Description:
This article examines the implications of the Australian Football League’s Rule 30 on vilification in football and society. Considering the views of key industry, government, community, multicultural, Indigenous and academic stakeholders it addresses the themes of community harmony, multiculturalism and reconciliation. The paper evaluates the role of Australian Rules football in changing contemporary attitudes towards vilification and how public policy in this area has been driven by sports-led initiatives such as the AFL Rule 30. It briefly provides an international context for understanding these Australian-led initiatives. ”Racism denies people the fundamental human right to be judged by their character, by what is inside. This is why it is not easy to experience a lifetime of racial abuse, be constantly reminded of it and yet be expected to ignore it”. (The Age 1997: 16).
Moving physical activity beyond the school classroom : A social-ecological insight for teachers of the facilitators and barriers to students' non-curricular physical activity
Description:
Non-curricular avenues such as active play during school breaks have been established as a major source for children’s physical and cognitive development, yet there is little information for teachers on the influences affecting primary and secondary school students’ non-curricular physical activity. During this study focus groups and drawing were used to explore the broader influences on primary (n=47) and secondary (n=29) school students’ physical activity behaviour beyond the classroom. Barriers and facilitators to children’s physical activity were categorised using a multi-level social-ecological framework incorporating intrapersonal, interpersonal, physical environment and policy factors. Based on the drawings, comparisons between students’ existing play spaces and their perception of their ideal play space were made. Additionally, students depicted what features within a play space would encourage them to be active. The findings of the study indicate secondary school play spaces may need to incorporate more features to facilitate physical activity. The barriers and facilitators identified in this study provide information for teachers and school decision makers to consider when targeting children’s physical activity beyond school classrooms.
Description:
Non-curricular avenues such as active play during school breaks have been established as a major source for children’s physical and cognitive development, yet there is little information for teachers on the influences affecting primary and secondary school students’ non-curricular physical activity. During this study focus groups and drawing were used to explore the broader influences on primary (n=47) and secondary (n=29) school students’ physical activity behaviour beyond the classroom. Barriers and facilitators to children’s physical activity were categorised using a multi-level social-ecological framework incorporating intrapersonal, interpersonal, physical environment and policy factors. Based on the drawings, comparisons between students’ existing play spaces and their perception of their ideal play space were made. Additionally, students depicted what features within a play space would encourage them to be active. The findings of the study indicate secondary school play spaces may need to incorporate more features to facilitate physical activity. The barriers and facilitators identified in this study provide information for teachers and school decision makers to consider when targeting children’s physical activity beyond school classrooms.
Description:
Translating research evidence into sustained improvements in population health outcomes is a current priority across many health research fields including sports medicine,1 injury prevention2 and physical activity promotion.3 Both the ‘traditional’ approach of publishing sports injury research findings in peer-reviewed journals and hoping for the best, and the more sophisticated approach of developing and disseminating consensus statements and related sport safety guidelines have been relatively unsuccessful to date.
Description:
Entrepreneurship is a novel course in the curriculum for students in the Information Technology (IT) degree program at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia. In comparison to other IT-related courses, the Entrepreneurship course seeks to develop business management knowledge and skills; its learning design is thus different to that of other courses in the IT program. The concept of constructive alignment for curriculum renewal suggests that there are several components of good course design. In this paper, we use the principles of constructive alignment to analyze and redesign several components of the Entrepreneurship course. The focus is on reviewing and aligning the assessment tasks to ensure an effective evaluation and the achievement of student learning outcomes. Since assessment drives student learning, we describe the innovative assessment tasks that were implemented to enhance student learning, provide the rationale for the design of these tasks as supported by the current literature, and reflect on possible future improvements. The course redesign process and the constructive alignment and innovative assessment can be applied to other courses in the field, and more broadly to curriculum, teaching, and learning in higher education.
Description:
Entrepreneurship is a novel course in the curriculum for students in the Information Technology (IT) degree program at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia. In comparison to other IT-related courses, the Entrepreneurship course seeks to develop business management knowledge and skills; its learning design is thus different to that of other courses in the IT program. The concept of constructive alignment for curriculum renewal suggests that there are several components of good course design. In this paper, we use the principles of constructive alignment to analyze and redesign several components of the Entrepreneurship course. The focus is on reviewing and aligning the assessment tasks to ensure an effective evaluation and the achievement of student learning outcomes. Since assessment drives student learning, we describe the innovative assessment tasks that were implemented to enhance student learning, provide the rationale for the design of these tasks as supported by the current literature, and reflect on possible future improvements. The course redesign process and the constructive alignment and innovative assessment can be applied to other courses in the field, and more broadly to curriculum, teaching, and learning in higher education.
Description:
In a provocative statement in a very recent issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Kessler and Glasgow have called for a 10-year moratorium on effi cacy randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in health and health services research. The authors argue that much intervention research has had minimal impact on both policy and practice because the very nature of effi cacy studies means that focus has had to be on a limited number of specifi c causal and preventive factors; this ignores both the complexity of real-world implementation and the multilevel ecological context in which interventions need to be conducted. I have also previously discussed those same limitations as they apply to sports injury prevention studies, most recently as part of my keynote address at the 2011 International Olympic Committee World Conference on The Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sport, to be published in a forthcoming issue of BJSM.
Implementing an exercise-training programme to prevent lower-limb injuries : Considerations for the development of a randomised controlled trial intervention delivery plan
Description:
Objective To identify important considerations for the delivery of an exercise training intervention in a randomised controlled trial to maximise subsequent participation in that randomised controlled trial and intervention uptake. Design A cross-sectional survey, with a theoretical basis derived from the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Reach, Efficacy/Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. Participants 374 male senior Australian Football players, aged 17-38 years. Main outcome measurements Beliefs about lowerlimb injury causation/prevention, and the relative value of exercise training for performance and injury prevention. The data are interpreted within HBM constructs and implications for subsequent intervention implementation considered within the RE-AIM framework. Ordinal logistic regression compared belief scores across player characteristics. Results 74.4% of players agreed that doing specific exercises during training would reduce their risk of lower-limb injury and would be willing to undertake them. However, 64.1% agreed that training should focus more on improving game performance than injury prevention. Younger players (both in terms of age and playing experience) generally had more positive views. Players were most supportive of kicking (98.9%) and ball-handling (97.0%) skills for performance and warm-up runs and cool-downs (both 91.5%) for injury prevention. Fewer than three-quarters of all players believed that balance (69.2%), landing (71.3%) or cutting/stepping (72.8) training had injury-prevention benefits. Conclusions Delivery of future exercise training programmes for injury prevention aimed at these players should be implemented as part of routine football activities and integrated with those as standard practice, as a means of associating them with training benefits for this sport.
Description:
Objective To identify important considerations for the delivery of an exercise training intervention in a randomised controlled trial to maximise subsequent participation in that randomised controlled trial and intervention uptake. Design A cross-sectional survey, with a theoretical basis derived from the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Reach, Efficacy/Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. Participants 374 male senior Australian Football players, aged 17-38 years. Main outcome measurements Beliefs about lowerlimb injury causation/prevention, and the relative value of exercise training for performance and injury prevention. The data are interpreted within HBM constructs and implications for subsequent intervention implementation considered within the RE-AIM framework. Ordinal logistic regression compared belief scores across player characteristics. Results 74.4% of players agreed that doing specific exercises during training would reduce their risk of lower-limb injury and would be willing to undertake them. However, 64.1% agreed that training should focus more on improving game performance than injury prevention. Younger players (both in terms of age and playing experience) generally had more positive views. Players were most supportive of kicking (98.9%) and ball-handling (97.0%) skills for performance and warm-up runs and cool-downs (both 91.5%) for injury prevention. Fewer than three-quarters of all players believed that balance (69.2%), landing (71.3%) or cutting/stepping (72.8) training had injury-prevention benefits. Conclusions Delivery of future exercise training programmes for injury prevention aimed at these players should be implemented as part of routine football activities and integrated with those as standard practice, as a means of associating them with training benefits for this sport.
Description:
In Australia, most teachers enter the profession without having completed any dedicated studies pertaining to gifted education, yet many go on to teach gifted students. There is a substantive body of research supporting the value of professional learning in enhancing attitudes and practices that are conducive to appropriate provisioning for gifted students. In 2008, Monash University began offering a new elective in gifted education which by the end of 2010 had been completed by almost 500 pre-service teachers. This article reports on research conducted with 332 of those participants, using Gagne and Nadeau's (1985) Opinionnaire and a reflective journal. Findings illustrate a strong positive growth in opinions relating to gifted education, particularly in regard to social justice. Respondents' reflections suggest that access to research and literature on giftedness had been instrumental in assisting pre-service teachers to challenge their previous opinions, many of which they now regarded as uninformed misconceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Description:
This study reports the time to sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) among a cohort of community rugby union players. Demographic and player characteristics were collected and players followed up for between one and three playing seasons. 7% of the cohort sustained an mTBI within 10 h of game time, increasing twofold to 14% within 20 h. The mean time to first mTBI was 8 h with an SD of 6.2 (median 6.8 h; IQR: 2.9–11.7 h). Players reporting a recent history of concussion were 20% more likely to sustain an mTBI after 20 h of game time compared with those with no recent history of concussion. Players were likely to sustain an mTBI in shorter time if they trained for <3 h/week (HR=1.48, p=0.03) or had a body mass index <27 (HR=1.77, p=0.007). The findings highlight modifiable characteristics to reduce the likelihood of shortened time to mTBI.
Description:
It is now understood that sports injury interventions will not have significant public health impact if they are not widely accepted and adopted by target sports participants. Although there has been increasing recognition of the need for intervention studies conducted within the real-world context of sports delivery, very few studies have been conducted in this important area. A major reason for this is that there are significant challenges in conducting implementation research; the more traditional sports medicine approaches may not be fully appropriate and new ways of thinking about how to design, conduct and report such research is needed. Moreover, real-world implementation of sports injury interventions and evaluation of their effectiveness needs to start to take into account the broad ecological context in which they are introduced, as well as considering the best way to translate this knowledge to reach the audiences who most need to benefit from such research. This overview paper provides perspectives and guidance on the design, conduct and evaluation of sports injury intervention implementation studies, including better understanding of the complexity of the ecological settings for intervention delivery. Some conceptual approaches that could be adopted in future implementation studies are discussed; particular emphasis is given to Intervention Mapping as a tool to assist intervention development, Diffusion of Innovations Theory to guide the planning of intervention strategies and the RE-AIM (reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance) framework for programme evaluation and programme design. Finally, a broad agenda for this emerging important field of sports medicine research is outlined.
Description:
It is now well accepted that to prevent sports injuries we need more intervention studies. Therefore, it is somewhat alarming that most sports injury studies still only focus on the fi rst two steps of the four-step prevention sequence of van Mechelen et al: only counting injuries and describing causal factors. This has clearly been shown by Klügl et al, who reviewed approximately 5274 original sports injury publications, of which only 492 studies intended to establish the preventive value of a measure or programme. This review showed that although the number of efficacy/effectiveness studies has slowly increased over the years, this is still lagging behind the approximately 4000 descriptive and aetiological studies.