Educational Research and Policy: Epistemological Considerations

This article is centrally concerned with the sort of knowledge that can and should inform educational policy—and it treats this as an epistemological question. It distinguishes this question from the more extensively explored question of what sort of knowledge in what form policy‐makers do in fact commonly take into account. The article examines the logical and rhetorical character of policy and the components of policy decisions and argues that policy demands a much wider range of information than research typically provides. Either the research task or commission has to be substantially extended or the gap will be filled by information or thinking that is not derived from research. One of the gaps between research of an empirical kind and policy is the normative gap. In the final section the article points to the inescapably normative character of educational policy. Of course the values that inform policy can be investigated empirically, but this kind of enquiry cannot tell us what we should do. There is a role for research/scholarship and more rather than less intelligent and critical argumentation in addressing these normative questions as well as the empirical questions that underpin policy.     

中学数学教师认识信念系统量表的编制与信效度检验

在理论研究的基础上构建中学数学教师认识信念系统模型.通过维度设计,项目选编、评估、编码、鉴别度分析、可读性评价等一系列过程编制和修订《中学数学教师认识信念系统量表》,并进行探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析,探讨量表内部结构.结果表明各维度与量表的整体概念一致并且具有独立的结构内涵.采用结构方程模型方法比较最初的理论模型和3个竞争模型,发现中学数学教师认识信念系统的结构与原有的理论构想五成分结构不完全一致,它是建立在该五因素模型基础之上的二阶因素模型.5个一阶因素分别是关于数学知识、数学学习、数学教学、学生和教师自身的认识信念,其上,可以概括出2个二阶因素:与数学学科教学相关的认识信念和关于师生的认识信念.     

高考综合改革方案的测量学探讨

针对已经出台的6省市高考综合改革方案,从教育测量学角度,就多次考试、赋分方法和多元评价3个方面存在的问题进行了探讨,分析了其中的难点和潜在风险,提出了解决等值难题、参考代表性样本而不是选考样本确定等级分数线、尝试跨栏式选才而不是求总分式选才等应对策略,为其他省市制定高考综合改革方案提供了一些新的视角。     

Relations among Epistemological Beliefs,Academic Achievement,and Task Performance in Secondary School Students

Students with differing profiles of epistemological beliefs—their beliefs about personal epistemology, intelligence, and learning—vary in thinking, reasoning, motivation, and use of strategies while working on academic tasks, each of which affect learning. This study examined students’ epistemological beliefs according to gender, school orientation, overall academic achievement, and performance on two differently structured academic tasks. Epistemological beliefs in fixed and quick ability to learn, simple knowledge, and certain knowledge differed significantly as a function of gender, school orientation, and levels of academic achievement. These beliefs, particularly the belief in simple knowledge, significantly predicted overall performance and reflective judgment scores on the ill‐structured task but not on the well‐structured task. Implications concerning the relations among epistemological beliefs, reflective judgment, gender, school orientation, task structure, and achievement are discussed.     

WICS: A Model for College and University Admissions

This article outlines shortcomings of currently used university admissions tests and discusses ways in which they could potentially be improved, summarizing two projects designed to enhance college and university admissions. The projects were inspired by the augmented theory of successful intelligence, according to which successful intelligence involves creative, analytical, practical, and wisdom-based skills. In the Rainbow Project, we found that, through our measures, prediction of 1st-year students’ university grade point average was substantially increased over that provided by SAT and high school grade point average; ethnic-group differences, relative to SAT, were simultaneously reduced. In the Kaleidoscope Project, we found that students admitted for the set of expanded skills performed as well as or better than did other students, without the ethnic-group differences typically obtained in such measures. Enhanced prediction of active-citizenship and leadership activities was also demonstrated through these measures.     

The Conditional and Interaction Effects of Epistemological Beliefs on the Self-Regulated Learning of College Students: Motivational Strategies

This study examines the conditional and interaction effects of each of four dimensions of the epistemological beliefs of college students regarding the ability to learn, the speed of learning, the structure of knowledge, and the stability of knowledge on six measures of the motivational components of self-regulated learning strategies (intrinsic goal orientations, extrinisic goal orientation, task value, self-efficacy, control of learning and test anxiety). Students with more sophisticated beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning were more likely than their peers to use educationally productive motivational strategies in their learning. Beliefs about one’s ability to learn and the structure of knowledge had the most significant and substantial effects on students’ use of self-regulated motivational strategies. Although a student’s belief about the stability of knowledge by itself had a statistically significant effect on only one motivational strategy, this belief did have four statistically significant interaction effects with beliefs about ability to learn and the structure of knowledge. Implications of these findings for theory, research, policy and practice are examined.     

Comprehensive Exploration of Digital Literacy: Embedded with Self-Regulation and Epistemological Beliefs

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Today, science educators accept that digital literacy has been one of the key concepts for science teachers in terms of creating meaningful science...     

Ways of Knowing and Epistemological Beliefs: Combined effect on academic performance

To obtain a more complete understanding of personal epistemology this study examines two epistemic paradigms – ways of knowing (specifically connected knowing and separate knowing) and epistemological beliefs (specifically beliefs about knowledge structure, knowledge stability, learning speed, and learning ability). Participants were 107 college students who completed questionnaires that assessed ways of knowing and epistemological beliefs. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that men score significantly higher on separate knowing. Path analyses revealed that the effects of ways of knowing on academic performance are mediated by belief in the speed of learning.     

School Admissions: Increasing Equity, Accountability and Transparency

This paper examines the impact of education reforms on school admissions policies and practices. It discusses the changes that are needed to improve the current system, especially in areas where the market is highly developed. It is concluded that the new legislation to be enacted by the current Labour Government should be beneficial, but that more far-reaching changes are needed for the admissions process to be equitable, transparent and accountable.     

美国公立大学录取政策变革:百分比计划

20世纪90年代后,随着美国一些州和高等教育机构对新生录取时实施平权法案问题争论的展开,德克萨斯州、加里福尼亚州和佛罗里达州出台并施行了百分比计划。这一录取政策为什么被提出?主要内涵是什么?产生了怎样的影响?其中蕴含哪些启示?本文先在评述"百分比计划"的背景与内容的基础上,分析了其效应和可引以为鉴的经验。     

Standardized Testing in College Admissions: Observations and Reflections

Reflecting upon the experience serving on the University of California's Standardized Testing Task Force, and drawing lessons learned, I argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has merely served to accelerate the trend of US higher education institutions moving away from current standardized tests. New educational assessments will continue to be produced. There will be strong calls for the making of completely different assessments than currently available. Educational measurement as field has much to offer and to learn.     

高校招生现存问题及对策思考——以高等体育院校为例

由于优质教育资源远远不能满足公民日益增长的教育需求,导致了高考的高利害性,社会关注度很高。高等学校招生制度尚不够完善,容易出现招生腐败现象。要逐步建立科学、公正的人才选拔评价体系,调整高校招生考试评价内容,使之与专业培养目标更加吻合,并做好中学教育与大学人才培养之间的有效衔接;同时,应建立完善的组织机构和工作机制,加强制度建设,建立有效的政府、高校、公民三位一体的监管机制。     

Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions

In the current and foreseeable harsh UK higher education environment, aspiring to best- practice financial management will be key to ensuring the prosperity – and indeed the survival – of any university. In this article I argue that good university financial management should provide stability to the institution, allow for investment as well as renewal and the exploitation of opportunity, be transparent enough to facilitate accountability and good governance, and ensure that the institution allocates resources efficiently in the context of its strategic plan. I explore in detail the issues relating to this fundamental definition of good financial management, including the role of financial management in inducing stability, short-term solvency and reserves, managing financial risk, capital expenditure and long-range planning, developing a diversified funding base, embedding good financial management in university culture, the relationship between financial planning and strategic planning, and financial accounting and control.     

Unleashing Latent Ability: Implications of Stereotype Threat for College Admissions

Social-psychological research conducted over the past 15 years provides compelling evidence that pervasive psychological threats are present in common academic environments—especially threats that originate in negative intellectual stereotypes—and that these threats undermine the real-world academic performance of non-Asian ethnic minority students and of women in math and science. As a consequence, common measures of academic performance, including both grades and test scores, systematically underestimate the intellectual ability of ethnic minority students and of women in quantitative fields (Walton & Spencer, 2009 Walton, G. M. and Spencer, S. J. 2009. Latent ability: Grades and test scores systematically underestimate the intellectual ability of negatively stereotyped students. Psychological Science,, 20,: 1132–1139. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We review evidence for these psychological threats, discuss their implications for the meaning and interpretation of common performance measures used in important admissions decisions, and address their implications for the efforts of colleges and universities to create positive academic environments that allow all students to thrive.     

College Counseling and Student Retention:

Although it is commonly believed that college counseling positively affects student retention and further, that there are convincing data and evidence to support such a belief, an extensive literature search found no objective evidence at all on the relationship of a counseling center's conventional one-to-one counseling and therapy activities with short-term student retention. Two program evaluations which attempt to relate one-to-one individual counseling and psychotherapy to student retention rates at an urban regional state university are discussed. Changes in attendance rates, such as dropping out or retuning between quarters are the criteria used to evaluate program effects for both studies. The first study searched for discernible statistically significant effects. Three-quarters of comparisons of upperclassmen found conceivable retention advantages of students receiving counseling center services over a base-rate group. Yet the freshmen results suggest that counseling may be associates with student attrition, not retention. The second study investigated the relationship between retention and possibly relevant presenting problems and demographic variables of students undergoing individual counseling. No attendance differences among counseled students were found due to age, gender, or presenting problem. Following a discussion of the results, suggentions for future research are presented. A longitudinal, quasi-experimental controlled study of the impact counseling on student retention is clearly needed.     

质性评价不适合中国高校招生

由美国顶尖私立高中组成的MTC联盟推出的高校招生新模式适合于美国国情,但也会因此拉大贫富阶层之间的教育差距。质性评价方式不适合中国国情,2014年启动的高考综合改革两依据一参考模式是目前适合中国国情的高校招生方式。高考改革的目标是在保证公平的前提下,促进学生成长,为国家选拔出德智体美全面发展的社会主义建设者和接班人。     

大学生的认识信念影响学习过程的整体模式建构:行动控制的中介作用

通过对1100名大学生的问卷调查,构建大学生的认识信念影响学习过程的整体模式,揭示行动控制的中介作用.结果表明:(1)大学生的认识信念对行动控制既存在显著的直接影响,也通过表层动机和深层动机对行动控制产生间接影响;(2)大学生的认识信念对表层策略存在显著的负向影响,对深层策略存在间接的显著的正向影响;(3)大学生的认识信念对表层学习方式有显著的负向影响,对深层学习方式有显著的正向影响,行动控制在认识信念与深层方式之间起着部分中介作用.     

Effectiveness of Case-Based Learning Instruction on Epistemological Beliefs and Attitudes Toward Chemistry

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of case-based learning instruction over traditionally designed chemistry instruction on eleventh grade students’ epistemological beliefs and their attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject. The subjects of this study consisted of 63 eleventh grade students from two intact classes of an urban high school instructed with same teacher. Each teaching method was randomly assigned to one class. The experimental group received case-based learning and the control group received traditional instruction. At the experimental group, life cases were presented with small group format; at the control group, lecturing and discussion was carried out. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control group with respect to their epistemological beliefs and attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject in favor of case-based learning method group. Thus, case base learning is helpful for development of students’ epistemological beliefs and attitudes toward chemistry.     

Searching for Components of Conceptual Ecology That Mediate Development of Epistemological Beliefs in Science

This paper articulates the importance of epistemological beliefs (EBs) and draws a parallel between EBs literature in educational psychology and nature of science (NOS) literature in science education. The paper stresses that EBs in science and NOS ideas have common ground and they can be best improved through explicit-reflective instruction informed by conceptual change theory. The paper concludes that future studies should explore the factors that mediate the development of EBs in science and NOS ideas rather than documenting the changes in students’ and teachers’ EBs in science and NOS ideas after explicit-reflective instruction through pre- and post assessments.