Plymouth Marjon University Repository
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Creating specialist careers advice for journalism students: Tailoring the message to suit the media
No full textThis paper is based on research related to improving employability outcomes for journalism graduates by creating specialist careers workshops aimed at getting jobs in the media sector. While many universities have centralised careers departments, media employers are often looking for tailored one page CVs and cover letters that require specialist knowledge of the industry. Journalism and media students face a particularly competitive employment market as an increase in the number of courses offering these undergraduate programmes combines with a contracting pool of paid entry-level jobs. Those from widening participation backgrounds are at an even greater disadvantage. Using action research methodology, this paper aims to analyse student experience of university careers advice and gauges their preparedness for the jobs market. Research consists of semi-structured interviews following a specialist careers workshop with a group of third year students. Theoretical texts, including Wolf’s Does Education Matter (2002) and Collini’s What are Universities For? (2012), inspire discussion points, such as the role of work experience and internship, building confidence in widening participation students and the importance, or not, of a vocational degree to succeed in the profession
‘Home is Just Another Range of Mountains’: Constructions of ‘Home’ in Women’s Mountaineering Auto/biographies
Get PDFCombatting isolation in coastal schools
No full textThis report examines why coastal schools struggle and how headteachers are turning them around
An investigation into university extra-curricular enterprise support provision
Get PDFPurpose
– The employment market means students need to be equipped with wide-ranging enterprising skills and experience. With small- and medium-sized enterprises crucial to the health of the UK economy providing graduates with the skills to start-up their own business is also of increasing pertinence. The purpose of this paper is to analyse universities’ provision and delivery of student support in developing their enterprise knowledge, skills and experience outside of the curriculum.
Design/methodology/approach
– An e-survey of universities alongside three follow-up semi-structured interviews with participants and an in-depth case study was gathered. The e-survey quantified what enterprise support activities the sample institutions currently offered and the interviews and case study examined the delivery of those activities through the perceptions of university staff/students.
Findings
– The respondents offered a range of enterprise support activity outside of the curriculum but delivery was hindered by a limited means to track proceedings. Support activities were predominantly concentrated both in delivery and receipt within business schools rather than across departments. Support typically consisted of networking events, business advice sessions and workshops as opposed to intensive provisions such as incubation space or start-up loans. The presence and influence of student-led enterprise groups was apparent.
Practical implications
– The results will inform those staff involved in the planning and delivery of enterprise support activity at UK universities.
Originality/value
– This research extends a limited literature mapping extra-curricular enterprise support provision at universities with qualitative data on the delivery of these activities as perceived by staff/students
Developing Disability Sport: The case for a critical pedagogy
Get PDFAs a key stakeholder in the development of physical culture and the promotion of inclusive practice, the university sector has the capacity to contribute extensively to expanding and enhancing provision for disability sport at the local, regional and global level.1-3 Such activity is, in part, predicated on nurturing students as critical practitioners able to challenge established patterns of thinking about disability and traditional models of activity provision. This criticality should inform approaches to programming and promotion of inclusive practice both as part of the university physical activity portfolio and in the practitioner’s subsequent work with local, regional and international stakeholders. It should also equip students to challenge the systemic inequities increasingly characteristic of competitive disability sport in local and global settings.4-6 This paper reports on a small scale action research project, which sought to explore the impact of one University’s adoption of a critical pedagogy approach to teaching and learning through a level 6 elective module. The research identified that placement learning provided an impetus for the students to engage in more critical reflection and the notion of a ‘lived experience’ through the range of elements of the module was essential in developing students’ ability to question and challenge established ways of working. It also considers implications for adopting critical pedagogic approaches to teaching and learning for students, academics and administration
Psychological Determinants of Whole-Body Endurance Performance
Get PDFBackground
No literature reviews have systematically identified and evaluated research on the psychological determinants of endurance performance, and sport psychology performance enhancement guidelines for endurance sports are not founded on a systematic appraisal of endurance-specific research.
Objective
A systematic literature review was conducted to identify practical psychological interventions that improve endurance performance and to identify additional psychological factors that affect endurance performance. Additional objectives were to evaluate the research practices of the included studies, to suggest theoretical and applied implications, and to guide future research.
Methods
Electronic databases, forward-citation searches and manual searches of reference lists were used to locate relevant studies. Peer-reviewed studies were included when they chose an experimental or quasi-experimental research design; a psychological manipulation; endurance performance as the dependent variable; and athletes or physically active, healthy adults as participants.
Results
Consistent support was found for using imagery, self-talk and goal setting to improve endurance performance, but it is unclear whether learning multiple psychological skills is more beneficial than learning one psychological skill. The results also demonstrated that mental fatigue undermines endurance performance, and verbal encouragement and head-to-head competition can have a beneficial effect. Interventions that influenced perception of effort consistently affected endurance performance.
Conclusions
Psychological skills training could benefit an endurance athlete. Researchers are encouraged to compare different practical psychological interventions, to examine the effects of these interventions for athletes in competition and to include a placebo control condition or an alternative control treatment. Researchers are also encouraged to explore additional psychological factors that could have a negative effect on endurance performance. Future research should include psychological mediating variables and moderating variables. Implications for theoretical explanations for endurance performance and evidence-based practice are described
Adverse childhood experience and asthma onset: a systematic review
Get PDFAdverse childhood experiences such as abuse and neglect are associated with subsequent immune dysregulation. Some studies show an association between adverse childhood experiences and asthma onset, although significant disparity in results exists in the published literature.
We aimed to review available studies employing a prospective design that investigates associations between adverse childhood experience and asthma. A search protocol was developed and studies were drawn from four electronic journal databases. Studies were selected in accordance with pre-set inclusion criteria and relevant data were extracted.
12 studies, assessing data from a total of 31 524 individuals, were identified that investigate the impact of a range of adverse childhood experiences on the likelihood of developing asthma. Evidence suggests that chronic stress exposure and maternal distress in pregnancy operate synergistically with known triggers such as traffic-related air pollution to increase asthma risk.
Chronic stress in early life is associated with an increased risk of asthma onset. There is evidence that adverse childhood experience increases the impact of traffic-related air pollution and inconsistent evidence that adverse childhood experience has an independent effect on asthma onset
A founding vision for modern times: the case of St Mark’s and St John’s, and the campaign against the Revised Code
Get PDFThe founding visions of the first two Principals of the constituent colleges, both pioneers in teacher education, are summarized and read as combining ideas both
specific to their time and of lasting relevance. Some contemporary criticisms are outlined. This summary then leads to a focus on their opposition to the notorious
Revised Code of 1862, which introduced stringent Government controls over education, including teacher education, operating largely through new forms of finance. Implications are drawn for contemporary trends
