Does an Argument-Based Approach to Validity Make a Difference?

Drawing on experience between 2000 and 2007 in developing a validity argument for the high-stakes Test of English as a Foreign Language™ ( TOEFL ®) , this paper evaluates the differences between the argument-based approach to validity as presented by Kane (2006) and that described in the 1999 AERA/APA/NCME Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing . Based on an analysis of four points of comparison—framing the intended score interpretation, outlining the essential research, structuring research results into a validity argument, and challenging the validity argument—we conclude that an argument-based approach to validity introduces some new and useful concepts and practices .     

Examining School Psychologists' and Teachers' Application of Approaches Within a Response to Intervention Framework

Approaches consistent with a Response to Intervention (RTI) framework are becoming increasingly prominent. The present study is a preliminary investigation aimed at gaining a greater understanding of educators' knowledge of RTI and application of RTI principles. It serves as the first step toward understanding educators' preparation to implement these mandated changes. Educators (308) completed an online study to assess their knowledge of tasks inherent in RTI procedures. Respondents were asked to rate their familiarity with RTI principles. Then, respondents were asked to interpret graphical data that were consistent with RTI screening and progress monitoring approaches. Overall, results indicated that the majority of educators perceived themselves as having the knowledge to implement RTI practices. However, when asked to apply RTI-consistent principles, not all were successful. Specifically, school psychologists were better at interpreting and making decisions based on graphical data relative to general and special education teachers. There may be a disconnect between the expectations inherent in an RTI model and teachers' ability to meet these expectations. School psychologists may be positioned to support teachers in this area. The implications of these results for implementing RTI practices and developing professional development programs for general and special educators in elementary schools are discussed.     

Examining the Precision of Cut Scores Within a Generalizability Theory Framework: A Closer Look at the Item Effect

An Angoff standard setting study generally yields judgments on a number of items by a number of judges (who may or may not be nested in panels). Variability associated with judges (and possibly panels) contributes error to the resulting cut score. The variability associated with items plays a more complicated role. To the extent that the mean item judgments directly reflect empirical item difficulties, the variability in Angoff judgments over items would not add error to the cut score, but to the extent that the mean item judgments do not correspond to the empirical item difficulties, variability in mean judgments over items would add error to the cut score. In this article, we present two generalizability-theory–based analyses of the proportion of the item variance that contributes to error in the cut score. For one approach, variance components are estimated on the probability (or proportion-correct) scale of the Angoff judgments, and for the other, the judgments are transferred to the theta scale of an item response theory model before estimating the variance components. The two analyses yield somewhat different results but both indicate that it is not appropriate to simply ignore the item variance component in estimating the error variance.     

Group Development as a Framework to Understand and Promote School Readiness to Engage in an Organizational Development Project

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the relationship between successful organizational development efforts in schools and the school's level of group development. The utility of organizational development (OD) for school improvement is discussed. Research findings regarding the factors associated with successful and unsuccessful OD projects in schools are outlined. Next, the relationship between these factors and the stages of group development described in the social psychological literature is demonstrated. Finally, steps that can be taken to increase the level of group development in a school and its readiness to engage in an OD school improvement project are described.     

The Value of a Programme-wide Approach to Assessment

Reliability is important in the academic judgements that higher education institutions pass to employers, graduate schools and other stakeholders. However, there are well-known limits to the levels of reliability that can be reached at reasonable cost and without sacrificing validity. It is argued that a systemic approach to the assessment of student learning shows how resources may be freed up to invest in securing more reliable assessments where they are desirable and might reasonably be had.     

Toward a Multilevel Framework to Examine the Underrepresentation of Racial Minorities in Golf Within the United States

In the current U.S. economy, leaders in the golf business are increasingly concerned with the long-term growth potential for the game, particularly at the recreational level. Adding to that concern is the underrepresentation of Blacks and Hispanics who participate in golf at a time when the latter group is demonstrating exponential growth in the U.S. population. This article examines those and other factors that are contributing to the declining trend in golf participation by using a three-level analytic framework. Specific examples of factors at each level are discussed along with strategies for research and practice.     

Supporting Professionalism,Diversity, and Context Within a Collaborative Approach to Gifted Education

Educators concerned about gifted learners are moving toward an evidence-based perspective focusing on children with exceptionally advanced learning needs who require flexibly responsive educational attention. This article describes two system-wide implementation experiences, one in a mixed urban/rural public school board and the other in an urban board of affiliated parochial schools, designed to meet the educational needs of diversely competent students. The authors discuss the intersecting roles of consultants, teachers, administrators, and parents, and some creative applications they have implemented that illustrate a respect for (a) teachers' professionalism, (b) individual developmental diversity, and (c) context-specific opportunities and constraints. The authors discuss ways that this flexible collaborative approach to integrating consultative processes into board-wide practices addresses the diverse educational needs of gifted learners, and also encourages high-level outcomes in learners not formally identified as gifted.     

Guiding Students to Develop an Understanding of Scientific Inquiry: A Science Skills Approach to Instruction and Assessment

New approaches for teaching and assessing scientific inquiry and practices are essential for guiding students to make the informed decisions required of an increasingly complex and global society. The Science Skills approach described here guides students to develop an understanding of the experimental skills required to perform a scientific investigation. An individual teacher''s investigation of the strategies and tools she designed to promote scientific inquiry in her classroom is outlined. This teacher-driven action research in the high school biology classroom presents a simple study design that allowed for reciprocal testing of two simultaneous treatments, one that aimed to guide students to use vocabulary to identify and describe different scientific practices they were using in their investigations—for example, hypothesizing, data analysis, or use of controls—and another that focused on scientific collaboration. A knowledge integration (KI) rubric was designed to measure how students integrated their ideas about the skills and practices necessary for scientific inquiry. KI scores revealed that student understanding of scientific inquiry increased significantly after receiving instruction and using assessment tools aimed at promoting development of specific inquiry skills. General strategies for doing classroom-based action research in a straightforward and practical way are discussed, as are implications for teaching and evaluating introductory life sciences courses at the undergraduate level.     

中国工程教育发展史研究的理论进路与解释框架

以国家现代化和教育发展的关系为视角,将工程教育发展置于国家、知识、市场、社会四个基本要素的互动关系中把握其发展变迁,可有效地依据中国工程教育的历史特点展开研究.这样的研究能避免对中国工程教育史进行现象描述和大而无当的历史铺陈,有利于在更高层次上揭示历史的真实.研究目的也将锁定在制度改进和国家工程教育战略的有效规划上.     

Examining Response to Intervention Using a Framework of Best Practice from Early Childhood Special Education

I believe that the integration of people with disabilities is one of the most critical issues that the field is currently facing. It is an issue in which there is little agreement over what integration is, whether it is desirable or not, and to what degree it should occur as a policy and on an individual level. My co-authors and I strongly support the integration of people with disabilities into all aspects of society and that empirically based intervention strategies are needed to ensure that quality programming is provided for successful integration. Starting inte- gration in early childhood settings is an important point to begin efforts because children become used to having peers of differing abilities and are then more likely to be accepting of others as they get older if they receive this exposure at an early age. I highlight two important points of our article.     

提升员工自身价值,实现企业发展目标

改革开放30多年来,我国企业迅速发展壮大,在此发展进程中,我们也面临着企业实现规模经济做大做强的诸多问题,尤其是企业员工的发展对企业的重要意义。本文通过对企业竞争的首要要素——企业员工的分析,阐述了提升员工自身价值,设定合理的员工自身发展目标,培养员工的强者气质,通过努力提升员工个人素质,最终达成企业目标和员工目标的双赢。     

小学阶段实施EPD教育的实践价值及其途径探析

EPD教育以培养具有主体精神与实践能力以及可持续发展与相应能力的公民为目的的教育,成为我国全面实施素质教育,推进课堂教学模式创新的一大亮点。甘肃成县街小学在EPD教育项目的实践中形成了一些行之有效的途径和方法：开设以EPD教育为主要教育内容的校本课程,在学科教学中渗透EPD教育内容,在“主体探究”性教学模式中获取EPD知识和能力,在“合作体验”型教育活动模式中体现EPD教育的内涵。     

An Examination of the Replicability of Angoff Standard Setting Results Within a Generalizability Theory Framework

Evidence of stable standard setting results over panels or occasions is an important part of the validity argument for an established cut score. Unfortunately, due to the high cost of convening multiple panels of content experts, standards often are based on the recommendation from a single panel of judges. This approach implicitly assumes that the variability across panels will be modest, but little evidence is available to support this assertion. This article examines the stability of Angoff standard setting results across panels. Data were collected for six independent standard setting exercises, with three panels participating in each exercise. The results show that although in some cases the panel effect is negligible, for four of the six data sets the panel facet represented a large portion of the overall error variance. Ignoring the often hidden panel/occasion facet can result in artificially optimistic estimates of the cut score stability. Results based on a single panel should not be viewed as a reasonable estimate of the results that would be found over multiple panels. Instead, the variability seen in a single panel can best be viewed as a lower bound of the expected variability when the exercise is replicated.     

提升唐山市居民心理和谐对策与路径研究

心理和谐是社会和谐的前提和基础,已成为构建和谐社会的重要组成部分。唐山作为科学发展示范区建设的先行者,经济社会发展取得巨大成就,但也面临着许多挑战。通过分析唐山市居民心理和谐程度,揭示唐山市居民心理和谐影响因素,提出提升唐山市实情的民众心理和谐建构的方法和途径,对于唐山市经济社会的和谐发展将产生积极且具有建设性的影响。     

市场价值与资本主义再生产中的不确定性——评斯第德曼对劳动价值论的诘难

本文介绍了斯第德曼在斯拉法理论的基础上对劳动价值论提出的诘难。我们认为 ,生产的标准技术条件与市场价值之间的关系 ,并不像斯第德曼所理解的那样具有单向的、决定论的性质 ,生产的标准技术条件只能在理论上通过价值概念来把握。为此本文回顾了马克思的两种市场价值理论及其相关争论 ,并提出 ,劳动价值论在马克思的经济学中是被用来揭示资本主义再生产的目的和手段、条件和结果之间的不确定的联系。     

Anchoring the Creative Process Within a Self-Regulated Learning Framework: Inspiring Assessment Methods and Future Research

Creativity supports the advancement of all disciplines, providing both individual and societal benefits. Most individuals can demonstrate and improve their creativity; therefore, understanding the creative process is of particular interest to facilitate deliberate development of creative thinkers. Despite copious research of the creative process, the work tends to be fragmented without a unified, general theoretical foundation. Historically, creative process research has examined the steps that creative people use, while overlooking how people learn these steps and the mechanisms behind the process. This paper proposes to situate the creative process within broader theoretical framework of self-regulated learning (SRL). This merger emphasizes that the creative process can be learned and that creative process strategies may inspire general learning strategies. Further, the SRL framework provides an organizational structure that illuminates gaps in current research and provides inspiration for new measurement techniques. Current assessment methods are often unable to determine how people regulate themselves throughout the creative process, specifically how internal psychological processes, external behaviors, and explicit strategies influence the creative process; however, SRL measurement techniques, like SRL microanalysis interviews, may provide an opportunity to identify intervention casual mechanisms, extend experimental studies, provide consistent variables to compare across disciplines and studies, and help practitioners assess students’ creative process.