Evolution Of Participants Research Articles

Facebook is not a silver bullet for teachers’ professional development: Anatomy of an eight-year-old social-media community

Online communities and social-network sites are used to deliver professional-development services for teachers. Professional development should help teachers to reflect on their practice and improve in helping them to guide students' growth. Peer and community models, such as coaching and sharing knowledge in network and knowledge communities, have been proposed. Recently these practices have been taken into use in social media services, such as Facebook. Although earlier research has examined teachers' online communities, we move beyond understanding individuals motivations and examine community-level dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is important to understand the interaction between teachers, resources and the platform in use and resulting professional development. To understand the evolution of an informal and self-organised Facebook teachers' group, containing nearly 20,000 teachers, its eight years of activity was analysed by employing a mixed-methods research design; data science and participatory observation. Analysis gives account of both the evolution of participants' engagement and activity, and the evolution of content and its relevance for teachers’ professional development. The results suggest that managers of professional development need to consider how to facilitate participation in order to focus on pedagogically motivated use of information technology, for system developers to consider how to assist recruitment of members and sustain their activity, and for all stakeholders to acknowledge that a peer-organised online professional development community requires significant effort. Furthermore, we suggest that instead of addressing large groups like these as communities, scholars and practitioners should instead see them as personal learning networks and think about how to establish smaller and more manageable groups as communities.

Testing the event travel career trajectory in multiple participation sports

ABSTRACT This paper employs data from a large-scale survey of respondents from five mass-participation sport events in Sweden to test and develop the ‘event travel career trajectory’. The six inter-related hypotheses of the theoretical construct are examined, dealing with the evolution of participants’ motivations, event and destination choice criteria, and travel patterns and styles as their sport ‘involvement’ increases. Involvement has been measured by reference to both attitudes and event-travel activity. Analysis of data from over 6000 respondents reveals that these sport-event tourists progress along the career trajectory as they become significantly more involved. The most highly involved have significantly different preferences, preferring the accompaniment of a club or team; they spend a significantly larger amount of money on equipment, and self-improvement is a significantly stronger motivation. The most highly involved are more selective or demanding when it comes to choosing events, including more novelty seeking, wanting a party atmosphere, and favouring events with a higher reputation and prestige factor. They want a scenic/fast track or course and they have significantly different criteria for destination preferences, including a higher need for accessibility, quality services, strong reputation in sports, competence of event organizers, pleasant weather and attractive scenery. International participants have, on average, come further along the trajectory than domestic participants. In the concluding section, a dynamic explanation to the event travel career trajectory is suggested. Implications for destinations and events are discussed and further research needs are identified.

Promoting health through psychodrama with a group of seniors attended at the social assistance reference center

Este artigo tem como proposta relatar uma experiência com um grupo de idosos. A prática embasou-se no uso das técnicas do psicodrama em oito encontros com a participação de 20 idosos assistidos pelo Centro de Referência a Assistência Social. Ao se narrar a vivência da prática de intervenção psicodramática com um grupo de idosos visando a promoção da saúde e a qualidade de vida, verificou-se a evolução dos participantes por meio desta abordagem como técnica eficaz de trabalho de grupo.

Interpretation of the revolution in the reports of the Moscow religious-philosophical society in memory of Vladimir Solovyov 1905–1907

The article analyzes the revolutionary issues reflected in the reports of the Moscow Religious and Philosophical Society in memory of Vladimir Solovyov (hereinafter: MRFO) in the first period of its activity from 1905 to 1907. The article presents a brief overview of domestic and foreign studies of the activities of the MRFO, which is devoted to clarifying information about the reports made at meetings of the Society. To understand the key ideas presented in the reports, a wide context of the formation of the MRFO is given. The list of participants of the MRFO and the value of the contribution of the key participants to the Society’s activities are reviewed. Special attention is paid to ideological evolution of participants on the example of their attitude to revolutionary events. The main figures of the Society opposed the views of the liberal revolutionary intelligentsia to the concept of "Christian socialism" and "Christian progress", which allowed them to speak about a fundamentally different nature of the struggle for freedom - about the revolution of the spirit. Formation of the ideas of the most active figures of the MRFO (V.P. Sventsitsky, V.F. Ern and S.N. Bulgakov) were in mutual influence on each other. Berdyaev’s views on the conceptualization of the revolution were developing in a similar direction. The application of the method of textual comparison of reports presented at meetings of the Society, with other epistolary and scientific heritage of the figures of the same period, made possible not only to identify the positions of each of the most active members of the Society to the revolutionary events and socialism, and to assess their involvement in the revolutionary struggle, but also to trace their ideological and Christian evolution.

Anxiety with and Without New Technology Among Romanian High School Students

Nowadays, the new technology defines the classroom and students’ and teachers’ life. Sometimes the attitude towards technology use is marked by negative dysfunctional emotion, anxiety, fear, avoidance or dependence. This paper focuses both on the anxiety with the new technology and on the anxiety without technology. Our research aims to examine the attitudes and behaviours of Romanian high school students regarding trendy technologies, such as computers, internet and smartphones, including the access to social networking applications. The following tools were used: CARS (Heinssen, Glass, - Knight, 1987), IAS (Nickel and Pinto, 1986), four scales from MTUAS (Rosen, Whaling, Carrier, Cheever, and Rokkum, 2013), the Use of Smartphones for Learning Purposes Scale-USLS and a socio-demographic questionnaire. There were 517 participants distributed in two studies. The findings showed some differences concerning gender, age, specialization and academic performance, as well as an evolution of participants from the anxiety towards the computer (highest with females) to the anxiety without technology (similar for females and males). School performance is negatively associated with computer anxiety and Facebook activities. The study is important in the Romanian context, where computers, internet and smartphone penetration is more pronounced with younger people. Pedagogical issues of the research are also discussed, anxiety having a double function, as an endogenous and exogenous factor with respect to one’s academic and professional development.

Anxiety with and Without New Technology Among Romanian High School Students

Nowadays, the new technology defines the classroom and students’ and teachers’ life. Sometimes the attitude towards technology use is marked by negative dysfunctional emotion, anxiety, fear, avoidance or dependence. This paper focuses both on the anxiety with the new technology and on the anxiety without technology. Our research aims to examine the attitudes and behaviours of Romanian high school students regarding trendy technologies, such as computers, internet and smartphones, including the access to social networking applications. The following tools were used: CARS (Heinssen, Glass, - Knight, 1987), IAS (Nickel and Pinto, 1986), four scales from MTUAS (Rosen, Whaling, Carrier, Cheever, and Rokkum, 2013), the Use of Smartphones for Learning Purposes Scale-USLS and a socio-demographic questionnaire. There were 517 participants distributed in two studies. The findings showed some differences concerning gender, age, specialization and academic performance, as well as an evolution of participants from the anxiety towards the computer (highest with females) to the anxiety without technology (similar for females and males). School performance is negatively associated with computer anxiety and Facebook activities. The study is important in the Romanian context, where computers, internet and smartphone penetration is more pronounced with younger people. Pedagogical issues of the research are also discussed, anxiety having a double function, as an endogenous and exogenous factor with respect to one’s academic and professional development.

Development and Evaluation of the Cancer Dyads Group Intervention: Preliminary Findings

Despite the fact that importance of primary relationships for cancer patients and their caregivers’ adaptation to illness is well recognized, only a paucity of studies report about clinical interventions for the patient–caregiver dyad. The article presents the Cancer Dyads Group Intervention (CDGI), a supportive group intervention for breast cancer patients and caregivers, and preliminary findings about its effectiveness. A correspondence analysis of the verbatim transcripts of the first three groups was conducted. Findings highlight the evolution of participants during the intervention and confirm the congruence between goals and the participants’ experience. Further investigation of the CDGI effectiveness is necessary.