A Comparative Study of the Effectiveness of the Small-group Method and command Method of Teaching a Physical Education Activity Course

This study compared the effectiveness of the small-group method and command method of teaching a physical education activity course, including a comparison of the behaviors of students in small-group classes and command classes. The study was conducted utilizing 79 male and female subjects enrolled in four beginning swimming classes at The University of New Mexico during the Spring semester of 1974. The study employed both empirical and descriptive research methodologies. The empirical study consisted of measuring changes in seven dependent variables: (1) attitude toward the physical activity, (2) attitude toward the instructor of the course, (3) self-esteem, (4) personal- self, (5) physical-self, (6) social-self, and (7) skill acquisition. The instrument used to measure personal-self, physical-self, social-self, and self-esteem was the Tennessee Self Concept Scale, as developed by Fitts. It was administered following a pretest/posttest procedure. The instrument used to measure students\u27 attitudes toward the physical activity and the instructor of the course was the Students\u27 Reaction to Instruction and Courses, 2nd Edition, as developed by Hoyt and Owens. It was administered following a posttest only procedure. Skill acquisition was measured by the individual instructor of each course and the researcher. The swimming skills measured were the front crawl, the back crawl, elementary backstroke, sidestroke, and breaststroke. The seven hypotheses were tested using two analyses of variance and four analyses of covariance. The design of each test was a 4 x 1 with the type I error rate set at .05. No significant differences were found with any of the statistical tests. It was found that students\u27 attitudes toward beginning swimming and the instructor of the course were the same regardless of whether students were in classes where the small-group method or the command method of teaching was used. It was also found that students\u27 self-esteem, personal-self, physical-self, and social-self remained unchanged regardless of whether they were in classes where the small-group method or the command method of teaching was used. Results also indicated that students\u27 self-concept, which included the personal-self, physical-self, social-self, and self-esteem, was not subject to manipulation by different methods of teaching. The descriptive research consisted of approximately 10 observations of each class. The purposes of these observations were to insure that the instructors followed the assigned method of teaching, to develop small-group instructional strategies, and to compare the behaviors of students in the small-group and command classes. Results indicated that it was necessary for an instructor to understand, accept, and be comfortable with the premises embodied in the rationale for small-group methods of teaching, that there are no major differences between using small-group methods in a content course and a physical education activity course, and that, although class time must be allowed for students to become acquainted, it was not necessary for students to study group dynamics for small-group methods of teaching to be used effectively. The results of this study indicate that a teacher can manipulate the classroom climate so as to produce certain behaviors from students, and the method of teaching used in a physical education activity class does not necessarily affect several measures of self-concept. However, the student behaviors in response to the two teaching methods do differ along predicted dimensions

Nurses\u27 information processing related to surveillance as an intervention in the care of stroke patients

The purpose of this study was to explore the nursing intervention of surveillance from an information processing framework. Research questions addressed how surveillance was expressed by nurses during the care of stroke patients and the relationship of cues identified to the focus of care

Orbitofrontal cortex mediates pain inhibition by monetary reward

Pleasurable stimuli, including reward, inhibit pain, but the level of the neuraxis at which they do so and the cerebral processes involved are unknown. Here, we characterized a brain circuitry mediating pain inhibition by reward. Twenty-four healthy participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while playing a wheel of fortune game with simultaneous thermal pain stimuli and monetary wins or losses. As expected, winning decreased pain perception compared to losing. Inter-individual differences in pain modulation by monetary wins relative to losses correlated with activation in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC). When pain and reward occured simultaneously, mOFCs functional connectivity changed: the signal time course in the mOFC condition-dependent correlated negatively with the signal time courses in the rostral anterior insula, anterior-dorsal cingulate cortex and primary somatosensory cortex, which might signify momentto-moment down-regulation of these regions by the mOFC. Monetary wins and losses did not change the magnitude of pain-related activation, including in regions that code perceived pain intensity when nociceptive input varies and/or receive direct nociceptive input. Pain inhibition by reward appears to involve brain regions not typically involved in nociceptive intensity coding but likely mediate changes in the significance and/or value of pain

A Survey of Existing and Proposed State Legislation Protecting High School Students\u27 Rights to Free Expression and a Free Press, and a Proposal for such Legislation in West Virginia

Since the U.S. Supreme Court\u27s controversial and historic 1988 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier decision, the debate over whether high school newspapers should have First Amendment protection and rights has been waged from one end of the country to the other. Many principals hailed the decision as giving school administrators the responsibility they should have by putting the high school press in its proper relationship with principals (Dickson, How Advisers View 2). Conversely, many advisers, students, and journalists criticized the ruling for limiting constitutional rights of student publications to remain free from censorship as guaranteed by the First Amendment (Garneau 12; Goodman 34+; Heath 15+; Hentoff 114+). Ed Sullivan, director of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, said, Hazelwood is a bad law and bad educational practice. It gives schools the power to legally create a \u27pabulum press\u27 that caters to the rosy, public relations image often sought by today\u27s harried school administrators (qtd. in Heath 17). The National Association of Secondary School Principals, however, has never issued an official statement regarding the Hazelwood decision, according to Caroline Glascock, secretary to Tom Koemer, the group\u27s associate executive director