Applications of Educational Measurement: I s Optimum Optimal?

What would you do if you were asked to design an “optimal” school testing program, but had doubts about the criteria to apply? What strategies might help us make more use of performance assessment and computer-adaptive testing in district-level testing programs? Can an NCME President be whimsical when delivering her presidential address?     

National Testing or Political Testing: I s There a Difference?

Are two national reports on standardized testing realistic or simplistic? What is the difference between “political” testing and conventional testing? What are some likely consequences of politicizing school testing?     

Validity Arguments for High-stakes Testing: In Search of the Evidence

What do we need to do to establish the validity of high-stakes testing programs? How can we move away from a “confirmationist” bias? What questions haven't we been asking that we need to ask?     

Recontextualizing Mental Measurement

Why should we be concerned about “physics envy” as a feature of our approach to educational measurement? What are some limitations of current measurement models? Why should there be greater public participation in decisions regarding testing?     

Computerized Adaptive Testing With Different Groups

How does the use of computerized adaptive testing affect the performance of students from different groups? How consistent were the results of computerized adaptive and “conventional” tests? What did the students think about the test experience? What advice do the authors have for test developers and users?     

Constructing student portfolios: A process and product that fosters communication with families

When parents pick their children up from day care or preschool, one of the first questions that is typically asked of their child is “What did you do in school today?” At an open house parents usually ask teachers, “How is my child doing in your class?” “Is my child learning new things?” “Has my child improved any since the beginning of the school year, and in what ways?” Or think of the child who turns in a product and asks, “What do you think of this, Teacher?” or “Did you like my work today?”     

Literature,listening, and young children

“What is that sound?”, “What did the kangaroo say?”, and “What might you hear during a walk?” provide evidence that educators of young children realize that listening represents a necessary ingredient in successful school experiences. Children listen for many hours of the school day, but listening has been a neglected area of instruction. The traditional low priority of listening instruction may have been based upon the myth that children naturally learn to listen or on the misconception that listening skills cannot be taught. Using literature to teach listening can improve learners' listening abilities, provided early childhood educators use developmentally appropriate children's literature.     

Linguistic performance and minority groups

Abstract

Beginning with linguistic performance as currently defined, this article systematically pursues its implications to and through the notion of “successful communication.” The four divisions of the article attempt explorations of the following questions: What does linguistic performance do? What place does it have in a theory of communication? What are the practical implications of such a theory in connection with actual language use? How is all this relevant to problems of what we take to be “linguistically underprivileged” (minority) groups? The article concludes that the concept of linguistic performance, “scientifically” based, is not significant in successful communication, which is an art.     

GERONTOLOGY AS A DISCIPLINE

This paper discusses four well‐attested criteria by which a given “subject area” might be judged to be or not to be an “academic discipline.” What can be said of “gerontological studies” under each of these criteria? In what ways might “gerontological studies” benefit from being more generally accepted as an “academic discipline?     

学习贯彻《总体方案》，深入探讨“三改”问题

从基层教师角度探讨《深化新时代教育评价改革总体方案》中“为什么改”“改什么”“怎么改”的“三改”问题。“三改”是改革的基本性问题。为什么改?教育评价改革是中国社会发展的历史必然;改什么?当前最需要改革的是教育评价中的行政化问题;怎么改?让教育评价回归到评价教育科研成果内容本身。     

Comparing State and District Test Results to National Norms: The Validity of Claims That "Everyone Is Above Average"

Are all states and nearly all districts claiming that their students are above the national average? If so, are the test results “inflated and misleading?” What are the factors that contribute to the abundance of “above average” scores?     

Old Plots and New Identities: Ambivalent femininities in late modernity

This paper investigates changing modes of femininity. It asks: What are the discourses and discursive practices within which new femininities are constructed? What are the social conditions in which they emerge? How are these negotiated and lived by girls? What do these stories tell us about the complications of subject formation and what it means to be a “girl” in “global times”. Drawing on a school-community project with a racially diverse group of girls, aged 12–14 years, the paper analyses a series of fictional stories that the girls wrote for the characters of a collaboratively produced video. It is my argument that girls live the effects of neoliberal discourses of individuality in particularly complicated ways. This is due to the ways in which “woman” and “individual” have historically been constituted through a series of binary oppositions including those of: femininity and masculinity, girlhood and adolescence, womanhood and personhood and femininity and rationality. I suggest that while traditional femininity is being undone through its inclusion in discourses of individualism, rationality and adulthood, it is also reinscribed through an ever increasing array of contradictions, the juggling of which have always constituted femininity.     

The Vemont Portfolio Assessment Program: Findings and Implications

How effective has the Vermont program been in meeting its goals? What goals appear to be in conflict in programsof this type? Why is there a need for “caution and moderate expectations”?     

Play — Use — Generalize! Three-stage activities for developing math readiness

Children can be encouraged to demonstrate academic learning that they have mastered. Demonstrating academic learning to adults can be similar to auditioning for a drama or an artistic recital. Teachers and professional caregivers are accustomed to such auditions. Typically, it is the parents who initiate the audition: “My child can count to 10. Bonnie, count to 10 for this person.” Sometimes the auditioning child will ignore the parent: “Bonnie, count to 10 for this nice man.” Bonnie continues to disregard her parent. “Bonnie, count to 10. You know how to do it. One, two, three, ... What comes after three?” Bonnie still does not respond. “Honey, say your numbers. One, two, thr... What comes after two?”     

The Americans With Disabilitie Act Implications for Measurement

What does the Americans with Disabilities Act require of assessment programs? What does “reasonable accommodation” mean? What is the best overall guidance that is available regarding ways to meet the spirit and letter of the act?     

The Changing Corporate Mind: Organizations,Vision, Missions,Purposes, and Indicators on the Move Toward Societal Payoffs

Where are the world's organizations headed? What do they see as their primary destination and contribution? What do they commit to deliver and to whom? How rigorous are they in defining their destinations? What label do they use to describe statements of their intended future? To find the answers to these and other questions, we examined 26 of the leading organizations internationally as well as 60 leading organizations in the United States. Based on this sample of world organizations, we found indications that many organizations see some aspect of societal good as basic to their future, while many others regard their own organization's well-being as what is most important. We find no clear favorite for what organizations label their statements of purpose: most use “mission” while some use “vision,” and some use “values” or “philosophy.” Few of the organizations in our sample state their intended destination in measurable performance terms. From these data, we discuss the implications in terms of an increasing emphasis in the literature on organizations having to deliver outputs that contribute to external clients and society. We also note that purpose statements must be accompanied by appropriate actions to achieve those intentions. In addition, we discuss how this move toward socially-responsive organizations is impacting the role of the performance technologist.     

A Tale of Two Test-Specification Strategies

How detailed should we make the specifications for educational tests? What should be the role of sample or “illustrative” items? How does the nature of test specifications impact on the usefulness of that test?     

The new organization and implications for training

In our work over the past 15 years, we have been guided by a premise, right or wrong, that fundamental changes in how organizations work require fundamental changes in how we think and interact. Changes in the “outer world” do not necessarily produce change in the “inner world”… I am skeptical of what can be accomplished by changes in structure alone.… What leads us to believe that lots of local managers, focused on their own profits, will be any more far‐sighted than a few corporate managers focused on corporate profits? Will they be any better at systems thinking? … What good is it to have more free movement of information if people cannot discuss the information that is most important, but that is also the most threatening? (Sugarman, 1997).     

The Flipped Classroom: Primary and Secondary Teachers’ Views on an Educational Movement in Schools in Sweden Today

The aim of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of the flipped classroom movement. A total of 7 teachers working in school years 4–9 and who both actively flipped their classrooms and had been early adopters in this movement were interviewed. Two research questions were posed: “What characterizes flipped classroom instruction according to the teachers?” and “What objectives do the flipped classroom meet according to the teachers?” Regarding the first research question, a characteristic of a flipped classroom was “the flip,” a task to be accomplished outside the classroom before class. In relation to the second research question we found three objectives: Student activity in class; Educational change; Being part of a digital learning community.