Editorial

Welcome to this issue of Research in Dance Education. I am pleased to share that the journal continues to thrive with a wide, international reach of authors and readership, increased submissions and now four issues a year being published. The editorial board and I would welcome more reviewers to support us, so if you have published an academic journal article in any peer reviewed journal and would like to review, please get in touch. I also wish to take this opportunity to thank all the existing reviewers for the valuable work that they do to as peer reviewers, to ensure the high standard of the published work. In addition, our book review editor, Wendy Timmons and I, are keen to receive expressions of interest from our community of new and established authors, to undertake a book review. Further, if there is a book you would like us to review then please get in touch. This issue contains articles that represent work from China, Turkey, Canada and the UK. I open this issue with an article that discusses some benefits and limitations of e-learning for students studying Dance Education and particularly choreography in Higher Education, in Online technologies in dance education (China and worldwide experience) by author Yuhai You. The article analyses how students perceive the impact of online education on the formation of subject-specific competencies and to identify those competencies of the ideal online training programme. The system substantiates the necessity and expediency of implementing a competence-based approach in developing educational programmes. The system defines groups of professional competences, qualities, knowledge, and skills that make up the profile of students and teachers working in the field of choreography and dance. It is suggested that the developments of the study are universal in nature and can be applied in both national (regional) and global educational management practices but that the quality control system of training needs to be improved. This article will be of interest at this time and space in history as many courses have employed a hybrid, blended approach to teaching and learning in dance that utilise a range of technologies. Next, authors Ozdemir and Yildirim have analysed the work of a modern Turkish folk dance group called Fire of Anatolia, in Joint range of motion and balance in modern Turkish folk dancers‘The fire of Anatolia’. The study engaged 40 dancers: 20 female dancers (21.70 ± 3.61 years), 20 male dancers (22.10 ± 3.14 years). The authors focused on range of motion (ROM), flexibility and balance and used eight joint range of motion and trunk-lower limb flexibility measures. Eyes opened-closed, single leg balance tests were also applied. Consequently, it was found that the measurement of flexion-extension of the hip joint (U: 106-Z: −2.55 – p = 0.011), adduction-abduction of the hip joint (U: 65-Z: −3.65-p = 0.000) and plantar-dorsal flexion of the ankle joint (U: 68-Z: −3.58 – p = 0.000) was higher for the benefit of a female dancer and there is no significant RESEARCH IN DANCE EDUCATION 2022, VOL. 23, NO. 4, 393–395 https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2022.2148420