EDUCATIONAL DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT

A strong demand currently exists for testing instruments that are capable of providing more informative and diagnostic results than typical tests offer. This paper reviews approaches that have been proposed for educational diagnostic assessment. Two major approaches are identified: (a) deficit assessment, which focuses on weaknesses of the student, and (b) error analysis, which focuses on the kinds of errors the student commits. This paper also reviews recent work related to diagnostic assessment that is based on the integration of methods from cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. It is concluded that the development of powerful diagnostic instruments may require a reexamination of existing psychometric models and possibly the development of alternative ones. It is also pointed out that the traditional approach to the specification of content in terms of static taxonomies may not be appropriate given the dynamic and sequential nature of diagnostic assessment. Finally, it is noted that the psychometric and content demands of diagnostic assessment all but require test admininstration by computer.     

THE USE OF LEARNING PROFILES IN ASSESSMENT AND IN THE EVALUATION OF TEACHING

This paper reports how individual students respond to a nine‐week course in plant anatomy using two teaching techniques: self‐instruction and group interaction.

Students vary widely in their responses to teaching by these techniques. Over the four years of the study (1975–78) four major patterns of response have emerged. These are described as learning profiles. The profiles are composed from curves depicting the attainment of individual students, measured in seven weekly assessment tests given during group sessions. The assessment tests measured performance in four capacities, based on Bloom's criteria, viz. recall of knowledge, comprehension, application and short‐chain problem solving. Learning curves for each of these four capacities were obtained for each individual student. Other variables, e.g. general ability, age, sex, anxiety, motivation, time spent etc. were also determined for each student.

The purpose of the course is to train students to solve problems in plant anatomy. Although strategies for solving long‐chain problems were not practised in groups, the component skills used in their solution were practised in the weekly test items.

From the profile types — i.e. the patterns of individual response to the teaching ‐ it was possible to make some prediction about performance in the final examination, although this examination was predominantly one to test capacity to solve long‐chain, multi‐step problems.     

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CONTENT OF MEDICAL PRACTICE IN THE UNITED STATES: PROFILES OF PHYSICIANS IN FIVE SPECIALITIES

The University of Southern California has conducted a series of 24 surveys of the professional activities of physicians and surgeons in the United States. The surveys encompass more than 10,000 respondents representing 65.8% of all practising physicians in the United States and its territories. Using a specially‐developed “log‐diary” recording instrument, these physicians reported data on the care they provided during hundreds of thousands of encounters with their patients. This article provides an exposition of the study's unique methodology, presents illustratative data for 5 of the 24 specialities surveyed (cardiology, family practice, general internal medicine, orthopaedic surgery and psychiatry), and discusses the study's relevance and implications for medical education.     

PREDICTING EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL‐BEING IN ADOLESCENTS USING TIME ATTITUDE PROFILES

Using cluster analysis of Adolescent Time Attitude Scale (ATAS) scores in a sample of 300 adolescents (M age = 16 years; SD = 1.25; 60% male; 41% European American; 25.3% Asian American; 11% African American; 10.3% Latino), the authors identified five time attitude profiles based on positive and negative attitudes toward the past, present, and future. Four of the profiles identified in the present study were conceptually similar to profiles that emerged in a study in a German sample. Adolescents with profiles characterized by higher positive attitudes than negative attitudes (i.e., Positive, Optimistic, and Balanced) reported more favorable educational and psychological outcomes than did adolescents with profiles marked by higher negative attitudes (i.e., Negative and Pessimistic). These findings provide support for the generalizability of time attitude profiles and the pattern of relationships between ATAS profiles and other constructs.     

MODERN CITIZENSHIP AND MASS HIGHER EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS IN THE UNITED STATES

The following essay is an answer to the question of how the problem of defining American ‘nationality’ or citizenship has affected schooling and education since colonial times. Three traditions of American citizenship are identified: the ‘Atlantic’ inheritance of civic humanism which emphasizes public duties and responsibilities; the history of pluralism in the United States, which emphasizes the opposite, that is to say, group differences; and liberalism, which stresses individual rights, privileges, freedoms and merits. These three traditions of citizenship have produced innumerable dilemmas and conflicts in the provision for public education and are currently unreconciled, especially because of the politics of ethnicity and gender which characterize ‘fin de siècle’ America. One lesson is the difficulty educational systems have in maintaining ideals and goals separate from the wider political culture of which they are part.     

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF INTERNATIONAL CO‐OPERATION BETWEEN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND SYSTEMS

Gerard W. Earls is Principal Lecturer at the Middlesex Polytechnic in the United Kingdom. We give below an article written by him for “Higher Education in Europe” dealing with the problems of international co‐operation in higher education.     

论新形势下教育学院的教材改革

教材是教学活动的基本依据 ,是教育改革成果的集中体现。本文主要阐述了我国新形势下教育学院所面临的问题以及如何进行教材改革 ,提出优选教材 ,基本教材与补充教材相结合 ,文字教材与软件教材相结合的教材改革思路。     

LEARNING POTENTIAL ASSESSMENT AND ADAPTATION TO THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT: THE USEFULNESS OF THE ACFS FOR ASSESSING IMMIGRANT PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

The objective of this study was to test the usefulness of dynamic assessment for determining cognitive abilities such as classification, auditory and visual memory, pattern sequences, perspective taking, verbal planning, learning potential, and metacognition in immigrant preschool children with and without competence in the dominant language (Spanish). One hundred seventy‐six preschool‐children were distributed in three groups according to the cultural background of their parents (native Spanish/Spanish‐speaking immigrants/non‐Spanish speaking immigrants). The children were assessed by means of the K‐BIT, the Application of Cognitive Functions Scale (ACFS), and metacognition, language competence and academic performance estimates. The results show that although there are initial differences in execution between the two groups (Spanish/immigrants), there are no differences with regard to learning potential. The study also demonstrates the importance of behavioral, attitudinal, and metacognitive variables in children's test execution and academic performance.     

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT

Because school learning entails not just accretion of knowledge but the structuring and restructuring of knowledge and cognitive skills, the conception and construction of educational achievement measures must be cast in developmental terms. And because student characteristics as well as social and educational experiences influence current performance, the interpretation and implications of educational achievement measures must be relative to intrapersonal and situational contexts. These points imply a strategy of comprehensive assessment in context that focuses on the processes and structures involved in subject-matter competence as moderated in performance by personal and environmental influences. This article addresses in detail both the nature of developing competence and its measurement in terms of context-dependent task performance. Construct-irrelevant task difficulty that might jeopardize the meaning of test scores as well as construct-irrelevant influences that might jeopardize implications for action are taken into account via the comprehensive measurement of relevant contextual factors. Comprehensive assessment in context thus facilitates valid interpretations of the meaning and implications of ability and achievement scores in particular instances, thereby lightening the interpretive and ethical burdens on test users and enhancing the validity of test use.