Social class,ethnicity and educational performance

This study draws on information derived from the Census and from pupil records to explore the relationships between the backgrounds and GCSE performance of the 1998/99 GCSE cohort of pupils in an Inner London borough. It provides evidence of substantial differences between the backgrounds of pupils attending different schools and of a strong relationship between these differences and differences in the GCSE performance of schools. This is followed by discussion of the methodological implications of the use of Census data for further research.     

Individual and group performance of computerized educational tasks

This study examines the conditions under which task performance is accomplished more efficiently by a single individual or a group. 116 participants, ranging in age from high school level through holders of Master’s degrees, 58 women and the same number of men, were presented with a computer game based on educational software, arranged in five levels of difficulty. A comparison was made of the speed in which objectives were attained when performed individually and when divided among groups of two to four partners, controlling for the type of coordination required. Cases of expedient and inexpedient division of labor were identified, as were factors affecting feasibility, among them the number of simultaneous tasks to be performed, complexity level, number of participants and the intensity of coordination required among them. Basic principles, pertaining to the functional division of roles in learning activities and in educational administration, are discussed.     

Designing and evaluating an educational performance support system

This paper provides an account of the design of the Lesson Planning System (LPS), a performance support system (PSS) to support novice teacher-education students in learning and performing the complex cognitive task of lesson planning. It also reports on an initial research study to investigate the effectiveness of this software. The LPS is a hypermedia software system, predicated on task performance rather than learning, which has been developed to better understand the nature and potential role of PSSs in teacher education. The principles applied in the design and development of the LPS are relevant to the design of other PSSs across a wide range of task-based activities in the professional development of teachers.     

教育学革命:从知识教育学到行为教育学

早在19世纪和20世纪之交，以本本主义为思想特征的知识教育学就受到了来自以人本主义 为思想特征的行为教育学的严峻挑战。杜威在他的名著《学校与社会》(人民教育出版社，1 994年版)中就提出了一个惊天动地的命题：“现在我们的教育中正在发生的一种变革是重心 的转移。这是一种变革，一场革命，一场和哥白尼把天体的中心从地球转到太阳那样的革命 ”。然而，在过去的20世纪里，这场革命不过是像钟摆一样从一个极端摆到另一个极端，即 从以本本为中心的系统传授知识模式摆到以儿童的偶发兴趣为中心的问题解决行为模式。前 者以赫尔巴特(J…     

Community service,educational performance and social responsibility in Northwest China

The main goal of this paper is to analyse the effect of high school scholarships tied to community service on the development of secondary school students in Northwest China. Using data from three rounds of surveys of thousands of students in 298 classes in 75 high schools in Shaanxi province, the paper documents the implementation of the Compassionate Heart Scholars Program and evaluates the effect of the programme on the educational performance, self‐esteem, self‐efficacy and social responsibility of the participants. We present evidence that part of the protocol of the programme (which includes the nomination and election of programme participants) improves the academic performance and self‐esteem of those involved in the programme. The community service part of the programme is shown to raise the self‐efficacy and the sense of social responsibility of the programme participants. One striking result is that the test scores of the community service participants do not appear to be adversely affected, even though they spend considerable time doing community service. The findings of this study, therefore, suggest that adding extra‐curricular community service to school curricula may be a win–win–win strategy, for the students, for schools and for the local communities served.     

The educational performance of immigrant children at Czech schools

The integration of immigrant children into the education system is a process that is accompanied by serious debate, especially in advanced countries, which have large shares of immigrants and a long history of immigration. The poorer educational outcomes of foreign-born children are largely explained there through their socio-economically disadvantaged background compared to the native-born population. This article examines whether the observations for those countries also apply to the Czech Republic—a country with a relatively short immigration history and immigration flows from different source countries than those in Western Europe. Regression analyses conducted on PISA 2012 data focusing largely on the maths skills of 15-year-olds reveal that the performance of immigrant children in Czech schools roughly compares to that of their counterparts in Western Europe. While their PISA outcomes were lower than those of Czechs, this was because immigrant children have poorer conditions at home or in the classroom.     

Single-sex schooling,gender and educational performance: Evidence using PISA data

The advantages and disadvantages of single-sex schooling continue to be a source of policy and public debate. Previous empirical evidence is somewhat ambiguous, with some studies finding a positive impact of single-sex schooling on education achievement and others finding no differences across school types. The relationship between single-sex schooling on academic outcomes is typically problematic to examine, as in most countries single-sex schools are selective and the numbers attending them are relatively small. In Ireland, a high proportion of secondary school children (~1/3) attend a single-sex school. In addition, these schools are largely state-funded and non-selective but differing in composition compared to mixed-sex schools. For this reason, the Irish educational system provides an interesting setting for exploring the outcomes of single-sex schooling. In this context, this study utilises the 2018 PISA data for Ireland to examine the relationship between single-sex education and mathematics, reading and science literacy performance for boys and girls, respectively, as well as differences across gender in these outcomes. We find significant raw gaps in reading, science and mathematics scores between females in single-sex and mixed-sex schools and in mathematics scores for males across the same school types. However, after controlling for a rich set of individual, parental and school-level factors we find that, on average, there is no significant difference in performance for girls or boys who attend single-sex schools compared to their mixed-school peers in science, mathematics or reading. In terms of heterogeneous analysis, this finding is consistent across the performance distribution.     

Determinants of educational performance in India: Role of home and family

This paper addresses the impacts of family and pupil characteristics on children's academic learning in primary schools in India. The present study focuses on the children who have dropped out before completing primary schooling. The study is based on a random sample of two hundred children from twenty villages in two districts in the state of Andhra Pradesh in south India. A special test was developed and administered to measure the academic achievement of the children. Our study found that education supplies and the sanitary facilities at home have a remarkable relationship with the academic performance of children. In addition, the locale of a child's home, its distance from the source of drinking water, the child's father's work status and literacy and the level (grade) of schooling that the child has completed before dropping out, also have significant influence on child's performance. Our study also found that the child's gender, age at enrollment, reason for dropping out, and parents' income, literacy and caste do not have significant influence on performance. These findings have important public policy implications for the provision of basic sanitary facilities to all households, subsidized educational supplies, free uniforms, text-books, and mid-day meals.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel befaßt sich mit den Auswirkungen der familienbedingten und charakteristischen Merkmale von Schülern auf das formale Lernen in den Primarschulen Indiens. Die vorliegende Studie ist auf Kinder ausgerichtet, die vor Abschluß der Primarschule abgegangen sind. Sie basiert auf einer Zufallsstichprobe von 200 Kindern aus 20 Dörfern in zwei Distrikten des Bundesstaates Andhra Pradesh in Südindien. Ein besonderer Test wurde entwickelt und ausgeführt, um die schulischen Leistungen der Kinder zu ermitteln. Die Studie zeigt, daß Bildungsmaterialien und sanitäre Einrichtungen zu Hause eine bemerkenswerte Beziehung zu den Schulleistungen der Kinder haben. Darüberhinaus haben die Umgebung der Wohnung des Kindes, die Entfernung bis zur Trinkwasserstelle, die Arbeitsstellung und Alphabetisierung des Vaters und der Grad der erreichten schulischen Bildung des Kindes vor dem Schulabgang, einen wesentlichen Einfluß auf die Schulleistung des Kindes. Durch die Studie wurde ebenfalls herausgefunden, daß das Geschlecht des Kindes, sein Alter bei der Einschulung, Gründe für den Schulabbruch sowie das Einkommen der Eltern, Alphabetisierungsgrad und Kastenzugehörigkeit, keinen bedeutenden Einfluß auf die Leistung haben. Diese Ergebnisse ziehen wichtige politische Auswirkungen in der Öffentlichkeit nach sich, z.B. Vorkehrungen zu treffen für die Grundlage sanitärer Einrichtungen in allen Haushalten, subventionierte Bildungsmaterialien wie Bereitstellung kostenloser Schuluniformen, Lehrbücher und Mittagessen.

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Résumé Cet article examine les incidences des caractéristiques de la famille et des élèves sur l'apprentissage scolaire des enfants des écoles primaires en Inde. La présente étude se focalise sur les enfants qui ont abandonné l'école avant d'avoir terminé l'enseignement primaire. Elle se fonde sur un échantillon au hasard de deux cents enfants provenant de villages appartenant à deux districts situés dans l'Etat d'Andhra Pradesh au sud de l'Inde. On a mis au point et fait passer un test spécial afin d'évaluer les résultats scolaires des enfants. Notre étude a révélé que la présence de fournitures scolaires et d'installations sanitaires à la maison a une relation étroite avec le travail scolaire des enfants. En outre, la situation de la maison d'un enfant, sa distance de la source d'eau potable, le statut professionnel du père, le niveau d'alphabétisation et de scolarité que l'enfant a acquis avant d'abandonner l'école ont également une influence importante sur le comportement de l'enfant à l'école. Notre étude a, par ailleurs, montré que le sexe de l'enfant, l'âge de l'entrée à l'école, la raison de l'abandon scolaire, ainsi que le revenu, le niveau d'alphabétisation et la caste des parents n'ont pas d'influence particulière sur le travail scolaire de l'enfant. Ces résultats ont des conséquences politiques importantes pour la fourniture d'installations sanitaires essentielles à tous les ménages, de matériels éducatifs subventionnés, d'uniformes, de manuels et de repas de midi gratuits.

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Field work and empirical data collection for this study in India were supported by a Senior Research Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. I am grateful for their support. I am also thankful to my research assistants, Mr. Assefaw Bariagaber and Mr. Ahrar Ahmad for their help in research and analysis. I alone am responsible for the views expressed in this article.     

A quasi-experimental research on the educational value of performance assessment

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that performance assessment increases educational value in teachinglearning activities using a quasi-experimental research design. In this research, the three measurement criteria of educational value are suggested as ‘improvement & advancement,’ ‘sincerity & enthusiasm,’ and ‘individuality & wholeness.’ A pre-test was administered to 4 classes (156 students) in 7th grade. Classes were divided into an experimental group (2 classes, 79 students) and a control group (2 classes, 77 students), according to the pre-test results. Only the experimental group was involved in the performance assessment for 9 weeks. The results of this study show that performance assessment has a positive effect on the educational value of teaching-learning activities in schools.     

Large-scale diagnostic assessment: Mathematics performance in two educational systems

A diagnostic methodology for large-scale assessment was employed to compare performance on a national test in mathematics of representative samples of Jewish and Arab 8th graders in Israel in order to shed light on a previously identified large achievement gap between these 2 populations. The results revealed significant differences between the 2 groups in patterns of strengths and weaknesses with respect to content, process, and skill/item-type attributes, indicating different paths for remedial interventions.     

Toward extending the educational interpreter performance assessment to cued speech

The Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA) is as an important research tool for examining the quality of interpreters who use American Sign Language or a sign system in classroom settings, but it is not currently applicable to educational interpreters who use Cued Speech (CS). In order to determine the feasibility of extending the EIPA to include CS, a pilot EIPA test was developed and administered to 24 educational CS interpreters. Fifteen of the interpreters' performances were evaluated two to three times in order to assess reliability. Results show that the instrument has good construct validity and test-retest reliability. Although more interrater reliability data are needed, intrarater reliability was quite high (0.9), suggesting that the pilot test can be rated as reliably as signing versions of the EIPA. Notably, only 48% of interpreters who formally participated in pilot testing performed at a level that could be considered minimally acceptable. In light of similar performance levels previously reported for interpreters who sign (e.g., Schick, Williams, & Kupermintz, 2006), these results suggest that interpreting services for deaf and hard-of hearing students, regardless of the communication option used, are often inadequate and could seriously hinder access to the classroom environment.     

教育政策执行偏差的表现、原因及矫正措施

在当前的教育政策贯彻执行实践中存在着教育政策执行偏差现象,教育政策执行上偏差的产生有着深刻的主客观原因。剖析产生偏差的原因,并从教育政策质量、政策执行人员的素质、执行资源和监督评估机制四个方面矫正教育政策执行偏差,对于准确、全面地贯彻执行党和国家的教育政策,促进党的教育方针、政策的全面落实,具有重要的作用。     

Formal reasoning performance of higher secondary school students: Theoretical and educational implications

The study investigated the structure and development of formal thought among tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-grade students. The subjects of the study were the total numbers of students attending the science, the economic, and the other sections of two higher secondary schools. Students' performance on a standardized Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) was used as a measure of their cognitive abilities related to control of variables, proportional, probabilistic, correlational, and combinatorial reasoning. Students attending the different sections of study had significantly different TOLT performance, older students exhibited significantly better TOLT performance than younger ones, and boys performed significantly better on TOLT than girls did. The “rate” of development was, however, different for different reasoning modes and differences in school achievement between boys and girls did not tap differences in TOLT performance. Regression analysis showed that section of study, gender, grade level, and measures of school achievement contributed significantly to the prediction of TOLT performance. Factor analysis of performance on the ten TOLT items (two items from each reasoning mode) produced a two- and three-factor solution for the sample of boys and the sample of girls, respectively. The results indicate that different theoretical perspectives should be considered when evaluating cognitive development and that learning environments conducive to cognitive growth need to be designed and implemented.     

Ethnic composition of the class and educational performance in primary education in The Netherlands

This article examines the effect of the ethnic composition in the school class on school performance in primary education, using COOL 2008 data for The Netherlands. We make an important distinction between the proportion of migrant children and the diversity with regard to the different ethnic groups in a school class. Due to the strong correlation between these 2 variables, we employ a residualized score of diversity on the proportion of migrants. The diversity indicator, which indicates the level of diversity given a particular share of migrant children, is negatively related to reading comprehension in Grade 8. For other grade years, we find little support for negative effects of diversity net of the share of migrants in a class.     

Effects of achievement standards,choice, sex,and educational level on mathematical performance

The study assessed the effects of achievement standards, and choice of such standards, on mathematics performance in conditions where no tangible rewards were presented for reaching such standards. Elementary, junior high, and high school students performed a multiplication task in conditions where they chose standards, had standards imposed by an experimenter, or had no standards. Results demonstrated that high school students worked more multiplication problems when they chose standards than when identical standards were imposed by an experimenter or when no standards were present. Moreover, male students who chose standards worked more problems than did male students who had no standards; this effect was not found for female students.