety of multimodal entry points to that identity.

Sharing is caring: young people’s narratives about BookTok and volitional reading

This paper explores young people’s narratives about BookTok and volitional reading. The data consist of narrative interviews with eight students (all girls) from two different classes in year 1 and year 2 of a preparatory programme for higher education, that is, students aged 17–18 years old. Using the framework of Wenger’s notion of communities of practice and Bamberg’s theory of narrative positioning, the findings indicate that the volitional reading practices described by the participants are strongly characterised by social, physical, and emotional dimensions that are generated and made possible by the book as an artefact. The findings also show that young people use the digital media platform TikTok and its subcommunity BookTok as a resource in constructing their own volitional reading practices and as a means to strengthen their reader identities. In view of their use of BookTok, this article contributes insights into young people’s volitional reading practices and the construction of reader identities outside of school. The results also contribute to the ongoing discussion about how to support and motivate young people to read literature.

Active Involvement in Home-School Collaboration and its Impact on Student Motivation – the Slovenian Experience

Research suggests that home-school collaboration is successful when it involves all elements of the parent-teacher-student triangle. However, Slovenian schools do not practice three-way conferences, since students, who are a crucial part of the collaboration, are often excluded from the process. This paper presents the results of a study conducted in two classes of Year 4 (9 Years old students) at a Slovenian primary school (experimental and control group). The study focused on identifying the effect of involving students in parent-teacher collaboration through three-way conferences. The findings revealed that these conferences contributed to the improved level of student motivation to do schoolwork.

Effects of Learning Using EDPUZZLE Interactive Video Application on Students' Interest, Engagement and Achievement in Science Subjects

This study was conducted to identify the effect of learning methods using the Edpuzzle interactive video application on students' interest, engagement, and achievement in science subjects. The purposive sampling technique was used in this study to select the sample. A total of 40 students were selected as a sample in this study. The selected sample is students from a primary school in the Batu Pahat Johor district. The sample was selected from two classes of year 2 students who had similar ICT backgrounds in primary school. Pre-tests, post-tests, checklists, and questionnaires were used as instruments in this study. This study's objectives are to identify the effectiveness of the use of the interactive video application, Edpuzzle in increasing students' interest, engagement, and achievement in science subjects. The data were analysed through inferential statistics using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. The data analysis results show significant differences in the level of interest, engagement, and achievement of primary school students in science subjects when using the EdPuzzle application. This suggests that the use of interactive video in the classroom has a promising approach to improve the quality of teaching and learning (TnL) among science teachers. However, considering the limitations of the research, specifically in relation to the context and the period of application, more studies are needed with different methodological approaches and in extended periods and samples.

Economic outcomes of antiobesity medication use among adults in the United States: A retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Obesity prevalence exceeds 40% in the US adult population, posing a substantial burden on the health care system. Antiobesity medication (AOM) is recommended for obesity management. However, little evidence exists estimating the economic impact of AOMs on health care costs over time. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the impact of AOMs indicated for long-term therapy on shortterm direct medical costs, by obesity class, in a commercially insured population. METHODS: For this retrospective cohort study, we used the IBM MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database to capture health care utilization between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2019. Adults aged 18-63 years with a body mass index greater than or equal to 30 kg/m2 were categorized into 2 cohorts based on new AOM usage at cohort entry. New AOM users were taking 1 of 4 AOMs currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for long-term therapy, with greater than 112 days supply of medicine within 12 months after treatment initiation. AOM nonusers were those not taking an AOM indicated for long-term therapy during the baseline or follow-up period. We used difference-in-differences estimation to calculate the change in average annual total health care costs and cost of medications (excluding AOMs) over a 2-year follow-up period using inverse probability of treatment-weighted estimates. RESULTS: The study population included 219,971 patients, 1,405 AOM users and 218,566 AOM nonusers. Over 2 years, patients on treatment were more than twice as likely to be classified into a lower obesity class than AOM nonusers. Although the average yearly direct cost of care increased for both treatment groups in the first year of follow-up, by year 2, costs for untreated patients continued to rise while costs for patients on therapy remained stable or declined. The difference-in-differences of medication cost (excluding AOMs) and total health care cost (excluding AOMs) across all 3 obesity classes in year 2 ranged from $1,321 to $1,952 and $1,323 to $2,766, respectively, indicating a cost savings. Total cost of care, inclusive of AOMs, followed a similar trend. CONCLUSIONS: Use of AOMs is associated with the odds of moving to a lower obesity class and a general stabilization or reduction in health care costs in year 2 of follow-up. When considering change in health care costs over time, use of AOMs may be an effective strategy to mitigate the rising health care costs associated with obesity. DISCLOSURES: Dr Toliver is an employee of Novo Nordisk, Inc. Dr Watkins, Dr Kim, and Ms Whitmire were employees of Novo Nordisk at the time the study was conducted. Dr Garvey has served as a volunteer consultant on advisory committees for Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer; in each instance, he received no financial compensation, nor was there a financial relationship. He also has served as site principal investigator for clinical trials sponsored by his university and funded by Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Epitomee, and Pfizer. Novo Nordisk funded the study and had a role in the study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, as well as writing support of the manuscript.

Personalized Learning and Achievement in Basic Science: An Experimental Report

The importance of Science to national development cannot be disputed. That is why Basic Science is taught as a foundational science subject in the Junior Secondary Schools in Nigeria. It is meant to inculcate basic scientific knowledge and skills in students. However, the subject, in which students’ performance is low, has also not enjoyed a plethora of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to support its learning. Given these challenges, an investigation of the effect of personalized strategy on achievement in Basic Science was carried out. The study employed the pretest, posttest group, quasi-experimental design. The sample comprised of intact classes of year three (JSS 3) Basic Science students (87) from two junior secondary schools in Ijebu-Ode Local Government Area. Using the Balloting method, the students were assigned experimental and control groups. Two stimulus instruments (Teachers’ Conventional Teaching Guide (TCTG) and Teachers’ Instructional Guide on Personalized Learning (TIGPL), and, response instrument (Basic Science Knowledge Assessment Scale (BSKAS) (r = 0.78), were used for data collection. The four hypotheses raised were tested using t-test at 0.05 level of significance, to compare performances. The results show significant mean differences in the performance scores of the experimental and control groups. This was in favour of the experimental group who were instructed using personalised strategy. Based on this, more efficient ICT-based personalised packages need to be developed for students to aid their understanding and learning of Basic Science.

Developing coach education to enhance rugby coaches’ understanding and application of game centred approaches—The importance of questioning

Although there seems a willingness to adopt pedagogical approaches that address the complexity of team games, there is little guidance as to how. Transforming coaching practice does not happen overnight, therefore developing non-linear approaches to coaching assumes the development of new knowledge. These approaches to coaching privilege social interaction and the use of questioning in the coaching process, which is far removed from the traditional approach to coaching. Greater exploration is needed as to how to support coaches in developing their application of non-linear coaching practices to support transformative coach learning. Research identified the challenges coaches face when trying to incorporate questioning into their practice. Recognising the pedagogical nature of coaching, this paper draws on Lev Vygotsky to support coaches in improving their coaching with game-centred approaches and the use of questioning. The study aim was to improve my practice as a coach educator to enhance rugby coaches’ understanding and application of the game-centred approach. It involved a group of six student rugby coaches. Using action research, coaches delivered an 11-week rugby programme to a class of year 5 children. Findings emphasised the importance of social interaction, privileging the use of language in developing coach autonomy. Providing time to build a collaborative relationship between the educator and coach assisted coach development. The major contribution this paper makes is to illustrate the value of effective questioning. The importance of questioning cannot be understated in coaching and coach education, with it leading to social interaction and facilitating opportunities to develop co-construction of new knowledge.

Läsundervisning i en språkligt heterogen lågstadieklass

This article presents results from a case study that examines reading instruction practices in a linguistically heterogeneous class in year 3. In this school the proportion of newly arrived students has increased significantly in a short time and the article focuses on classroom observations and a teacher interview about the work with reading instruction in this particular class. The theoretical framework is based on Cummins’ The Literacy Engagement Framework and theories about teachers’ beliefs. The results show how in reading instruction students' understanding is supported through the teacher's work with extending the language and through support in students' meaning-making (scaffold meaning). The students' background knowledge is activated when connections between text content and the students' everyday life are made, but multilingual identities are seldom affirmed or made visible. The focus of reading instruction is primarily to support linguistic preunderstanding and correctness. Reading homework is an important part of reading instruction and is practiced in cooperation with multilingual parents in a language they often do not know. Strongly present are the teacher’s beliefs about students' linguistic repertoires as a resource primarily for learning Swedish, as well as beliefs about a separation between the languages of multilingual individuals.

Re-imagining narrative writing and assessment: a post-NAPLAN craft-based rubric for creative writing

According to creative writing pedagogies academic Susanne Gannon (English in Australia, 54(2), 43–56, 2019), and the Federal government-commissioned NAPLAN review (McGaw et al., 2020), NAPLAN has restricted how writing is taught in secondary schools. A NAPLAN-influenced structural approach to teaching writing has subsumed the development of imaginative capacity. Given the considerable negative criticism of the NAPLAN writing tests, including the negative impact it has had on the teaching of writing, there is a need, we argue, for a fit-for-purpose assessment rubric that assesses creative writing. In a 10-week project, teaching creative writing with three classes of Year 9 students in Steiner schools, we evaluated the use of a novel creative writing rubric, created by published creative writers and lecturers (the second and third authors), to assess the students’ creative writing pre- and post-program. Consecutively, the NAPLAN narrative criteria were also used to assess the same writing scripts as a point of comparison. The creative writing criteria privileged craft-based approaches to imaginative writing compared to the function and form-focused criteria of NAPLAN. Statistical analyses of the reliability and validity of the creative writing rubric showed that the construct can be scored with a significant moderate level of reliably by different raters (r = 0.5–0.7; ICC = 0.6). Internal consistency reliability of the criteria was found to be excellent (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.94). Content validity of the instrument was found to be strong (r = 0.7–0.9) and significant. Unexpectedly, analyses for concurrent validity showed that the instrument correlates strongly (r = 0.7) and significantly with the NAPLAN narrative rubric, suggesting some overlap, but not parity with the NAPLAN assessment. We found that students’ post-project writing improved in all aspects according to the creative writing rubric, with a statistically significant improvement in students’ structural elements and presentation and group average improvement approaching significance in two other criteria: words, sentence, and voice and characters and context (effect sizes d = 0.3–0.4). However, there were no significant improvements in the students’ post-program writing according to the NAPLAN criteria, possibly because the NAPLAN narrative task criteria did not capture student development of a unique writing style or individual “voice” or other craft-based standards of proficiency measured by the creative writing rubric. Given the validity and reliability evidence, we conclude that the creative writing rubric is a fit-for-purpose guide to school-based learning and assessment of creative writing.

Tight‐loose: Understanding variability, trade‐offs and felt accountability across the curriculum‐pedagogy‐assessment dynamic

AbstractVariability in education systems is a given. Variability has at once positive and negative implications for the main goal of education which is accelerating learning across diverse contexts and for all learners. In this article, we explain and employ a tight‐loose framing to understand the scope for variability within an education system. A tight‐loose framing directs attention to the interplay of prescription/accountability and autonomy. This framing is yet to be fully explored as a way of understanding and exploiting variability across the curriculum‐pedagogy‐assessment dynamic within a high‐stakes assessment context. High‐stake assessment has particular susceptibilities to variability because of its consequences for stakeholders and implications for accountability across the various levels of the education system. We illustrate the tight‐loose framing through a case study from New Zealand of a teacher and her class of Year 12 science learners who were working towards the national senior secondary school exit qualification. The teacher was trialling a new General Science course that emphasised inquiry. Observation and interview data were collected over the course of the school year. We analyse the contours of variability across levels of the national curriculum and assessment policy, school agendas, teacher pedagogy, and student decision‐making and experiences. Our findings show that teachers and students made trade‐offs according to felt accountabilities and priorities within the tightness and looseness of their education context, as they perceived and experienced it. Our proposition is that a multi‐level tight‐loose framing provides a new and different insight into how policies, philosophies and practices interact under high‐stakes conditions to affect outcomes for learners.

ارزیابی تغییرات دورهای پوشش زمین از سال 2001 تا 2015 میلادی در ایران با استفاده از MODIS Land Products (MCD12Q1)

Land cover change is one of the most effective factors of environmental change. So, understanding and predicting the causes, processes and consequences of land cover has become a major challenge. The remote sensing and satellite data technologies can be used effectively to detect and quantify land cover changes and its effects on the environment. This research used the MODIS MCD12Q1 yearly data at 500 m resolution to evaluate the spatio-temporal changes in the national land cover of Iran from 2001 to 2015 in five years periods. Land cover maps of Iran were generated based on 12 classes for years of 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015 and then evaluated using “Landcover Change Matrix”. Areal distribution analysis showed that the most parts of Iran covered by barren areas (more than 60%). The area of forests, croplands and grasslands were reduced from 0.8, 4.8 and 21.4 percent respectively in the year of 2001 to 0.6, 4.5 and 20.9 percent of Iran’s area in 2015. Furthermore, to evaluate land cover changes in five years’ period, the land cover map of the first and last years of each period were compared using “Landcover Change Matrix”. Results showed that in the five years periods of 2001-2005, 2005-2010 and 2010-2015 land cover of Iran changed increasingly as 2.13, 3.25 and 3.30 percent respectively of Iran’s area. And the overall changes of land cover in Iran from 2001 to 2015 is 6.08 percent of Iran’s area.

Supportive assessment strategies as curriculum events in a performance-oriented classroom context

This article examines the role and pedagogical implications of supportive assessment strategies at the interface where curriculum, general Didaktik and pedagogy meet; theoretically, the article draws upon concepts from research in each of those domains. This interplay is examined in relation to the performance-orientation on two curricular levels: on the programmatic curriculum level, Sweden is used as an example for a result-oriented curricular assessment context. On the enacted curriculum level, a high-performing class in year 8 in a Swedish compulsory school is chosen as a concrete case. Methodologically, the study represents a classroom case study. The empirical data corpus has been collected during one school year and consists of video-recorded lesson observations in the subjects of Swedish and science, semi-structured interviews with teachers and students, and field notes and teaching artefacts in the form of teaching documents. The results show that the supportive assessment strategies used in this classroom context can be understood as a kind of catalyst for the curricular performance orientation, where the effective achievement of externally set up outcome expectations is the purpose. Finally, this is critically discussed, among others, in relation to a bildungs-oriented understanding of education.

A Review of Research on The Effectiveness of Using Kahoot To Enhance Students’ Motivation To Learn English

This study reviews literature on using Kahootgame-based learning to motivate second language learners to learn English. In this ultramodern era, learning style is more oriented and given priority according to present growth in the field of Malaysian education. Furthermore, many studies have proven that Kahootgame-based learning had motivated ESL students to participate actively and effectively in learning. This review determines to investigate whether using Kahoot, digital learning has any effect on primary students’ motivation and participation in acquisition of English language. This study will be conducted both quantitatively and qualitatively involving 2 classes of year 5 consist of 60 pupils whose English language proficiency is at intermediate level. The experimental group will be exposed to weekly Kahoot sessions over a time frame, in contrast the control group will be taught with the conservative approach. At the end of the sessions, data will be collected via pre-tests, post-tests, interview along with questionnaires on students’ motivation towards gamified learning which later will be analysed descriptively. The study hopes to provide insights for better implementation of game-based technologies in English language classroom curriculum.

Challenges in designing and assessing student interdisciplinary learning of optics using a representation construction approach

ABSTRACT There is a growing interest in the value of teachers guiding students to generate their own representations to support conceptual learning in science and across complementary subjects such as mathematics. However, this approach to an interdisciplinary focus poses challenges for programme design and learning assessment. In this paper, we report on a 10-week study with a class of Year 5 students designed to (a) facilitate learning of key concepts in the topic of optics (e.g. reflection), and (b) make meaningful links between these concepts and relevant mathematical ones (e.g. symmetry and angles). Students were expected to construct, evaluate and refine representations to explain various experienced phenomena. We report on an assessment framework developed and applied to student work. Our findings indicate (a) some subject and interdisciplinary learning gains, and (b) specific challenges around designing this kind of programme, student learning assessment and teacher understanding to support this learning.

Developing subject knowledge co-construction and specific language use in a technology-enhanced CLIL programme: effectiveness and productive patterns

ABSTRACT This study investigated Chinese bilingual learners’ subject knowledge co-construction and business English language use in a Technology-enhanced Content and Language Integrated Learning (TECLIL) programe. Four intact classes of Year One University business-major students were exposed to two different learning environments – a TECLIL project-based learning environment using Knowledge Forum (KF), and a CLIL project-based learning environment. Data included student oral business presentations, written business reports, subject knowledge test results, student KF server log information, and online interaction records. The results indicated that the TECLIL project-based learning classes outperformed the comparison classes on both subject concept learning and business English language use. The quantitative analysis found that students’ KF participation was associated with their content understanding and language development. Micro-level discourse analysis of students’ online discussion notes further revealed bilingual students’ productive discourse patterns in the TECLIL environment. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.

THE UNFORESEEN ADVANTAGES OF REMOTE ESL/EFL CLASSES

Teaching ESL/EFL in a rather small, developing country has its challenges – most of the schools do not have proper IT equipment and the students are taught in the same way as students were over 20 years ago. With technology on the rise, the need for a technology-aided teaching process has become evident. Students expect certain technology-based activities during the teaching process. But, unfortunately, such activities cannot be implemented with the existing conditions. With the rise of the Covid-19, remote teaching became the sole teaching model in multiple countries, North Macedonia not being the exception. As teaching remotely slowly became the norm, students, some for the first time ever, took part in technology-aided activities and thoroughly enjoyed them. Although the pandemic has brought many disadvantages to education, one unforeseen advantage arose – students in North Macedonia engaged in online games and different activities that made ESL/EFL more interesting and exciting for them. This paper aimed to research students’ opinion on ESL/EFL classes during the pandemic. A questionnaire was administered to two classes of year 2 students from a local high school in Bitola, North Macedonia. The results showed that students find online classes interesting, due to the online activities that they find engaging and that they would appreciate more such activities during real-life teaching.
 
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Niloofar Haeri. Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer and Poetry in Iran

Through offering an ethnography of a group of educated, middle-class women who “had been attending weekly Qur’an and classical poetry classes for years” (xii), the volume shows that poetry and prayer are companions in the cultural history of Iran. It attempts to answer the question, “What does this companionship mean for forms of religiosity in Iran?” (xiv). It consists of an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion, a glossary, notes, a bibliography, and an index. Challenging the “presumpti...

Osmijum - najnoviji plemeniti metal u usponu

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