THE USE OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN IN EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION

Considerable controversy has existed concerning the utility of experimental design in educational evaluation. The polar positions are that experimental design has no utility in educational evaluation and that experimental design is the only valid evaluation strategy. This article examines these positions in terms of conceptualizations of evaluation according to the'LCIPP Evaluation Model "and of experimental design according to the "true comparative experiment." An alternative position including three main points is developed: (a) The methodology of educational evaluation includes much more than the methodology of experimental design; (b) Experimental design does have potential utility in the areas of input and product evaluation, but not within the areas of context and process evaluation; (c) The utility of experimental design can be increased by following a set of procedures that do not require the use of common criterion instruments and uniform decision rules for all students in an experiment; this allows judgment of a program in terms of the number of students for whom it was successful.     

巢湖学院大学生职业价值观调查情况分析

大学生的职业价值观是大学生在职业选择中对自身价值的定位,随着大学生就业问题的加剧,探索评价大学生职业价值观具有重要的现实意义。本文采集相关调查数据对巢湖学院在校大学生的职业价值观进行实证分析和深入探讨,在此基础上,就如何教育和引导大学生树立正确的职业价值观,如何做好本校学生的就业指导工作作一些对策性的分析。     

客观与主观:当代课程哲学的两种知识观评析

知识观分歧的日益尖锐化,客观上要求今天对课程改革的任何一种判断必须给出其知识论根据。本文以“王钟之争”为切入点,在梳理传统派和改革派知识观分歧的基础上,详析了客观主义与主观主义的基本主张及其认识论根据,指出知识的客观性与主观性问题背后的核心问题是真理问题;进而从剖析互动的知识观之由来及其与传统知识观的分歧入手,将分歧的关键定位于知识的独立自在性问题方面;最后以渡普尔的“世界3”为根据,给出消解分歧的一种建议。     

JOHN DEWEY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO AN EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

A bstract .  Leading researchers describe the field of special education as sharply divided between two different theories of disability. In this article Scot Danforth takes as his project addressing that division from the perspective of a Deweyan philosophy of the education of students with intellectual disabilities. In 1922, John Dewey authored two articles in New Republic that criticized the use of intelligence tests as both undemocratic and impractical in meeting the needs of teachers. Drawing from these two articles and a variety of Dewey's other works, Danforth puts forward a Deweyan educational theory of intellectual disability. This theory is perhaps encapsulated in Dewey's observation that "The democratic faith in human equality is belief that every human being, independent of the quantity or range of his personal endowment, has the right to equal opportunity with every other person for development of whatever gifts he has." ¹     

ANALYSIS OF COSTS AND BENEFITS IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

It is quite clear that the university‐sector of higher education will be facing severe financial restraint over the next four or five years. Publicly‐financed service industries (of which the university is but one example) find decision‐making in times of retrenchment difficult. Self‐governing bodies with dispersed centres of power can operate without too many problems in periods of growth. Conflicts of interest can be controlled and Departments can accept short‐term limitations as long as it seems that “their turn will come” in future years. But now decision‐making in universities will probably become more rigorous, more questioning, and much more liable to adopt an adversary approach towards Departments which resist decisions.

In these circumstances it is important to examine the role of educational technology within universities, and the decisions to be made in assessing their cost‐effectiveness.     

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISSONANT CHILDREN: STANLEY CAVELL'S WITTGENSTEINIAN PHILOSOPHICAL THERAPIES AS AN EDUCATIONAL CONVERSATION

Education is often understood as a process whereby children come to conform to the norms teachers believe should govern our practices. This picture problematically presumes that educators know in advance what it means for children to go on the way that is expected of them. In this essay Viktor Johansson suggests a revision of education, through the philosophy of Stanley Cavell, that can account for both the attunement in our practices and the possible dissonance that follows when the teacher and child do not go on together. There is an anxiety generated by the threat of disharmony in our educational undertakings that may drive teachers toward philosophy in educational contexts. Here Johansson offers a philosophical treatment of this intellectual anxiety that teachers may experience when they, upon meeting dissonant children, search for epistemic justifications of their practices—a treatment whereby dissonant children can support teachers in dissolving their intellectual frustrations.     

PITFALLS AND PROMISES: THE USE OF SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

ABSTRACT:  This paper considers the use of secondary data analysis in educational research. It addresses some of the promises and potential pitfalls that influence its use and explores a possible role for the secondary analysis of numeric data in the 'new' political arithmetic tradition of social research. Secondary data analysis is a relatively under-used technique in Education and in the social sciences more widely, and it is an approach that is not without its critics. Here we consider two main objections to the use of secondary data: that it is full of errors and that because of the socially constructed nature of social data, simply reducing it to a numeric form cannot fully encapsulate its complexity. However, secondary data also offers numerous methodological, theoretical and pedagogical benefits. Indeed by treating secondary data analysis with appropriate scepticism and respect for its limitations, by demanding that tacit assumptions about the unreliability of secondary data are applied equally to other research methods, and crucially by combining secondary data analysis with small-scale in-depth work, this paper argues for a return to prominence of secondary data analysis in its own right as well as becoming a central component of the new political arithmetic tradition of social research.     

THE EVALUATION OF UNIVERSITY TEACHING: CONTEXT,VALUES AND INNOVATION

This paper takes the view that the problems surrounding the evaluation of university teaching have more to do with the values and structures of the university system rather than of arguments as to whether or not teaching can be evaluated. Following an examination of the value, structural and interpersonal context in which university teaching takes place, an innovation persepective is discussed which explains the process of innovation in terms of the characteristics of the host system. This perspective is then used to assess the acceptability of two broad formal approaches to the evaluation of university teaching: one relating to the evaluation of teachers themselves (‘appraisal’) and the other relating to the evaluation of teaching provision (‘validation’). Although this analysis concludes that appraisal accords more closely with the values and structures of the university system, recent events indicate that universities are having to consider validation as a consquence of earlier failures to evolve mechanisms for the evaluation of teaching more in keeping with their own values.