Easier Said Than Done: Rejoinder on Sijtsma and on Green and Yang

The main points of Sijtsma and Green and Yang in Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice (34, 4) are that reliability, internal consistency, and unidimensionality are distinct and that Cronbach's alpha may be problematic. Neither of these assertions are at odds with Davenport, Davison, Liou, and Love in the same issue. However, many authors in the testing community mention these terms not only together, but sometimes as if they are synonymous. Moreover, Cronbach's coefficient alpha is very popular as an index of reliability. Thus, articles discussing alpha are not only appropriate, but necessary. Our concerns are the same as formed the genesis of prior (2009) articles by these same authors, Sijtsma and Green and Yang. This rejoinder also makes comments about item parcels when tests are multidimensional and about factor analytic approaches to assessing reliability.     

Moving Toward a Comprehensive Assessment System: A Framework for Considering Interim Assessments

Local assessment systems are being marketed as formative, benchmark, predictive, and a host of other terms. Many so-called formative assessments are not at all similar to the types of assessments and strategies studied by   Black and Wiliam (1998)   but instead are interim assessments. In this article, we clarify the definition and uses of interim assessments and argue that they can be an important piece of a comprehensive assessment system that includes formative, interim, and summative assessments. Interim assessments are given on a larger scale than formative assessments, have less flexibility, and are aggregated to the school or district level to help inform policy. Interim assessments are driven by their purpose, which fall into the categories of instructional, evaluative, or predictive. Our intent is to provide a specific definition for these "interim assessments" and to develop a framework that district and state leaders can use to evaluate these systems for purchase or development. The discussion lays out some concerns with the current state of these assessments as well as hopes for future directions and suggestions for further research.     

They Said It Couldn't Be Done: Implementing a Career Academy Program for a Diverse High School Population

The literature on teacher turnover has traditionally focused on teachers whose destinations are external to the school (be it another school, district or state, or profession). In this article I examine internal turnover that takes place among teachers who remain at their school but change their subject assignments. I analyze the levels, causes, and impacts on school reform of internal turnover within the science faculties at three urban middle schools during 4 years of a whole-school reform program. Major findings include the following: (a) Internal turnover levels are high, higher than external turnover; (b) subject assignments made without regard to both teachers' subject interests and stability of assignments appear to be the primary causes of internal turnover; (c) district policies allowing elementary-certified teachers to teach any subject foster internal turnover; and (d) internal turnover has serious detrimental impacts on school reform. I identify district and school-level policy options to reduce the level of internal turnover to support reform.     

An Approach for Evaluating the Technical Quality of Interim Assessments

Increasing numbers of schools and districts have expressed interest in interim assessment systems to prepare for summative assessments and to improve teaching and learning. However, with so many commercial interim assessments available, schools and districts are struggling to determine which interim assessment is most appropriate to their needs. Unfortunately, there is little research-based guidance to help schools and districts to make the right choice about how to spend their money. Because we realize the urgency of developing criteria that can describe or evaluate the quality of interim assessments, this article presents the results of an initial attempt to create an instrument that school and district educators could use to evaluate the quality and usefulness of the interim assessment. The instrument is designed for use by state and district leaders to help them select an appropriate interim assessment system for their needs, but it could also be used by test vendors looking to evaluate and improve their own systems and by researchers engaged in studies of interim assessment use.     

Some of the Reasons Why Preparing for Exams Is So Hard: What Can Be Done to Make It Easier?

Why it is so difficult to prepare for academic exams is reviewed with respect to recent research. Textbooks, teaching, and information processing characteristics of students all contribute to undermining effective learning and review. Recommendations are made about how instructors can make it easier for students to review and appraise their test readiness, as well as about how students can make a difference in the quality of their own preparations for tests.     

A Strategy for Evaluating District Developed Assessments for State Accountability

As part of Nebraska's assessment and accountability system, districts' local assessment systems are evaluated for their psychometric quality. This article provides an overview of a two-stage evaluation strategy, discusses how it was applied in Nebraska, and presents results from the first three years of the evaluation process. Benefits of the method include an emphasis on formative evaluation and promotion of improved assessment quality at the local level. A limitation of the model is the inability to make refined comparisons of student performance across districts on the assessments. Results from the first three years suggest that greater specificity in the review criteria and additional reviewer calibration activities are needed.     

作为侨易个体的萨义德及其理论形成

如果把萨义德作为侨易个体进行研究,其理论建构则可以视作精神质变现象,“东方主义”与“理论旅行”就是其中的“主概念”和“辅概念”。运用观侨取象与察变寻异的方法可以发现萨义德的理论建构与其本人的侨易经验密切相关,侨易条件的语境因素以及重要的侨易事件也起到推波助澜的作用。以萨义德VS·亨廷顿为例,追问其背后“文明冲突”、“权力话语”的问题症结所在,凸显“观念侨易”的思路,进而消解主体,显示二元三维的整体结构观。     

Developing Embedded Signature Assessments for Continuous Improvement in Teacher Education

The development and use of assessment systems to measure the performance and progress of teacher candidates and inform the continuous improvement of teacher education programs has been a longstanding priority in teacher education for the past 30 years. Teacher educators in the School of Education at a small public midwestern university revised and improved their assessment system by developing seven Embedded Signature Assessments (ESAs). ESAs are formative performance assessments that are implemented in professional education courses to measure a teacher candidate’s performance prior to student teaching and readiness for student teaching. This article describes the development and implementation of ESAs at one university, with attention to the benefits and challenges.     

Toward a Framework for Using Student Mathematical Representations as Formative Assessments

This article explores how students' mathematical representations can be used as formative assessments. We introduce a framework for teaching and learning that integrates representations as instructional and assessment tools, and illustrate these uses of student representations with reference to a study conducted with 250 5th-grade students. This study focused on students' ability to recognize and use a variety of representations of the fraction concept. Finally, we discuss the implications of the framework for teacher knowledge and classroom practice.     

Instructional Sensitivity as a Psychometric Property of Assessments

Standards-based reform, as codified by the No Child Left Behind Act, relies on the ability of assessments to accurately reflect the learning that takes place in U.S. classrooms. However, this property of assessments—their instructional sensitivity—is rarely, if ever, investigated by test developers, states, or researchers. In this paper, the literature on the psychometric property of instructional sensitivity is reviewed. Three categories of instructional sensitivity measures are identified—those relying on item or test scores only, those relying on item or test scores and teacher reports of instruction, and strictly judgmental methods. Each method identified in the literature is discussed alongside the evidence for its utility. Finally, recommendations are made as to the proper role of instructional sensitivity in the evaluation of assessments used under standards-based reform.     

Public educators as interpretive critics: Edward Said and Raymond Williams

The work of Edward Said and Raymond Williams exemplifies an important aspect of the role of the public intellectual as educator. This paper concentrates on the significance of their work as public educators and on the tradition of interpretive criticism as they developed it within the field of literary and cultural theory. The argument builds from the assumptions that (1) the work of these two very different critics provides important methodological insights regarding the nature of interpretation; (2) these insights have general application across the human and social sciences; and (3) their application is integral to the role of the public intellectual as educator. Central to the argument is that the prime responsibility of the public educator is not to mark out her or his own value position, but to ensure that there are the necessary civic spaces for others to do so – and, crucially, that these spaces are kept open. Holding open the civic spaces is the duty and moral responsibility of the public educator as interpretive critic.     

论和平发展道路与教育发展战略

和平发展是21世纪中华民族伟大复兴的大战略。为了实现和平发展,需要积极调整教育战略。近年来,体系重建论在教育界相当流行,它以去现代化、反现代化为特征,主张推倒重建教育体系,这是一种难以适应和平发展新需要的不合时宜的教育战略。发展提高论主张积极适应和平发展的新形势,改进、完善和壮大中国现代教育体系,这是新时期应自觉坚持的教育战略。其中,发展完善中国现代教育体系的关键是:抓住国家和平发展所创造的重大机遇,尝试探索建设适应和平发展战略需求的大国教育体系。     

Educational Transfer as a Strategy for Remaking Subjectivities

The purpose of this article is twofold. At a narrative level, it seeks to expand the thematic coverage of recent scholarship on educational transfer to include the mobility of a specific paradigm of history teaching across borders in Europe. At a theoretical level, the article focuses on the borders of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and explores ways in which what defines and demarcates such borders shapes the transfer of knowledge.     

Designing Reading Comprehension Assessments for Reading Interventions: How a Theoretically Motivated Assessment Can Serve as an Outcome Measure

When designing a reading intervention, researchers and educators face a number of challenges related to the focus, intensity, and duration of the intervention. In this paper, we argue there is another fundamental challenge—the nature of the reading outcome measures used to evaluate the intervention. Many interventions fail to demonstrate significant improvements on standardized measures of reading comprehension. Although there are a number of reasons to explain this phenomenon, an important one to consider is misalignment between the nature of the outcome assessment and the targets of the intervention. In this study, we present data on three theoretically driven summative reading assessments that were developed in consultation with a research and evaluation team conducting an intervention study. The reading intervention, Reading Apprenticeship, involved instructing teachers to use disciplinary strategies in three domains: literature, history, and science. Factor analyses and other psychometric analyses on data from over 12,000 high school students revealed the assessments had adequate reliability, moderate correlations with state reading test scores and measures of background knowledge, a large general reading factor, and some preliminary evidence for separate, smaller factors specific to each form. In this paper, we describe the empirical work that motivated the assessments, the aims of the intervention, and the process used to develop the new assessments. Implications for intervention and assessment are discussed.     

《通鉴》“臣光曰”的内涵和忧思

《资治通鉴》之所以博得古今称赞,关键在于其能于浩如烟海的史事中择取有关国家兴衰、生吵民休戚之事,以古鉴今,垂训将来.其中一百一十九篇“臣光曰”,作为全书的重要组成部分,使全书的历史叙事提升到理性认识.它的丰富的内涵与深刻的忧思,成为后世理解全书、认识历史的关键.     

《通鉴》"臣光曰"的内涵和忧思

<资治通鉴>之所以博得古今称赞,关键在于其能于浩如烟海的史事中择取有关国家兴衰、生吵民休戚之事,以古鉴今,垂训将来.其中一百一十九篇"臣光曰",作为全书的重要组成部分,使全书的历史叙事提升到理性认识.它的丰富的内涵与深刻的忧思,成为后世理解全书、认识历史的关键.     

环境艺术设计专业基础课程分析

艺术设计大概念的提出因其显著的“当下性”强烈地表现出现实的要求与历史的藕断丝连,它既满足了“工艺美术”的虚荣心,又给足了“现代主义设计”的面子。