Identifying sporting talent remains a difficult task due to the complex nature of sport. Technical skill assessments are used throughout the talent pathway to monitor athletes in an attempt to more effectively predict future performance. These assessments however, largely focus on the isolated execution of key skills devoid of any game context. When assessments are representative of match-play and applied in a setting where all four components of competition (i.e., technical, tactical, physiological and psychological) are assessed within an integrated approach, (...) prediction of talent is more likely to be successful. This article explores the current talent identification technical skill assessments, with a particular focus on Australian Football, and proposes a 5-level performance assessment model for athlete assessment. The model separates technical game skill on a continuum from Level-1 (i.e., laboratory analysis) to Level-5 (i.e., match-play). These levels, using the assumptions of the expert performance model and representative learning design theory, incorporate a step-wise progression of performance demands to more closely represent match-play conditions. The proposed model will provide researchers and practitioners with a structured framework to consider when assessing, or developing, new assessments of technical game-based skill. (shrink)

There have been a number of studies examining the attitudes of librarians to ethical dilemmas, but few examining them in comparison with Library and Information Science students as we did in our study. According to that UK librarians and students in general hold surprisingly similar ethical attitudes. We expected the students to be more liberal, more willing to uphold idealistic principles, and given their student status, with attitudes balanced in favour of other students' and patrons' rights in terms of fees, (...) and accessibility, and copyright law. On the contrary, in many areas such as Internet filtering, looking at online erotic images, and removing books at the request of patrons, we found practitioners more liberal than the students. A reason for that might be that the students are keen to emulate what they perceive to be a conservative and mature outlook, i.e., a stance of responsibility, as a pressing concern for ILS students is likely to be the establishment of a career. Though there is a fair level of teaching ethical issues it seems to lead into a mediocre level of student awareness of basic issues or of the CILIP Code which is meant as a 'framework' to help information professionals 'manage the responsibilities and sensitivities which figure prominently in their work'. (shrink)