Given the complexity of teaching, continuing teacher professional development (CPD) is essential for maintaining and enhancing teaching effectiveness, and bridging the gap between ever-evolving theory and practice. Technological advancements have opened new opportunities for digital tools to support CPD. However, the successful integration of such digital tools into practice poses challenges. It requires adherence to CPD prerequisites and acknowledgment of the complexity of the professional development process. This study explored the applicability of the developed digital PE teacher professional development TARGET-tool in a secondary school PE context. We examined the perceived usability of this tool and gained insights into the process of teachers’ professional development as a result of using the tool. Ten PE teachers from different schools implemented the TARGET- tool within their PE context for a period of 4 to 6 weeks. Individual semi-structured inter- views and the System Usability Scale provided insights into the perceived usability and the process of teacher professional development. The TARGET-tool demonstrated its potential as an effective tool for supporting teachers’ professional development. Future tool improve- ments were identified to further optimize the perceived usability, such as simplifying com- plex features, providing additional support and resources, and improving (data) presenta- tions. Using the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth as a theoretical basis, it was demonstrated how the use of the TARGET-tool engages teachers as active and reflective participants in their professional development and induces changes within the external domain, the domain of practice, the domain of consequences, and the personal domain.
The (pre)school environment is an important setting to improve children’s health. Especially, the (pre)school playground provides a major opportunity to intervene. This review presents an overview of the existing evidence on the value of both school and preschool playgrounds on children’s health in terms of physical activity, cognitive and social outcomes. In addition, we aimed to identify which playground characteristics are the strongest correlates of beneficial effects and for which subgroups of children effects are most distinct. In total, 13 experimental and 17 observational studies have been summarized of which 10 (77%) and 16 (94%) demonstrated moderate to high methodological quality, respectively. Nearly all experimental studies (n = 11) evaluated intervention effects on time spent in different levels of physical activity during recess. Research on the effects of (pre)school playgrounds on cognitive and social outcomes is scarce (n = 2). The experimental studies generated moderate evidence for an effect of the provision of play equipment, inconclusive evidence for an effect of the use of playground markings, allocating play space and for multi-component interventions, and no evidence for an effect of decreasing playground density, the promotion of physical activity by staff and increasing recess duration on children’s health. In line with this, observational studies showed positive associations between play equipment and children’s physical activity level. In contrast to experimental studies, significant associations were also found between children’s physical activity and a decreased playground density and increased recess duration. To confirm the findings of this review, researchers are advised to conduct more experimental studies with a randomized controlled design and to incorporate the assessment of implementation strategies and process evaluations to reveal which intervention strategies and playground characteristics are most effective. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-11-59 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
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Among other things, learning to write entails learning how to use complex sentences effectively in discourse. Some research has therefore focused on relating measures of syntactic complexity to text quality. Apart from the fact that the existing research on this topic appears inconclusive, most of it has been conducted in English L1 contexts. This is potentially problematic, since relevant syntactic indices may not be the same across languages. The current study is the first to explore which syntactic features predict text quality in Dutch secondary school students’ argumentative writing. In order to do so, the quality of 125 argumentative essays written by students was rated and the syntactic features of the texts were analyzed. A multilevel regression analysis was then used to investigate which features contribute to text quality. The resulting model (explaining 14.5% of the variance in text quality) shows that the relative number of finite clauses and the ratio between the number of relative clauses and the number of finite clauses positively predict text quality. Discrepancies between our findings and those of previous studies indicate that the relations between syntactic features and text quality may vary based on factors such as language and genre. Additional (cross-linguistic) research is needed to gain a more complete understanding of the relationships between syntactic constructions and text quality and the potential moderating role of language and genre.
The SPRONG-collaboration “Collective process development for an innovative chemical industry” (CONNECT) aims to accelerate the chemical industry’s climate/sustainability transition by process development of innovative chemical processes. The CONNECT SPRONG-group integrates the expertise of the research groups “Material Sciences” (Zuyd Hogeschool), “Making Industry Sustainable” (Hogeschool Rotterdam), “Innovative Testing in Life Sciences & Chemistry” and “Circular Water” (both Hogeschool Utrecht) and affiliated knowledge centres (Centres of Expertise CHILL [affiliated to Zuyd] and HRTech, and Utrecht Science Park InnovationLab). The combined CONNECT-expertise generates critical mass to facilitate process development of necessary energy-/material-efficient processes for the 2050 goals of the Knowledge and Innovation Agenda (KIA) Climate and Energy (mission C) using Chemical Key Technologies. CONNECT focuses on process development/chemical engineering. We will collaborate with SPRONG-groups centred on chemistry and other non-SPRONG initiatives. The CONNECT-consortium will generate a Learning Community of the core group (universities of applied science and knowledge centres), companies (high-tech equipment, engineering and chemical end-users), secondary vocational training, universities, sustainability institutes and regional network organizations that will facilitate research, demand articulation and professionalization of students and professionals. In the CONNECT-trajectory, four field labs will be integrated and strengthened with necessary coordination, organisation, expertise and equipment to facilitate chemical innovations to bridge the innovation valley-of-death between feasibility studies and high technology-readiness-level pilot plant infrastructure. The CONNECT-field labs will combine experimental and theoretical approaches to generate high-quality data that can be used for modelling and predict the impact of flow chemical technologies. The CONNECT-trajectory will optimize research quality systems (e.g. PDCA, data management, impact). At the end of the CONNECT-trajectory, the SPRONG-group will have become the process development/chemical engineering SPRONG-group in the Netherlands. We can then meaningfully contribute to further integrate the (inter)national research ecosystem to valorise innovative chemical processes for the KIA Climate and Energy.
