In practice: The green zone: A program to support military students on campus

Like many institutions of higher education, Virginia Commonwealth University has seen an increase in the number of military students. Ann Nichols‐Casebolt describes one strategy the university has implemented to respond to the needs of this important group.     

Standard-Setting Methods as Measurement Processes

Some writers in the measurement literature have been skeptical of the meaningfulness of achievement standards and described the standard-setting process as blatantly arbitrary. We argue that standard setting is more appropriately conceived of as a measurement process similar to student assessment. The construct being measured is the panelists' representation of student performance at the threshold of an achievement level. In the first section of this paper, we argue that standard setting is an example of stimulus-centered measurement. In the second section, we elaborate on this idea by comparing some popular standard-setting methods to the stimulus-centered scaling methods known as psychophysical scaling. In the third section, we use the lens of standard setting as a measurement process to take a fresh look at the two criticisms of standard setting: the role of judgment and the variability of results. In the fourth section, we offer a vision of standard-setting research and practice as grounded in the theory and practice of educational measurement .     

Comparison and Comparability: Fitness Tracking Between Youths with Different Physical Activity Levels

This study compared a three-year tracking of health-related physical fitness between two comparable samples of six graders that enrolled either in a PE4life middle school (n?=?154) or another school with a traditional PE program (n?=?93) in the United States. For the cohort, the FITNESSGRAM^TM (Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, 1992 Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research. 1992. The Prudential FITNESSGRAM^®test administration manual, Dallas, TX: The Cooper Institute.  [Google Scholar]) battery was administered twice with a three-year interval, and moderate and vigorous physical activity levels in PE classes were assessed. Fitness tracking then was assessed with six statistical techniques and compared between the two samples. Students in the PE4life Program demonstrated significantly higher moderate and vigorous physical activity level (p < .001) in PE classes and improved significantly more in most fitness measures at follow-up (ps < .05–.001) than those in the traditional program. Results of tracking assessed with Spearman correlations, Kappa statistics, and Kendall's tau-b did not reflect the significant differences in fitness changes between the two samples, whereas those assessed using stability in extreme quartiles, changes in percentage of students in at-risk groups, and odds ratios reflected the significant differences in the fitness changes between the two samples. The last three tracking methods identify differences in fitness changes in addition to assessing tracking stability and are recommended in fitness tracking research.     

Perusing Google eBookstore

Google launched the Google eBookstore in December 2010. This edition of Techcast provides some initial thoughts on its impact on libraries.     

Cooperative Learning: A Motivational Tool to Enhance Student Persistence,Self‐Regulation,and Efforts to Please Teachers and Parents

ABSTRACT

The effects of cooperative group learning on students’ persistence, self‐regulation, and efforts to please teachers and parents were examined. Eighty‐one high school geometry students were randomly assigned to either a cooperative learning or traditional lecture group. Twenty‐seven students received cooperative group instruction for nine weeks and then received traditional classroom instruction for nine weeks. Twenty‐five students received traditional instruction for nine weeks and then received cooperative group instruction for nine weeks. Twenty nine students received traditional classroom instruction for 18 weeks. Participants completed pre, post, and post‐posttest motivation questionnaires at each phase of the project. Students in the cooperative group classrooms exhibited significantly greater gains in persistence, self‐regulation, and efforts to please their parents and teacher. The implications of these findings for motivation theory and cooperative group structures are discussed.