Investigating the Effect of Different Selected-response Item Formats for Reading Comprehension

While previous research has identified numerous factors that contribute to item difficulty, studies involving large-scale reading tests have provided mixed results. This study examined five selected-response item types used to measure reading comprehension in the Pearson Test of English Academic: a) multiple-choice (choose one answer), b) multiple-choice (choose multiple answers), c) re-order paragraphs, d) reading (fill-in-the-blanks), and e) reading and writing (fill-in-the-blanks). Utilizing a multiple regression approach, the criterion measure consisted of item difficulty scores for 172 items. 18 passage, passage-question, and response-format variables served as predictors. Overall, four significant predictors were identified for the entire group (i.e., sentence length, falsifiable distractors, number of correct options, and abstractness of information requested) and five variables were found to be significant for high-performing readers (including the four listed above and passage coherence); only the number of falsifiable distractors was a significant predictor for low-performing readers. Implications for assessing reading comprehension are discussed.     

Who benefits from dyadic teacher–student interactions in whole-class settings?

To what extent can teacher–student dyadic interactions modify the hierarchy of student performances within a single class? To answer this insufficiently researched question, the authors conducted two parallel studies involving 33 Grade 5 classes in France (759 students) and 15 Grade 5 classes in Luxembourg (243 students). Interactions were observed during whole-class lessons. Posttest scores were analyzed using multilevel models controlling for five level-1 variables and two level-2 variables. The authors did not find any effect of dyadic interactions on relative student performance in mathematics or in language (French or German), in France or in Luxembourg. This result is interpreted in terms of both the public character of dyadic interactions in whole-class settings and the class management functions of these interactions.     

任意变量逻辑函数的卡诺图化简探索

逻辑函数化简中,卡诺图化简以其简便、准确的特点而常被大家青睐,但多被用于五变量以内的函数。这里介绍一种对于任意变量逻辑函数的卡诺图表示及化简方案。     

Enhancing resilience in youth through a 10-day developmental voyage

The present study sought to examine the potential for resilience to be enhanced in a group of youth participating in a developmental voyage, and to identify the factors that contribute to increased resilience following the voyage. Two studies are reported. Study 1 revealed that voyage participants experienced increased resilience over the course of the voyage. Study 2 sought to replicate and extend these findings by assessing the extent to which increased resilience was maintained five months following the voyage and was associated with other psychosocial variables (i.e. self-esteem, social effectiveness, self-efficacy, belonging, social support and perceived weather). The findings revealed that increased resilience was maintained five months following the voyage. A regression revealed that the predictors explained 37% of the variance in increased resilience. Increased social effectiveness, self-efficacy and less positive perceptions of the weather were the only variables to make unique contributions.     

Methodological quandaries in studying process and outcomes in peer assessment

Peer assessment is very various in its implementation. Six studies of peer assessment are reviewed, four of them in higher education. A literature review is followed by five empirical studies. Strengths and weaknesses of each study are considered and issues are raised. Variables in peer assessment needing further exploration are extricated – in sample definition, specification of type of peer assessment, organisational nature of the intervention, and the measures which are used to evaluate change. It is suggested that further experimental and quasi-experimental studies are necessary to contrast one or two of these variables at a time.     

《孙子兵法》“九变”考

《孙子兵法》中《九变》篇争论很多,"九变"的具体内容历来众说纷纭,文章介绍了关于"九变"的主要观点,提出了"九变"实为"五变"的新思路,并从文献记载、篇旨内容、篇章结构、银雀山汉简等多方面进行了论证,旨在为理清文章内容与脉络提供一条新思路。     

From substitution to redefinition: A framework of machine learning-based science assessment

This study develops a framework to conceptualize the use and evolution of machine learning (ML) in science assessment. We systematically reviewed 47 studies that applied ML in science assessment and classified them into five categories: (a) constructed response, (b) essay, (c) simulation, (d) educational game, and (e) inter-discipline. We compared the ML-based and conventional science assessments and extracted 12 critical characteristics to map three variables in a three-dimensional framework: construct, functionality, and automaticity. The 12 characteristics used to construct a profile for ML-based science assessments for each article were further analyzed by a two-step cluster analysis. The clusters identified for each variable were summarized into four levels to illustrate the evolution of each. We further conducted cluster analysis to identify four classes of assessment across the three variables. Based on the analysis, we conclude that ML has transformed—but not yet redefined—conventional science assessment practice in terms of fundamental purpose, the nature of the science assessment, and the relevant assessment challenges. Along with the three-dimensional framework, we propose five anticipated trends for incorporating ML in science assessment practice for future studies: addressing developmental cognition, changing the process of educational decision making, personalized science learning, borrowing 'good' to advance 'good', and integrating knowledge from other disciplines into science assessment.     

Contributions of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction to Knowledge About Interventions for Motivations in Reading

We present a theoretical and empirical explication of the intervention of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) that is designed to increase students' reading comprehension and motivation for reading. The framework specifies a set of five motivational constructs that represent goals for the instructional intervention. Necessary cognitive goals in reading are also presented. For this intervention, the five instructional practices of relevance, choice, success, collaboration, and thematic unit that are prominent in CORI are portrayed as components that are aligned with motivational constructs. The impact of CORI on some of the motivational processes, cognitive competencies, and reading comprehension are presented in the form of a meta-analysis of 11 CORI studies with 75 effect sizes on 20 outcome variables. The CORI motivational intervention is compared to laboratory treatments and other field studies.     

How Early Maternal Language Input Varies by Race and Education and Predicts Later Child Language

The maternal language input literature suggests that mothers with more education use a greater quantity and complexity of language with their young children compared to mothers with less education although race and socioeconomic status have been confounded in most studies because of small sample sizes. The current Family Life study included a representative sample of 1,292 children, oversampling for poverty and African American, followed from birth. This study found no race differences within maternal education levels on five measures of maternal language input from 6 to 36 months. Maternal language input variables of number of different words, mean length of utterance and number of wh-questions were partial mediators of the relationship between maternal education and later child language at school age.     

Accuracy of Correlation Coefficient with Limited Number of Points

This study was designed to determine the minimum number of points required for continuous scaled variables before the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (PPMCC) ceases to be an accurate estimate of their original correlation coefficient. The study was performed on samples from normal, exponential, and uniform distributions by using Monte Carlo techniques. After the PPMCC was determined for each sample, multiple grouping procedures were applied and the PPMCCs were recalculated to determine the effect of scaling on the correlation coefficient. The results showed that the PPMCC obtained by using transformed discrete ordinal-level variables tended to underestimate the true parameter. The minimum number required for precise PPMCC is five and the use of PPMCC with five or more points is recommended.     

Life roles of Canadian teachers: The importance of work

The salience of five life roles for 171 Canadian teachers was investigated by administering the Life Roles Inventory and having the teachers keep a Daily Log for one week to indicate the time spent in each life role. Multivariate analysis was used to determine if the independent variables of sex, age, marital status, parental status would make a significant difference in the lifestyle profile of the teachers. The results were compared against two other major Canadian studies utilizing the Life Roles Inventory. Canadian teachers appear to have two significant life roles: work and home and family. Work is ranked first in terms of the temporal dimension whereas home and family is more significant in terms of the teachers' emotional involvement. This profile of salient life roles was consistent across all three Canadian studies for both males and females. Few significant differences were found in the lifestyle profiles of teachers categorized according to personal characteristics. Implications for career counselling using a life roles model are discussed.     

Making judgments as the basis for workplace learning: towards an epistemology of practice

Workplace learning has emerged as a significant site of adults' informal experiential learning, with implications for the provision and shape of formal education. There are, however, a prohibitive number of variables encumbering research into such learning. We can bypass the variables by focusing on phenomenal accounts of how professionals (in this instance) make judgements at work, underpinned by an organic logic derivable from Dewey. This article shows how to characterize a new epistemology of practice through both empirical and conceptual innovation, and thus advances the detail of this new informal workplace learning. This epistemology deals in five characteristics central to lifelong learning anyway, namely: the contingent (rather than exclusively formal, sustained, and systematic studies); the practical (rather than exclusively the theoretical); the process (rather than exclusively the assimilation of content); the particular (rather than the exclusively universal and a priori as the ‘context’); and the affective and the social domains (rather than exclusively the cognitive domain). Our fieldwork so far shows, through interview findings, how these are prominent in professional workplace judgments, and what prospects there are for further research on judgment as a site of ‘organic’ learning for adults.     

关于Pro/E环境变量设置的探讨

在运用Pro/E设计软件将三维模型转换为工程图时,正确设置系统环境变量和工程图环境变量,可以快速绘制出符合我国国家标准的工程图。运用举例方法探讨Pro/E中由三维模型转化工程图时有关变量的具体设置,并使设置的变量在启动Pro/E的同时生效,从而提高绘制工程图的效率。     

Emotions are the experiential glue of learning environments in the 21st century

This article comments on the five papers published in this special issue on understanding and measuring emotions in technology-rich learning environments. The articles identify a number of emotions that frequently occur in digital learning environments across different tasks, goals, populations, and subject matters. The Control Value Theory of achievement emotions unifies the research reported in the articles, whereas social emotions surface in contexts where there are significant social interactions, such as group learning or the training of medical students. The emotions that were detected and tracked in the reported studies rely on self-reports of learners and judges who observe them. This commentary identifies a number of limitations of the studies that will hopefully stimulate future research. Researchers are encouraged to collect (1) larger sample sizes, (2) longer interventions with learning technologies, (3) physiological, multimodal, and behavioral signatures of emotions to complement the subjective judgments, (4) more precise timing and transitions between emotions to uncover emotion dynamics, (5) assessments of nonlinear relations between variables, and (6) interventions designed to regulate and productively respond to learner emotions.     

Determinants of Grade 8 Achievement in Jordan: a multilevel analysis approach

Although a large body of research exists on students achievement and school effectiveness, recent studies have pointed to major methodological drawbacks associated with research in this field. In the present study, an attempt was made to overcome some of these drawbacks by utilising a hierarchical linear modelling strategy. Applying this procedure on four data sets of 2918 Grade 8 students, 2918 parents, 344 teachers and 152 school principals simultaneously, the findings revealed that the variation in achievement within schools is more than five times as high as the variation between schools (84% compared to 16%). That is, school‐level variables are far less important in affecting academic achievement than student‐level variables. Students background variables included in the model (gender, father education, mother education, home possessions and number of siblings) accounted for 12% of the total variability in students’ achievement.     

建设项目组织文化对组织集成影响的研究

文中运用实证研究的方法探讨组织文化对组织集成的影响关系.使用社会学统计软件SPSS11.50进行探索性因子分析确定项目组织文化的维度,由此建立组织文化结构模型,运用结构分析软件AMOS18.0对潜在变量之间的关系进行路径分析和修正,验证了自变量、中介变量、因变量之间的影响关系.     

A visit with John Bright

This investigation assessed the relationship of the independent variables of perceived homophily to the dependent variables of: (1) level of uncertainty, (2) feeling good, and (3) safety. Also, the relationship of uncertainty level, feeling good, and safety was assessed to the dependent variables of self‐disclosure.

Results indicated that perceived attitude‐value homophily has moderately high independent predictive power concerning level of uncertainty, feeling good, and safety. Perceived background homophily and perceived appearance homophily have little or no independent predictive power to those dependent variables. Also, the independent predictive power of uncertainty level, feeling good, and safety was low for self‐disclosure variables. Feeling good was the single best predictor of self‐disclosive communication, accounting for five percent of the variance in a self‐disclosure variable.     

Child-related cognitions and affective functioning of physically abusive and comparison parents

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this research was to utilize the cognitive behavioral model of abusive parenting to select and examine risk factors to illuminate the unique and combined influences of social cognitive and affective variables in predicting abuse group membership. METHODOLOGY: Participants included physically abusive parents (n=56) and a closely-matched group of comparison parents (n=62). Social cognitive risk variables measured were (a) parent's expectations for children's abilities and maturity, (b) parental attributions of intentionality of child misbehavior, and (c) parents' perceptions of their children's adjustment. Affective risk variables included (a) psychopathology and (b) parenting stress. A series of logistic regression models were constructed to test the individual, combined, and interactive effects of risk variables on abuse group membership. RESULTS: The full set of five risk variables was predictive of abuse status; however, not all variables were predictive when considered individually and interactions did not contribute significantly to prediction. A risk composite score computed for each parent based on the five risk variables significantly predicted abuse status. Wide individual differences in risk across the five variables were apparent within the sample of abusive parents. CONCLUSIONS: Findings were generally consistent with a cognitive behavioral model of abuse, with cognitive variables being more salient in predicting abuse status than affective factors. Results point to the importance of considering diversity in characteristics of abusive parents.