High Performance Group Research Articles

The Development of Athlete Performance Capabilities Index (APCI) Model for Male U12 Player Selection using Multivariate Analysis

This study develops an Athlete Performance Capabilities Index (APCI) model using multivariate analysis for selecting the best player of under twelve (U12). Measurement of anthropometrics and physical fitness were evaluated among 178 male players aged 12±0.52 years. Factor score derived by Principal Component Analysis were used to obtain a model for APCI and Discriminant Analysis (DA) were conducted to validate the correctness of group classification by APCI. Result was found two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 were extracted which accounted for 62.00% of the variations present in the original variables. The two factors were used to obtain the factor score coefficients explained by 35.72% and 26.67% of the variations in athlete performance respectively. Factor 1 revealed high factor loading on fitness compared to Factor 2 as it was significantly related to anthropometrics. A model was obtained using standardized coefficient of factor 1. Three clusters of performance were shaped in view by categorizing APCI ≥ 75%, 25% ≤ APCI < 75% and APCI < 25% as high, moderate and low performance group respectively. Three discriminated variables out of thirteen variables were obtained using Forward and Backward stepwise mode of DA, which were weight, standing broad jump, and 40 meters’ speed. Such variables were established as essential indicator for selecting the best player among male U12.

SPATIAL ABILITY AND CHILDHOOD TOYS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ENQUIRY FROM CHILDREN'S PERSPECTIVE

The present phenomenological study explores how school students see their childhood toys as facilitator or inhibitor of spatial ability in learning science in the school. Specifically, the aim was to elicit, describe, and analyze the background, perspectives and experiences of the students that contributed in developing their spatial ability. For this purpose, twenty-four students of Grade X who have compulsory science were selected. Upon identifying two groups of high spatial performers and low spatial performers, qualitative techniques were used to gather data. The tools and techniques included personal in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, observations, and think aloud task performances. Data was analyzed through the data explicitation processes suggested by Giorgi, providing textural and structural descriptions from every participant. Quality of engagement with childhood toys emerged as a major themes that marked out the differences between both the groups. This may help stakeholders such as educators, teachers, parents, students, and curriculum developers in understanding the lasting role of childhood toys on development of spatial abilities which influence the learning of school science. Article visualizations:

Process Mining and Interaction Data Analytics in a Web-Based Multi-Tabletop Collaborative Learning and Teaching Environment

This article builds on the intersection of educational process mining and the automatic analysis of student's collaborative interaction data previously collected from a web-based multi-tabletop learning environment. The main focus of the article was to analyze and interpret the data using several process mining techniques in order to increase the instructor's awareness (knowledge) about the students' collaboration process and group progress in terms of specific quantitative indicators as follows: participation (consisting of participation density, participation rate and participation dynamics metrics), interaction (consisting of interaction density and interaction dynamics metrics), time performance (including the number of time intervals between the activities as well as the duration of idle/inactive periods), similarity of tasks (or symmetry of actions) and division of labor (or symmetry of roles). The empirical findings showed that there are substantial differences between the high and low performance groups.

When Group Work Doesn't Work: Insights from Students.

Introducing group work in college science classrooms can lead to noticeable gains in student achievement, reasoning ability, and motivation. To realize these gains, students must all contribute. Strategies like assigning roles, group contracts, anonymous peer evaluations, and peer ratings all encourage student participation. In a class using these strategies, we conducted in-depth interviews to uncover student perceptions of group work in general and the utility of these support strategies. Students in both high- and low-performance groups still complained of unequal contributions while praising the social support provided by groups. Students who scored highly on tests were more likely to recognize the benefits of group work, regardless of their groups’ overall performance levels, while lower-scoring students perceived group work as time-consuming “busy work” with little cognitive benefit. Comments from anonymous peer evaluations differed only subtly between high- and low-performance groups. Numerical ratings on these evaluations did correlate with overall group performance. However, students in lower-performance groups assigned harsh ratings to their low-scoring members, while students in higher-performance groups were more generous in their ratings for low-scoring members. We discuss implications of relying on support strategies for promoting productive group work.

Higher use of techniques studied and performance in melee combat produce a higher psychophysiological stress response.

We aimed to analyse the effectiveness of an operative training in soldiers' psychophysiological and melee combat performance. Nineteen soldiers performed a 50-hr training for 10weeks. After training, they were divided into two groups: higher performance group (HPG) and lower performance group (LPG), then they conducted a realistic melee simulation where psychophysiological response, task performance, and the utilization of techniques learned were measured. HPG presented a significantly (p<0.05) higher heart rate, blood lactate, and jump height; a lower blood oxygen saturation, task performance mark, use of studied techniques than LPG after the simulation; and a higher low frequency/high frequency ratio of heart rate variability previous the simulation than LPG. Independent of performance and the use of studied techniques by the participants, the melee simulation produced an increase in fight or flight response, increasing rated of stress and perceived exertion, sympathetic modulation, and physiological response. A specific melee combat training program induced different modifications in psychophysiological and task performance depending on the level of studied technique used. HPG presented a significantly higher cardiovascular response than LPG and time perception, and memory presented no differences between groups; also HPG presented a significantly higher use of studied techniques.

Applying Data Mining to China’s Swine Farming Industry: A Compromise Perspective of Economic, Environmental and Overall Performances

The economic and environmental performances of the swine farming industry have always resulted in heated discussions in developing countries. Exploring the relationship between these features and the producers’ overall performance is the focus of this paper. For constructing multi-objective features that include the above features, a compromise approach for optimization is taken into consideration. For classifying the overall performance into different levels and detecting the effect of economic and environmental features on such features, an iteration scheme is developed in which the overall performance is treated as a target label. By neglecting this target label, a k-means clustering method is then used to help predict the producer’s overall performance given their economic and environmental features. In data pre-processing, correlation analysis for feature selection shows that the producer’s pollution emission and received regulation intensity largely affect its overall performance, while profit is found to be negatively correlated with pollution emission as regulation intensity is neglected. The classification result derived from the Silhouette Coefficient shows that the data set can be efficiently split into different groups in terms of the producer’s overall performance. The average distance between the objects in the low-performance group is larger than that of the high-performance group. The threshold position between the two groups is found to be largely dependent on the features of pollution emission and regulation intensity. The clustering result obtained by the k-means method shows good effectiveness and efficiency in separating the objects into different groups based on various features other than the overall performance. In 2- and 3-cluster cases, the result also shows evidence of the impact of economic and environmental features on the clustering result. The cross-validation analysis under a set of randomly chosen splitting points shows an increasing out-of-sample prediction quality with increases in training sample size. As one of the by-products of this paper, the geographical distribution in the clustering result is found partially consistent with the official report from Chinas central government regarding advantageous regions within the industry. In addition to current research, the ease of using the knowledge obtained in this paper for transfer learning is discussed.

Predicting Working Memory Capacity in Older Subjects Using Quantitative Electroencephalography.

ObjectiveWe utilized a spectral and network analysis technique with an integrated support vector classification algorithm for the automated detection of cognitive capacity using resting state electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. MethodsAn eyes-closed resting EEG was recorded in 158 older subjects, and spectral EEG parameters in seven frequency bands, as well as functional brain network parameters were, calculated. In the feature extraction stage, the statistical power of the spectral and network parameters was calculated for the low-, moderate-, and high-performance groups. Afterward, the highly-powered features were selected as input into a support vector machine classifier with two discrete outputs: low- or high-performance groups. The classifier was then trained using a training set and the performance of the classification process was evaluated using a test set. Results The performance of the Support Vector Machine was evaluated using a 5-fold cross-validation and area under the curve values of 70.15% and 74.06% were achieved for the letter numbering task and the spatial span task. Conclusion In this study, reliable results for classification accuracy and specificity were achieved. These findings provide an example of a novel method for parameter analysis, feature extraction, training, and testing the cognitive function of elderly subjects based on a quantitative EEG signal.

Inhibitory Mechanisms in Primary Somatosensory Cortex Mediate the Effects of Peripheral Electrical Stimulation on Tactile Spatial Discrimination

Selective afferent activation can be used to improve somatosensory function, possibly by altering cortical inhibitory circuit activity. Peripheral electrical stimulation (PES) is widely used to induce selective afferent activation, and its effect may depend on PES intensity. Therefore, we investigated the effects of high- and low-intensity PES applied to the right index finger on tactile discrimination performance and cortical somatosensory-evoked potential paired-pulse depression (SEP-PPD) in 25 neurologically healthy subjects. In Experiment 1, a grating orientation task (GOT) was performed before and immediately after local high- and low-intensity PES (both delivered as 1-s, 20-Hz trains of 0.2-ms electrical pulses at 5-s intervals). In Experiment 2, PPD of SEP components N20/P25_SEP-PPD, N20_SEP-PPD and P25_SEP-PPD, respectively, were assessed before and immediately after high- and low-intensity PES. Improved GOT discrimination performance after high-intensity PES (reduced discrimination threshold) was associated with lower baseline performance (higher baseline discrimination threshold). Subjects were classified into low and high (baseline) GOT performance groups. Improved GOT discrimination performance in the low GOT performance group was significantly associated with a greater N20_SEP-PPD decrease (weaker PPD). Subjects were also classified into GOT improvement and GOT decrement groups. High-intensity PES decreased N20_SEP-PPD in the GOT improvement group but increased N20_SEP-PPD in the GOT decrement group. Furthermore, a greater decrease in GOT discrimination threshold was significantly associated with a greater N20_SEP-PPD decrease in the GOT improvement group. These results suggest that high-intensity PES can improve somatosensory perception in subjects with low baseline function by modulating cortical inhibitory circuits in primary somatosensory cortex.

Group Role Assignment With Cooperation and Conflict Factors

Collaboration is complex. To solve a problem occurring in collaboration, using computers, we must first define and specify the problem. This paper presents a challenging problem in collaboration, called group role assignment with cooperation and conflict factors (GRACCFs). This problem’s solution aims at creating a high-performance group by role assignment with consideration of cooperation and conflicts between agents. The contribution of this paper is the formalization of the proposed problem, a confirmation of the complexity of the problem, a practical solution that uses the IBM ILOG CPLEX optimization package (ILOG), a verification of the benefits of solving the GRACCF problem by simulations and a practical way of collecting the required factors to support decision makers in solving such a problem within a real-world scenario. Experiments are used to verify the efficiency of the proposed ILOG solution.

Effects of Self-Regulation Strategies Training on Secondary Students’ Attitude and Self-Reflection Toward Mathematics

The purpose of this study was to examine whether practicing self-regulation strategies involved setting goals, self-evaluation and self-correction on formative tests improved students’ positive attitudes toward learning mathematics. The students’ attitudes toward mathematics were measured of the factors in their perceived confidence, motivation, usefulness of the subject, and perception about teacher’s attitude toward their learning. The study also aimed at exploring self-regulation characteristics of different performing groups of mathematics achievement so that appropriate instructional design can be introduced and imposed within the mathematics classroom. The study utilized a one-group pretest-posttest design for exploratory purposes. The self-regulation strategies were introduced to 46 tenth-grade secondary students. Their perceived motivation, confidence, anxiety, usefulness of the subject, and perception about teacher’s attitude were measured as the pretest measures before they were trained with setting goals, self-evaluation, and self-correction strategy training. These measures of the factors were compared at the end of the academic year. The study found that students’ perceived confidence, motivation, usefulness of the subject, and perception about teacher’s attitude toward student learning were significantly different after they underwent the training. The high-performing group of students was more confident, motivated, less anxious, and highly engaged in self-reflection as compared to their counterparts, low-performing group of students. In addition, students’ confidence, motivation, anxiety, and engagement in self-reflection were found significantly correlated with mathematics performance.

Exploring Students’ Engagement Patterns in SPOC Forums and their Association with Course Performance

With the popularity of Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs) in higher education, a plentiful of discussion data has been increasingly generated in SPOC forums. With 752 undergraduates’ discussion posts, this study aims to investigate students’ engagement patterns within SPOC forums in terms of engagement behaviors and emotions. Firstly, we designed a behavioral code rule to identify posting- and content-level behaviors, and examined their association with course performance. Secondly, we built an emotion lexicon including positivity, negativity and confusion word sets, and adopted an emotion calculation approach to visualize emotional evolutionary trends and to examine emotional differences in registration types and course performance. The results show that, (1) the high-performing group was more active in the most engagement behaviors except for interactive postings. (2) The registered group delivered more threads and wrote richer vocabulary in post content. (3) Whether students were registered for a course or not did not have a significant effect on their emotional expressions, but the registered group exhibited more confusion in forum interactions at the end of the semester. (4) Positive emotion was prevailing for the entire population. Furthermore, compared with the low-achieving group, the high-performing group had higher emotion densities in three types of emotions.

What Matters from Admissions? Identifying Success and Risk Among Canadian Dental Students.

The aims of this study were to determine whether different student profiles would emerge in terms of high and low GPA performance in each year of dental school and to investigate the utility of preadmissions variables in predicting performance and performance stability throughout each year of dental school. Data from 11 graduating cohorts (2004-14) at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, Canada, were collected and analyzed using bivariate correlations, latent profile analysis, and hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs). The data analyzed were for 616 students in total (332 males and 284 females). Four models were developed to predict adequate and poor performance throughout each of four dental school years. An additional model was developed to predict student performance stability across time. Two separate student profiles reflecting high and low GPA performance across each year of dental school were identified, and scores on cognitive preadmissions variables differentially predicted the probability of grouping into high and low performance profiles. Students with higher pre-dental GPAs and DAT chemistry were most likely to remain stable in a high-performance group across each year of dental school. Overall, the findings suggest that selection committees should consider pre-dental GPA and DAT chemistry scores as important tools for predicting dental school performance and stability across time. This research is important in determining how to better predict success and failure in various areas of preclinical dentistry courses and to provide low-performing students with adequate academic assistance.

Innovation and entrepreneurship for competitiveness in the EU: an empirical analysis

Abstract The nexus of innovation, entrepreneurship and competiveness represents a real challenge for the European economy, and not only, taking into account the important role of these determinants of inclusive and sustainable development in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The aim of this article is to explore the relation between innovation, entrepreneurship and national competitiveness, at the EU level, in order to highlight how innovation and entrepreneurship can influence the level of competitiveness and inclusive development in these countries. The results of the comparative analysis based on means-testing using independent samples t-test, at EU level, show that there are significant differences between low-medium innovation performance countries group and high and very high innovation countries performance group in terms of competitiveness, innovative entrepreneurship, productive entrepreneurship and economic and inclusive development, fact which emphasizes the need to take specific actions to improve EU innovation performance, especially in the EU countries included in the low-medium innovation performance countries group for improving national competitiveness and implicitly increasing the level of development. The correlation and regression analysis results suggest that the high level of national competitiveness in some EU countries can be mainly explained by high level of innovation performance, high level of innovative and productive entrepreneurship. The findings of the study can be useful for policymakers to formulate policies for improving national competitiveness within an inclusive development.

Locomotor stereotypies and racing performance in thoroughbred horses

Abstract Among the consequences credited to locomotor stereotypies in horses is the reduction of sport performance; however, there is a lack of studies on this topic. The objective of this study was to determine if racing performance was negatively affected by weaving and stall walking in thoroughbred racehorses. Three hundred eighty-nine animals were randomly chosen from those residing at the Club Hipico de Santiago, all of which had a handicap and had run at least 5 races. The horses were divided into 2 groups according to their handicap criteria: the low performance group, with handicap from 1 to 29 (n = 333) and the high performance group, with handicap from 30 to 56 (n = 56). Handicap is an index that is assigned to all thoroughbreds that participate in turf events, according to their performance (1 = poor to 56 = excellent performance). The presence or absence of weaving and/or stall walking was observed by visual inspection of each horse. Results were expressed as percentages. Fisher's exact test was used to analyze the data, with a significance level of P

Exploring college English language learners’ self and social regulation of learning during wiki-supported collaborative reading activities

Students’ regulation has been conceptualized as an important impetus for effective and efficient collaborative learning. However, little empirical evidence has been reported about language learners’ regulatory behaviors in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The purpose of this study is to investigate the occurrence of self and social aspects of regulation during wiki-supported collaborative reading activities in the context of learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Sixty Chinese college students organized in twelve groups participated in this study over a sixteen-week semester. Using an integrated method of content analysis and sequential analysis, students’ chat logs were coded and analyzed to explore the characteristics of students’ self and social regulatory behaviors in terms of regulation type, regulation process, and regulation focus. Results indicate that all groups demonstrated active social regulation in the collaborative activities. Compared with low-performing groups, high-performing groups displayed distinctively different patterns of regulatory behaviors in “social regulation,” “evaluating,” “content monitoring,” and “social emotional regulation.” Moreover, the analysis further reveals a more continuous and smooth regulation in the high-performing groups, while low-performing groups tended to be lost in a single repeated regulatory behavior pattern such as “self-regulation” or “organizing”. This study not only fills a gap in the current collaborative English learning literature, but also contributes to our knowledge of social regulation in CSCL. Pedagogical implications and future research are also addressed.

Preservice Teachers’ Mathematics Teaching Competence: Comparing Performance on Two Measures

This exploratory study examines the relationship between preservice teachers’ performance on a teaching performance assessment for licensure in elementary mathematics and a measure of knowledge that, in studies of practicing teachers, was found to predict effective mathematics teaching. A sample of 89 preservice teachers completed the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) and the classroom video analysis (CVA) instrument. Correlation analyses found overall weak associations between measures for the whole group. For groups of high, medium, and low performers on PACT, average scores on the CVA measure and its subscales varied in the predicted direction. However, individuals within the PACT performing groups had a relatively broad range of scores on the CVA, and several preservice teachers who performed poorly on PACT had average or better than average performance on the CVA. Similarly, several of the PACT high performers scored below the whole group CVA average. In addition to suggesting areas for future research, the findings raise questions about assessing preservice teachers’ readiness to teach mathematics and the use of a single measure to make licensing decisions.

ASSESSMENT OF AGGRESSION AND ANXIETY IN DIFFERENT LEVELS OF VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS

The purpose of this study was to assess the aggression and anxiety in different levels of volleyball players. For the purpose of the study, two groups namely higher and lower performance group were created. The higher performance group was composed of those players who had participated in senior state championship. Whereas lower performance group was composed of those players, who had participated in open district championship but could not be selected to represent the district team. Sports aggression inventory & competitive state anxiety inventory-2, Questionnaire tests were selected to collect the data. The C.S.A.I. questionnaires were administered to each player prior to the competition. Whereas sports aggression questionnaires were distributed to the athletes for their response immediately after the competition. To find the significance difference between high and low performance volleyball players on aggression and anxiety, the ‘t’ ratio was applied. The level of significance was set at .05. The result revealed that the high performance volleyball players had significantly more aggressive attitude than those of low performance volleyball players. The result also revealed that there is no significant difference between high and low level performance ability volleyball players in the dimension of anxiety. Article visualizations:

ERP variation may be negatively correlated with P300 speller performance

ERP variation may be negatively correlated with P300 speller performance

Explaining the entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship in emerging economies: The intermediate roles of absorptive capacity and improvisation

Research has established the relevance of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) to firm performance but skepticism remains because of the ambiguity surrounding how EO might improve firm performance. We examine the key concepts of absorptive capacity and improvisation as two alternative learning modes serving as intermediate steps between EO and firm performance. Locating our study within manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia, we find that absorptive capacity enhances the EO–performance relationship, both as a moderator and a mediator. In contrast to expectations, however, improvisation showed no such effects but conferred its own separate benefits instead. We further discuss the different effects of these learning modes on high performance and low performance groups.

Emotional Intelligence Profile of High Academic Performance Students in Computer Engineering

Several studies have documented the benefits of emotional intelligence particularly in the workplace. The main objective of universities is to educate in terms of acquiring capacities, abilities, competencies, and values, with the ultimate aim of promoting employment. In some Spanish universities, High Academic Performance Groups (HAPs) have been launched to strengthen the potential of the most outstanding students. This study is aimed to know the differences in the emotional intelligence profile of the HAP students. The study shows no significant differences, being recommendable to consider providing aid and support for HAP students in the development of this type of intelligence.