《改善大规模教育评估:理论、问题与实践》述评

《改善大规模教育评估:理论、问题与实践》一书从理论、方法论、技术和统计等方面对研究者、实践者和决策者所关心的大规模评估问题进行了探讨。该书主要有4个部分,分别围绕"评估设计、开发及施考"、"评估多样化的人群"、"评分、分数报告和分数使用"以及"心理测量模型和统计分析",对大规模教育评估中的关键问题进行了探讨。本文对该书的主要内容进行了介绍,并就该书提出的若干理念和方法对于改革我国现有的高中学业水平考试的借鉴作用进行了探讨。     

Action Learning at Virginia Commonwealth University: Blending Action,Reflection, Critical Incident Methodologies,and Portfolio Assessment

The action-learning-related approaches incorporated in the Adult Education and Human Resource Development Master's Degree Program at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) are considered unique in their overall design. They replaced a long-established and much more traditional curriculum design in 1995. The final capstone course in the program was shifted to an action learning format, with students directly involved with real, highly complex problems in the community and elsewhere which they were expected to help clarify and resolve. The basic fabric of the Master's Degree Program was re-engineered to promote the linkage between action and reflection, the questioning of underlying assumptions, and incorporation of portfolio assessment techniques. In each course, students are now encouraged to keep learning logs, determine their own best work for the semester, and prepare a “reflective essay” indexed to their own self-assessment of critical incidents (e.g., the point at which they were most engaged or distanced from what was occurring and why). Overall evolution of the VCU program and its benefits are outlined as well as how to go about implementing such an approach.     

Ethnic Cleansing,Yes; Genocide,No: Textbook Coverage of Ethnic Violence in the Former Yugoslavia

The ethnic violence that occurred in the former Yugoslavia during the mid-1990s has become one of the defining events of recent history. As such, today's students should develop an awareness of the history of that situation and its implications for contemporary society. Because textbooks provide the structure of most high school history courses, an analysis of textbook coverage of the Bosnian and Kosovar situations should provide critical information regarding what students learn about the events that occurred in those regions. This article analyzes how six frequently used history textbooks cover ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia, thus providing data regarding what students learn about those situations.     

Assessing Agreement: An Examination of the Interrater Reliability of Portfolio Assessment in Rochester,New York

This article reports on the interrater reliability of language arts portfolio assessment in the primary grades of the Rochester, New York, school system. This assessment was based on a sample of approximately 400 primary-grade language arts portfolios that were rated by two raters: the student's classroom teacher and an external reviewer. Reliabilities for student portfolios ranged from .58 for Grade 1 reading portfolios to .79 for kindergarten reading portfolios. Many of the reading portfolios could not be rated by the external reviewer, revealing problems both with the portfolio policies of the district and with the classroom-level implementation. The findings showed that primary-grade classroom teachers can reliably rate their own students' work, but tensions exist if a single portfolio system is intended both to provide classroom teachers with information about their students and to supply accountability information to administrators.     

‘But sir,I lied’ – the value of autobiographical discourse in the classroom

This article aims to examine the benefits of teachers using their own autobiographical writing in the classroom. It explores the blurring of truth and fiction in autobiographical writing and argues that teachers can help students if they provide students with the cloak of fiction when writing about their own lives. Furthermore, it puts forward the case that when teachers share pertinent autobiographical episodes then pupils are more willing to respond in an engaged and passionate fashion. In developing my argument, I suggest that autobiographical writing can be therapeutic in certain classroom contexts. The data sources for this article are the author's own life and two case studies: an 11‐year‐old boy, George, and a 15‐year‐old girl, Eloise, both of whom were pupils of the author and wrote autobiographically for him. The methodological approach is that of bricolage: chiefly, the article combines ethnographical observation with interviews and discourse analysis. I also examine quantitative studies which look at the therapeutic dimensions of autobiographical writing. Theoretically I draw on Friere's concept of ‘conscientization’ (Friere 1985: 49) in order to critique the ‘banking’ concept of education, which would close down opportunities for pupils to write freely about their own lives.     

The 'freedom to frame questions … worth asking', or three stories and three (other) fragments of research

In our state of centralised control of the curriculum and high-stakes testing an examination subject's assessment objectives have become high profile. Some of the anomalous effects of this profile are shown in the teaching, question-setting, and marking of English literature. Glimpses of earlier times are revealed, all three secondary school key stages are considered, examination performances are discussed, and the views of beginning teachers about teaching to the test are sought.     

'Bringing Me More Than I Contain …': Discourse, Subjectivity and the Scene of Teaching in Totality and Infinity

This paper explores the relationship between language, subjectivity and teaching in Emmanuel Levinas's Totality and Infinity . It aims to elucidate Levinas's presentation of language as always already predicated on a relationship of responsibility towards that which is beyond the self and the idea that it is only in this condition of being responsible that we are subjects. Levinas suggests that the relation with the Other through which I am a subject as one uniquely responsible is also the scene of teaching. Through examining these ethical conditions of subjectivity, I suggest that this notion of the self as oriented towards the Other in a relation of passivity presents a challenge to many of the standard topoi of teaching and learning and invites us to consider the nature of teaching in a provocative new manner.     

‘Yes,but . . .’: rhetoric,reality and resistance in teaching assistants' experiences of inclusive education

This research examines the role of teaching assistants (TAs) working with children with special educational needs (SEN) in an increasingly complex and diverse context. The role of the TA has been given more attention recently, partly due to the increased focus on their effectiveness within an inclusive education system in a time of workforce reform. The research takes a life history approach to examining the experiences of TAs within inclusive contexts and focuses upon how their backgrounds impact upon their role within the classroom, as well as how their experiences demonstrate ambiguity, tension and contradictions. Rather than a focus on pupil and institutional outcomes, the article analyses the tensions between the policy and institutional frameworks of inclusion and how TAs experience this. TAs' contradictions, tensions, resistance and also pleasures within their work are explored from their own perspectives. The personal interpretations, understandings and day‐to‐day implementation of inclusion are the focus.     

Quality Assessment and 'Self-regulation': the English Experience, 1992–94

This paper examines issues in the debate on quality assurance in the English system of higher education as they have developed between the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992 and the review proposed by the Secretary of State at the end of 1994. The main focus is on the development by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) of its method of quality assessment and the call for the restoration of 'self-regulation' in such matters to the institutions. The role of the institutions in developing the methods adopted by the Funding Council is outlined, and the chief criticisms of its effects evaluated. The paper concludes by reviewing options for change in the immediate future and the conditions that will have to be met. It is argued that systems could undoubtedly be improved, but that key elements of 'self-regulation' have already been won in the continuation of external peer review.     

Assessment matters—Trial,error, triumph: A college rethinks its core curriculum

When students and faculty alike rejected the College of Mount St. Joseph's revised core curriculum, no one dug in their heels to wait out the dissatisfaction.The entire campus engaged in a second round of good, hard discussions about scrapping the new for the newer.     

The Skilled Counselor Training Model: Skills Acquisition,Self‐Assessment,and Cognitive Complexity

The authors evaluated the effectiveness of the Skilled Counselor Training Model (SCTM; M. H. Smaby, C. D. Maddux, E. Torres‐Rivera, & R. Zimmick, 1999) in teaching counseling skills and in fostering counselor cognitive complexity. Counselor trainees who completed the SCTM had better counseling skills and higher levels of cognitive complexity than did counselor trainees who did not receive the training. Before training, both experimental and control group participants overestimated their skills performance. The control group persisted in this overestimation after training, whereas students who completed the SCTM had a much more accurate self‐assessment. Results suggest that skills‐based training may improve counseling skills and cognitive complexity in counselor trainees.     

Assessment matters—Integration,reflection, interpretation: Realizing the goals of a general education capstone course

For the past twenty‐three years, students at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona have benefited from a sequential, interdisciplinary general education program that culminates in a capstone course. A departmental culture focused on assessment enabled faculty members to examine this capstone experience and make changes that have substantially improved student learning.     

‘Being an artist you kind of,I mean,you get used to excellence’: Identity,Values and Fine Art Assessment Practices

In this article I report on a study into fine art lecturers’ assessment practices in higher education. This study explores the ways that lecturers bring themselves into the act of assessment (Hand & Clewes 2000). I interviewed twelve fine art lecturers who worked across six English universities. Lecturers were asked to relate to me how they learnt to assess student artwork and what informed their judgement making. My research explores the interfaces between fine art lecturers’ assessment practices, their values and identity/ies. My analysis offers a rendering of the ways that values underpin lecturers’ assessment practices. The article explores the ways that lecturers’ assessment decisions relate to their experiences as ex art students, their identity as artists, their own artistic practices, their conceptualisation of the arts arenas and the HE sector. My key overarching argument is that identity/ies and values underpin and enrich fine art lecturers’ assessment practices.     

Quality Assessment with National Institutional Rankings and Performance Funding: The Australian Experiment, 1993–1995

This paper provides a case-study of the Australian quality assurance or quality assessment program which ran for three years from 1993 to 1995. The program was somewhat unusual among recent experiments with quality assurance in OECD countries in that, while it was based on annual academic audits of participating institutions, it also included publication of detailed annual reports on each institution, national rankings of institutions, and performance funding with additional funds coming from a special additional government allocation. In each of the first two years of the program, the most highly rated universities received an amount of additional funding equal to three per cent of their annual government operating grant.