THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SCHOOL INSPECTIONS, SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

ABSTRACT:  The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latter includes assumptions about how school inspections lead to school improvement). Interviews and a survey with school inspectors gave insight into how school inspectors implement the Supervision Act and how they assess schools, and stimulate schools to improve. The results of ten case studies showed that all schools started to improve after a school visit. The innovation capacity of the school and the school environment do not seem to contribute to school improvement after school inspections. No effects were found on school-improvement processes of the number of insufficient scores that schools received from inspectors, the extent of feedback and suggestions for improvement, and the number of agreements. The provision of feedback about weaknesses, the assessment of these weak points as unsatisfactory, and the agreements between an inspector and the school regarding improvement activities do appear to make a difference in promoting school improvement.     

POSITIONAL RESPONSE SET AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ON MULTIPLE-CHOICE TESTS

Investigations of positional response set in examinees of multiple-choice items have shown conflicting results. This study attempted to clarify this controversy. Over 1000 subjects were assigned at random to one of nine forms of a specially prepared vocabulary test. The difference among forms related to the position of the correct answers and the most popular distractor as determined by prior administrations of the test. The forms of the test were constructed so that if a universal positional response set existed, it would manifest itself as a difference of means of scores obtained on selected items dispersed throughout each of the different forms. The results of the analysis of variance showed no significant evidence of interindividual positional response set.     

EFFECTIVENESS OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADES FOR PREDICTING COLLEGE GRADES OF BLACK STUDENTS: A REVIEW AND DISCUSSION1

The purpose of this study was to reexamine the value of high school grades (relative to standardized test scores) for predicting college grades of black students. Data from previous studies and from a predominantly black university were analyzed. Results tend to indicate that high school grades do not consistently make the greatest contribution in predicting college grades of black students, perhaps particularly of men, whereas they do for whites. Unreliability of grade reporting, invalidity of grades in high school, restriction in range due to selection processes, and intergroup differences in personality characteristics were advanced to explain this phenomenon. Further research on this problem was suggested in view of the fact that many selective institutions are relying heavily on high school grades in their selection of black students.     

THE IMPACT OF ITEM PHRASING ON THE VALIDITY OF ATTITUDE SCALES FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of item phrasing on the validity of a Likert-type attitude scale. Three content similar scales were composed of 15 items, either all positive, all negative, or a mixture of positive and negative items. Five hundred twenty-two students in grades 4–6 responded to one of the three forms. Results from the all positive and negative forms indicated that item means, variances, and factor structures differed significantly. Inspection of item means suggested that it was difficult for the students to indicate agreement by disagreeing with a negative statement. Analyses of the mixed phrasing form indicated factors based upon item phrasing, not item content. Taken together, the results suggest that the technique of balancing item phrasing when used with elementary students appears to affect adversely the validity of attitude measurement.     

GOVERNING FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND WITH LOVE: PARENTS AND CHILDREN BETWEEN HOME AND SCHOOL

A bstract .  In this essay, Benjamin Baez and Susan Talburt analyze the U.S. Department of Education's Helping Your Child Series to consider how the government of children, families, and schools reflects a concern with two seemingly unrelated political objectives of neoliberal projects: creating responsible, self-reliant citizens and making schools more efficient. Where these two objectives converge is in their techniques: they both use the parent-child relationship and what appears to motivate it. Drawing on Michel Foucault's conceptualization of government as "the conduct of conduct," Baez and Talburt analyze two pamphlets with an eye to several themes: the "commonsensical" nature of its address to loving parents; the "responsibilization" of parents and children; the insidious entry of school goals and behavioral norms into homes; and the seeming empowerment of the parent as partner in his or her child's learning. Finally, the authors discuss how the logic of modern forms of governing families and schools might be contested.     

高等教育与经济的新型关系——再论高等教育产业

教育产业属性与生产性是联系在一直的，高等教育从生产性向产业属性的飞跃，使得高等教育与经济融为一体。与其他产业相比，高等教育产业处在复杂的悖论之中。高等教育产业活动过程可以分为两个层次，即投入－产出过程，服务－消费过程。高等教育产业在实际运作过程中，面临如何既保持自身内部的供求平衡，又不致于跨层次系统的供求产生矛盾冲突，因此，高等教育与经济的关系比以往任何时候复杂。     

刍议古今蒙学书法教育方式

书法艺术是中国传统文化的瑰宝,蕴含着深厚的文化底蕴,而书法教育是蒙学教育的重要内容之一.本文着重对古代和现代蒙学书法教育方式进行比较研究,分析古、今蒙学书法教育特点,对于现代蒙童书法教育,有着重要实践意义,也为当今书法教育的科学发展提供一定的理性思考.     

THE INTERACTIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT OF NOT KNOWING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS: IMPLICATIONS FOR CLASSROOM PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT PRACTICES

The day-to-day business of being a science or mathematics teacher involves the continuous assessment of students. This, in turn, is an inherently discursive process. The aim of the present study is to examine some of the specific discursive practices through which science and mathematics knowing is jointly produced through classroom interaction. In particular, we examine the coproduced nature of two students’ not knowing—one in an outdoor elementary school science lesson and the other in an elementary school mathematics lesson. Our analysis is based on ideas in discursive psychology and challenges conventional interpretations of students’ academic performance in school science and mathematics.     

广西中小学教师实施新课程的心理适应性调查及调适研究

由于新课程的实施与原有的教育环境、教育观念、评价标准、教育自身的条件都可能存在矛盾与冲突,因而,在推进基础教育课程改革的进程中,教师对新课程的心理适应性的问题显得尤为突出。运用团体测量法和个人访谈法对1679名中小学教师实施新课程的心理适应性进行了研究。结果表明,广西中小学教师实施新课程的心理适应性整体上呈良性发展态势,表现在大多数教师对新课程普遍持认同态度并积极接受,且有良好的自身发展规划、合作意识和学生观。但不可否认的是,新课程的实施同样也给教师带来了一定的心理压力。     

AN ANALYSIS OF TEACHING AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UNIVERSITY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

As a principal task of higher education in the German Democratic Republic is to create the conditions by which it will have a major impact upon development, a major aspect of these conditions refers to the relationship between university teachers and students. The totality of this relationship can be broken down into relationships of partnership, of authority, and of work. The third of these relationships, particularly collaboration in research projects, creates the best links between teachers and students and enables teachers to gain the fullest knowledge of their students and to have the most fruitful influence over them. The validity of this assertion has been corroborated by the results of the author's investigations of the stimulating and orientational effects of communicative and cooperative relations at Central Exhibitions of Achievements of Students and Young Scientists in the German Democratic Republic. In order to obtain the best pedagogical results through collaborative work, the teacher must understand and add to the student's motivations and be prepared to stimulate the learning process through constant evaluation of both specific achievements and of the development of the student's personality resulting from work on the project. The latter evaluation criterion is in turn best measured by the assessment of results achieved against objectives and by an analysis of the environment of the study process. As individual teachers can only know students in specific courses, the position of “seminar group advisor” has been created in the GDR to be filled by young academics who are assigned to groups of students from their matriculation to their graduation.