NCME Presidential Address 2020: Valuing Educational Measurement

The community of educational measurement researchers and practitioners has made many positive contributions to education, but has also become complacent and lost the public trust. In this article, reasons for the lack of public trust in educational testing are described, and core values for educational measurement are proposed. Reasons for distrust of educational measurement include hypocritical practices that conflict with our professional standards, a biased and selected presentation of the history of testing, and inattention to social problems associated with educational measurement. The five core values proposed to help educational measurement serve education are: (a) everyone is capable of learning; (b) there are no differences in the capacity to learn across groups defined by race, ethnicity, or sex; (c) all educational tests are fallible to some degree; (d) educational tests can provide valuable information to improve student learning and certify competence; and (e) all uses of educational test scores must be sufficiently justified by validity evidence. The importance of these core values for improving the science and practice of educational measurement to benefit society is discussed.     

NCME 2007 Presidential Address: The Concordance Table: An Invitation to Misuse Test Scores

This article discusses a particular type of concordance table and the potential for test score misuse that may result from employing such a table. The concordance that is discussed is typically created between scores on different, nonequatable versions of a test that share the same or close to the same test title. These concordance tables often appear in the context of relating scores on computerized adaptive and paper‐and‐pencil versions of the same test. When such a table is presented in a complete point‐by‐point fashion, relating each reported score on the scale of the new version of the test to a reported score on the scale of the old version of the test, test score users will typically treat the table as if it represented an equating of scores between the two versions, and directly replace scores on the new version of the test by scores on the old version. This clearly represents a misuse of the test scores. Suggestions for avoiding this misuse of test scores from concordance tables are provided.     

NCME 2008 Presidential Address: The Impact of Anchor Test Configuration on Student Proficiency Rates

Examined in this study were the effects of reducing anchor test length on student proficiency rates for 12 multiple‐choice tests administered in an annual, large‐scale, high‐stakes assessment. The anchor tests contained 15 items, 10 items, or five items. Five content representative samples of items were drawn at each anchor test length from a small universe of items in order to investigate the stability of equating results over anchor test samples. The operational tests were calibrated using the one‐parameter model and equated using the mean b‐value method. The findings indicated that student proficiency rates could display important variability over anchor test samples when 15 anchor items were used. Notable increases in this variability were found for some tests when shorter anchor tests were used. For these tests, some of the anchor items had parameters that changed somewhat in relative difficulty from one year to the next. It is recommended that anchor sets with more than 15 items be used to mitigate the instability in equating results due to anchor item sampling. Also, the optimal allocation method of stratified sampling should be evaluated as one means of improving the stability and precision of equating results.     

Presidential Address: Advocating for Meaningful Linkages to Our Global Future

Reproduced here is the presidential address delivered at the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) luncheon at the American Counseling Association's annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana on March 30, 1998. Life is a journey. Its direction is more important than its destination. Whether you try surfing at 30 or 80, the fact that you reached out to experience it is the key. I'm always leery when I think “I have arrived,” for then the creative process in me erupts to jolt me to the realization that the journey is never-ending and the essence of being human. … I can choose. It is my lot as a human being to choose growth. (Thomas, 1992, xiii)     

从批评性话语分析角度解读奥巴马总统连任就职演讲

以批评话语分析为理论基础,以韩礼德的系统功能语法为理论依据,从及物性、情态、人称代词三个方面对2013年1月21日美国总统奥巴马的连任就职演讲进行分析,探讨政治语篇作者如何利用语言策略及技巧达到自己的目的,并试图揭示其隐含的意识形态。     

Presidential Address: Making Professional Development a Priority

This address was presented at the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Luncheon, American Counseling Association annual meeting, Orlando, Florida, April 5, 1997.     

2014 Australian Association for Research in Education Presidential Address

The 2014, 41st Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) presidential address is both inspired and guided by the discursive genres of presidential addresses and the role of the president in a member association such as AARE. In the address, typically the president speaks to the members on an issue or issues that are to shape or conclude their term of office, as it is in my case. Like many of the 40 AARE presidents who have gone before me, I will embed some things that are professional, personal and political—not in the interests of advancing my research agenda, but to add “to the weave and pattern of the association’s history” (Reid 2010, p. v). Threads of my research since completing my PhD in 2000 will appear to support the broad argument. Also, I will draw on the outcomes of the 2014 Australian Research Council Discovery round (see Australian Research Council: ARC archives 2016) to encapsulate my key argument that educational research and its (ex)changes are being reshaped: in a post human digital age, the tree of knowledge is mutating. To make my argument, I will review how the thinking and doing of educational research mid-way through the second decade of the twenty-first century is constructed and ask what research endeavours might be created to make the best possible worlds for our member community and the aspirations of the association.     

论模糊语在奥巴马就职演说中的语用功能

模糊性作为自然语言的基本属性之一,在历届美国总统就职演说中扮演着重要的角色。从模糊理论角度出发,发现模糊语在奥巴马就职演说中主要以模糊词汇、模糊限制语和模糊修辞等3种形式出现,以达到增强表达性、显示威胁、权威和礼貌以及创造美好愿景的语用功能。