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Although digital advances have enabled hundreds of universities to offer massive open online courses (MOOCs) to millions of students worldwide, the high dropout rate on these MOOCs indicates a disjunct between the potential of the offer and the success of its uptake. Many studies point to issues relating to interpersonal connection as a major factor in this disjunct. Interviews with students support the conclusion that lecturers' interpersonal tone is crucial to shortening psychological distance in pre-recorded videos. However, it is unclear how the interpersonal tone preferred by students can be realised discursively. This paper captures discursive instances by modelling an engagement framework and identifying particularly useful strategies through comparison of a high-rated and a low-rated engineering MOOC course delivered on Coursera. Findings show that in the high rated course the lecturer consistently anticipated students' state of mind and in response constructed a discourse that performed several interpersonal functions. On the other hand, in the low-rated course the lecturer mostly anticipated and addressed knowledge gaps and issues of difficulty, but not students' emotional responses, and so deployed far fewer interpersonal strategies in the lecture discourse. These findings shed light on how lecturers can use interpersonal language in pre-recorded lectures to improve student engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no single, universally accepted method of measuring isometric neck strength to inform exercise prescription and injury risk prediction. This study aimed to establish the inter- and intra-rater reliability of a commercially available fixed frame dynamometer in measuring peak isometric neck strength. A convenience sample of male (n = 16) and female (n = 20) university students performed maximal isometric contractions for flexion (Flex), extension (Ext), left- (LSF) and right-side flexion (RSF) in a quadruped position over three sessions. The intra-rater reliability results were good-to-excellent for both males (ICC = 0.83–0.90) and females (ICC = 0.86–0.94) and acceptable (CV < 15%) across all directions for both males and females. The inter-rater reliability results were excellent (ICC = 0.96–0.97) and acceptable (CV < 11.1%) across all directions. Findings demonstrated a significant effect for sex (p ≤ 0.05): males were stronger in all four directions, and a significant effect for direction (p ≤ 0.05): Ext tested stronger (193 N) than Flex (176 N), LSF (130 N) and RSF (125 N). The findings show that the VALD fixed frame dynamometer can reliably assess isometric neck strength and can provides reference values for healthy males and females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]