Notion Of Ability Research Articles

Response to Difficulty Drives Variation in IQ Test Performance.

In a large (N = 300), pre-registered experiment and data analysis model, we find that individual variation in overall performance on Raven's Progressive Matrices is substantially driven by differential strategizing in the face of difficulty. Some participants choose to spend more time on hard problems while others choose to spend less and these differences explain about 42% of the variance in overall performance. In a data analysis jointly predicting participants' reaction times and accuracy on each item, we find that the Raven's task captures at most half of participants' variation in time-controlled ability (48%) down to almost none (3%), depending on which notion of ability is assumed. Our results highlight the role that confounding factors such as motivation play in explaining individuals' differential performance in IQ testing.

College English Teaching Evaluation with Neural Network

The notion of abilities in colleges and universities is undergoing a substantial transition, and the accompanying curricular view is also evolving in response to the demands of social and economic development. Students who are not English majors in college or university play a critical role in growing their knowledge of foreign languages, improving the quality of foreign languages, and fostering their capacity to use the language in real-world situations. As a result, one of the most important methods to assess the quality of a college's curriculum is to look at how well it teaches English. Consequently, how to evaluate collegiate English instruction has become a major concern. This research offers a neural network (NNs) for evaluating collegiate English education based on the BP network’s application principle. The main work is as follows: (1) based on the peculiarities of college English teaching assessment, the weights and thresholds of the BP network are tuned using the global optimization ability of the ant colony algorithm. (2) To improve optimization ability of ACO, an update of pheromone is realized by combining global as well as local methods. In formula of the global update pheromone, a function is added to adjust the information residual coefficient according to the distribution of the solution. The residual coefficient of the local pheromone is adjusted according to the way of the minimum error judgment. (3) Optimize the BP algorithm with the improved ant colony optimization (IACO), build the IACO-BP network, and comprehend the optimal selection of weights and thresholds. Optimized BP algorithm is applied to the English teaching evaluation.

¿Dónde está mi Capital? Una Reflexión Personal sobre la Habilidad y el Acceso al Reconocimiento para la Inclusión en Educación Física

Ability is a social construction that influences the access to recognition of people in the field of physical activity and sports (PASS) and in PE in particular. However, the notion of ability is defined in a simplistic and traditional manner and, consequently, experiences of symbolic violence are visible for those with specific body and tastes that do not match the dominant normative and hegemonic discourses embedded in the field. This study focuses on the narration of my own experiences of symbolic violence and “capital-dependence” as an “able” woman in the field of PASS. Through the analysis of critical moments from a retrospective point of view, I try to explain the evolution of my way of understanding the notion of ability and the circumstances that have contributed to the transformation of my discourse based on the socio-cultural perspective. I conclude that it is necessary to promote reflective practice in preservice teacher education programs as a way to increase awareness of embodied discourses’ influence in and from the different fields of PASS towards the construction of more inclusive movement contexts.

Reasoning about Strategic Abilities

In alternating-time temporal logic ATL * , agents with perfect recall assign choices to sequences of states, i.e., to possible finite histories of the game. However, when a nested strategic modality is interpreted, the new strategy does not take into account the previous sequence of events. It is as if agents collect their observations in the nested game again from scratch, thus, effectively forgetting what they observed before. Intuitively, it does not fit the assumption of agents having perfect recall of the past. In this article, we investigate the alternative semantics for ATL * where the past is not forgotten in nested games. We show that the standard semantics of ATL * coincides with the “truly perfect recall” semantics for agents with perfect information and in case of so-called “objective” abilities under uncertainty. On the other hand, the two semantics differ significantly for the most popular (“subjective”) notion of ability under imperfect information. The same applies to the standard vs. “truly perfect recall” semantics of ATL * with persistent strategies. We compare the relevant variants of ATL * by looking at their expressive power, sets of validities, and tractability of model checking.

The challenges of widening ‘legitimate’ understandings of ability within physical education

This article explores the importance of critical discourse in physical education (PE) that focuses on how understandings of ability are defined, practised, and potentially altered. Research continues to indicate that physical educators continue to draw on narrow notions of ability which are influenced by the presence of a pervasive performative culture. Traditional understandings of ability often fail to reflect the wider aims of PE such as developing young people's physical literacy. The theoretical concepts of Bourdieu have been used to explain processes that serve to reinforce ‘legitimate’ notions of ability. The significance of the field of PE has been highlighted where habitus and capital inform understandings of ability in PE, and reinforce practices that privilege certain students. The data for this article are based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six PE teachers who were part of a yearlong study on young people's experiences of ability in secondary PE in England. Within interviews PE teachers defined ability in broad terms and differentiated between the purpose of PE and sport. In practice, teachers placed a distinct emphasis on defining ability in terms which privileged students who either had a reputation for sporting excellence or who demonstrated desired forms of sport-related physical capital in lessons. These discourses and practices were reinforced through individual habitus and through a sense of shared ‘mastery of the common code’ among the teachers. The findings have implications for understanding the tensions within the field of PE that have evolved from previous, and continuing, debates on the distinction between PE and sport and understandings of the purpose of PE. In addition, they highlight the challenges that teachers can experience in aligning their wider views of ability with their ‘legitimate’ ability-based practices and working towards supporting more equitable and inclusive PE experiences.

Christianity, John M Hull and notions of ability, disability and education

In his editorial, Simon reflects on the significance of the work of Professor John Hull, who is a giant amongst academics working in the theology of disability. John was my main supervisor for my doctoral studies when I was working on developing an evangelical theology of religious education for British schools. He was a remarkable tutor with whom I enjoyed the most stimulating debates. I disagreed with his basic position and critiqued that in my thesis, but was heavily influenced by his ideas and the challenges he presented me with. His book, What Prevents Christian Adults from Learning?, first published in 1985, is still, in my opinion, one of the most important books that I have read on Christian learning. However, as Simon too acknowledges, it was John’s personal qualities that had the most impact. I started as his doctoral student not long after he finally lost his sight in 1983 in the middle years of a distinguished academic career. Such a happening would cause many to give up. Not John. Up to the moment of his death in the early hours of 28 July 2015, he was still producing ground-breaking work. It is fitting that this special issue is dedicated to him

On the notion of health as ability

In this paper an outline of a theory of health based on the notion of ability is presented. A person’s health is defined as his or her second-order ability to realize vital goals given standard or otherwise reasonable circumstances. The crucial concepts: vital goal, standard circumstance and second-order ability, are characterized in the paper. Special emphasis is laid upon the third concept, second-order ability, which is of particular importance for the theory of rehabilitation.

On the Downplay of Suffering in Nordenfelt’s Theory of Illness

In his influential theory of health Nordenfelt bases the concepts of health and illness on the notions of ability and disability. A premise for this is that ability and disability provide a more promising, adequate, and useful basis than well-being and suffering. Nordenfelt uses coma and manic episodes as paradigm cases to show that this is so. Do these paradigm cases (and thus the premise) hold? What consequences does it have for the theory of health and illness if it they do not? These are the key questions in this article, which first presents the relationship between pain and disability in Nordenfelt's theory and the paradigm cases he uses to argue for the primacy of disability over pain. Then, Nordenfelt's concepts of illness are outlined, highlighting its presumptions and arguments. The main point is that if you do not have an action-theoretical perspective, it is not obvious that disability is the core concept for illness. The compelling effect of the paradigm cases presupposes that you see ability as the primary issue. To those who do not share this presumption, people in coma may not be ill. There are alternative well founded arguments for the primacy of first person experiences for the concept of illness. Hence, we need better arguments for the primacy of disability over first person experiences in illness, or first-person experience should be more primarily included in the concept of illness.

“A clear and obvious ability to perform physical activity”: revisiting physical education teachers' perceptions of talent in PE and sport

Background: This paper examines physical education (PE) teachers' perceptions of talent in PE and sport within the context of English policy, where the process of identifying talent has been formalised and supported through specific resources (YST 2009). English policy has merged educational and sporting targets, which has resulted in a shift in foci away from educational objectives towards supporting elite development. Combining the aims of PE and sport contributes to longstanding debates over the nature and purpose of PE. Despite specific initiatives, there remains limited understanding of talent identification (ID) and as such, a danger for talent in PE and sport to be considered synonymous, resulting in a lack of clarity over the methods, purpose and focus of talent ID, and consequently notions of ability in PE. Purpose: In order to gain insight into the processes involved in talent ID in PE an electronic survey was conducted on PE departments' practices and perceptions within London boroughs. The survey aimed to establish a regional picture of respective practices as well as determining how PE teachers define talent in PE and sport. It also attempted to supplement related findings of the national survey on talent in PE (Bailey, Morley, and Dismore 2009). Method: Where an email address was available, an electronic survey link was sent to 400 state secondary schools across all London boroughs during the latter part of the summer term, 2008. A total of 84 (21%) responses were received. Data were collected using an electronic survey consisting of both quantitative and qualitative questions. Questions related to: Gifted and Talented (G&T) Policy; talent ID processes; staff training; and PE teachers' definitions of talent in PE and sport. Analyses of quantitative data were conducted using SPSS (version 15.0) and descriptive frequencies were obtained and reported. Open-ended responses were entered into N-Vivo (©Sage, version 7) and responses were coded into categories in order for themes to be identified. Results and discussion: Talent ID practices are compared to those reported in the national survey on talent development in PE. They reflect limited development in PE specific policy, training, awareness and use of available resources. PE teachers continue to predominantly utilise physical ability as a key indicator of talent; however, there is some indication that perceptions of talent are widening. The findings reveal inconsistencies in PE teachers' definitions of talent in PE and sport, where some are able to distinguish between the two whilst others are not. This is a concern for stakeholders and raises questions on the conceptual clarity of talent in PE. Conclusion: Defining talent in PE remains a contentious issue. The apparent merging of PE and sport, in policy and practice, reinforces the association of talent with physical performance which has re-catalysed debates on whether this is an appropriate way to conceptualise talent within PE. In working towards educational objectives, the PE profession should reflect on the purpose of current practice and consider who may benefit.

‘Ability’ in primary mathematics education: patterns and implications

The research reported here presents results from my doctoral study into the notion of ability in primary mathematics. The notion of ability is a powerful ideology in the UK and underscores a long h...

Performing (Dis)Ability in the Classroom: Pedagogy and (Con)Tensions

Disability has become a pervasive and contested issue on college campuses, and instructors and students find themselves occupying physical and discursive spaces that hold great pedagogical potential. This essay pursues such a consideration. It examines one physically disabled student's staged performances of a personal narrative, her ethnography of a university's disabled student services office, an in-depth interview with the student, and the author's family experiences with disability to illustrate the ways a performative pedagogy offers insight into (dis)ability in the classroom. The analysis illuminates the classroom as a site for identity negotiation, performance as a tool to deconstruct and reconstruct notions of ability, and family relationships as an integral part of a critical communication pedagogy.

Evidence for the social construction of ability in physical education

This paper reports on a study investigating the empirical substance of Evans' proposed social construction of ability. Data were collected through text analysis of a Senior physical education (PE) syllabus, semi-structured interviews and participant observations of students and teachers in two senior secondary school contexts (one school situated in a low socioeconomic area; and the other school, an ‘elite’ co-educational private school) across 20 weeks of the school year at key junctures in the schools' PE curriculum plans. The data and analysis support Evans' social construction of ability proposition. Students' abilities were observable as a complex construction dependent on the constitution of the field of practice and the students' possession of physical, cultural and social capital operational in and through habitus. Within this construction process high-ability students were privileged in terms of achievement possibilities while low-ability students were marginalised in terms of access to contexts in which capital may be acquired and/or displayed, resulting in their enduring low-ability identification. The findings offer an alternative perspective to prevailing notions of ability and challenge educators to reconsider how the potential of students in and beyond PE is viewed.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SKILLS AND SKILLS OF SELF-CONTROL AND STAGES OF THEIR FORMATION IN STUDENTS IN THE PROCESS TEACHING

In the article author analyses the notion of abilities and skills of self-control, defines the stages of its forming at the pupils in the process of their educational-cognitive activity.

Innovation and Disability

Innovation and Disability

“I Can't Be Standing Up Out There”: Communicative Performances of (Dis)Ability in Wheelchair Rugby

Sport and performance theory have several important yet underdeveloped intersections. Locating these intersections in the properties of play, both areas are particularly useful in examining displays of the disabled body. Wheelchair rugby is one of the fastest growing and most visible wheelchair sports in the world. Participation in the sport offers many benefits for physically disabled persons. However, these benefits may be undercut by the sport's classification system, which determines who will compete and at what level. This paper highlights tactical performances of disability that challenge ableist assumptions. In these performances, athletes engage in sandbagging, performing more disability to receive a favorable classification from physical therapists. While these fluid, malleable performances of play resist the medicalized gaze that Others disabled persons by affixing disability as a static marker of identity, these performances also ironically foster a form of surveillance that imitates the ableist gaze and reifies traditional notions of ability.

Readiness, willingness and ability to use contraception in Bangladesh

In his frequently quoted article, Coale (1973) proposes that one weakness of the demographic transition theory is that it indicates a high degree of modernization as sufficient to cause a fall of fertility, without indicating the degree of modernization that is necessary. By summarizing the findings of historical studies of European communities, Coale proposed three broad conditions necessary for fertility transition. He argued that modernization ultimately establishes these conditions, but that they can also occur in communities that have undergone little modernization. Lesthaeghe and Vanderhoeft (1998) later described the three conditions for fertility transition under the heading “readiness”, “willingness” and “ability”. Economic readiness means that fertility control must be advantageous to the actor so that fertility is within the calculus of conscious choice. Willingness means that fertility control must be legitimate and normatively acceptable. The basic question addressed by “willingness” is to what extent fertility control runs counter to established traditional beliefs and codes of conduct, and to what extent there is a willingness to overcome objections and fears. Ability refers to the availability and accessibility of contraceptive techniques. Similarly, Ahmed (1987: 363), applying Easterlin’s supply-demand theory of fertility observes that “studies on contraceptive use most often view three variables-motivation, attitude, and access-as the key determinants”. Motivation stems from having or expecting to have too many children or having them too soon. Although this has similarity with Coale’s notion of “economic readiness”, it does not necessarily capture whether fertility control is economically advantageous to an individual. In this paper the authors name Easterlin’s notion of motivation as simply “readiness” to distinguish it from Coale’s broader notion of “economic readiness”. Attitude refers to broad notions of acceptability of family planning in general and feelings about specific contraceptive methods in particular and is similar to Coale’s notion of willingness. Access or the “costs of fertility regulation”, as described by Easterlin (1975) pertains to the availability of contraceptives and selected services and is similar to Coale’s notion of ability.

Re-conceiving ability in physical education: a social analysis

In this paper we explore how ‘ability’ is currently conceptualised in physical education and with what effects for different groups of young people. We interrogate approaches to theorising ability in physical education that draw on sociological and phenomenological ‘foundations’ together with notions of ability as ‘physical’ and ‘cultural capital’ drawn from the work of Bourdieu. We also look to data we and others have collected across a number of empirical projects to ask: where do we find talk about what we might identify as ‘ability’ in the context of physical education and sport; how is it talked about? And in what ways might this further our thinking of the meaning of ‘ability’ in physical education and school based sport? Our findings suggest that physical ability is far from a neutral concept and that how it is understood has important consequences for young people in relation to gender, race and social class. We argue that ongoing discussions around what we mean by ability, how we use it, and in relation to whom, are crucial in physical education where organised sport, recreation and exercise remain privileged over other constituents of physical culture.

"Some People Think This School Is Tracked and Some People Don't": Using Inquiry Groups to Unpack Teachers' Perspectives on Detracking

This article examines the challenges of discussing deeply rooted notions of ability, intelligence, and tracking in teacher inquiry groups and offers suggestions to educators who want to begin dialogue about detracking at their schools. Specifically, this article underscores the importance of unpacking the terms tracking and detracking, exploring notions of ability and intelligence embedded in instruction, and developing group norms to support honest dialogue of these issues. This analysis points to important issues for other teacher inquiry groups to consider in their exploration of detracking reform.

‘Uni is a serious thing, why are you here if you've got learning difficulties?’: Access and exclusion in higher education

The massification of higher education in Australia since the early 1990s has foregrounded issues of access and participation for a range of ‘non‐traditional’ students. Such issues can unsettle academics’ normative assumptions of the learning behaviours of the traditional, ‘ideal’, university student and highlight normative beliefs and practices about teaching and learning. This can be seen most acutely in regard to the increasing numbers of students with disabilities, especially students with ‘hidden’ disabilities such as psychiatric disabilities and learning disabilities. The impacts of these disabilities go to the very core of the business of the academy: cognition, intellectual ability and academic success. Using Smith's (1999) notion of ‘cultural cartography’, this article takes a sociocultural approach to investigate and give voice to the responses of a small number of students with a ‘learning difficulty’ at a regional university about problematic aspects of their teaching and learning experiences. This demonstrated that the after‐effects of access and equity admission polices can play out in deeply personal ways for individual students when normative, behaviourist notions of ability and achievement continue to prevail within higher education environments. Although non‐traditional students are now permitted to enter the academy, this occurs at some personal cost to their feelings of belonging and self‐esteem, and can result in students taking on deficit or helpless positions within the academy.

Critical Relativity: An Examination of Privileged Positions and Perspectives in the Teaching of English Language Arts

This article is the exploration of a constructed theoretical position, situated in multicultural education issues and frameworks, that provides a way to question the assumptions that underpin language arts curricula and pedagogy. The theoretical perspective, critical relativity, invites critical interrogation of assumptions and impels multiple perspectives. This theoretical lens is applied to an examination of (a) what it means to read a text; (b) the literary canon and its fixed primacy of place; (c) the idea of literary universalities; (d) the 5-paragraph essay as writing template and privileged discourse pattern; (e) the concept/pedagogy of "basic skills"; and (f) notions of ability and intelligence that perpetuate differentiated curriculum. The author suggests that this theoretical frame will facilitate fundamental educational reform when hegemonic educational positions, perspectives, and practices are situated historically, culturally, socially, and politically-and then questioned critically.