Policies of global English tests: test-takers’ perspectives on the IELTS retake policy

Globalized English proficiency tests such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) are increasingly playing the role of gatekeepers in a globalizing world. Although the use of the IELTS as a ‘policy tool’ for making decisions in the areas of study, work and migration impacts on test-takers' lives and life chances, not much is known about its own policy and policy logic. With the growing call for listening to test-takers' voices, specific policy aspects of the test have recently been scrutinized. This article seeks to contribute to this area by drawing on test-takers' perspectives on the IELTS retake policy and developing an understanding of how policies of global English tests are perceived, interpreted and given new meanings by its key stakeholders. Although the truth-value of the emic views of test-takers may be debated, their experiences and perceptions problematize the reliability claims of the testing agency by locating commercial motives at the center of their policy and thereby raising theoretical, professional and ethical questions.     

Some recent Unesco publications

Notes and Reviews

Some recent Unesco publications     

The spread of private tutoring in English in developing societies: exploring students’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

Although research on private tutoring has gained visibility in recent years, private tutoring in English (PT-E) has not received notable attention. This paper examines students’ perceptions of PT-E in Bangladesh in terms of its necessity and helpfulness, peer pressure in PT-E participation and ethicality of PT-E practice and government intervention. Our analysis of survey data (N?=?572) leads to characterising PT-E and explaining the reasons for its popularity. As a popular learning space beyond formal schooling, PT-E is available in various forms and quality catering to the purchasing power of different social groups. We argue that students may resort to PT-E not because of its proven effectiveness but because of their declining faith in school English teaching. The paper contributes to our understanding of the complex interactions between the curricular (school) and non-curricular (PT-E) settings and family socioeconomic resources in the teaching of English as a globally desired language.     

Data-based modeling and estimation of vehicle crash processes in frontal fixed-barrier crashes

As a complex process, vehicle crash is challenging to be described and estimated mathematically. Although different mathematical models are developed, it is still difficult to balance the complexity of models and the performance of estimation. The aim of this work is to propose a novel scheme to model and estimate the processes of vehicle-barrier frontal crashes. In this work, a piecewise model structure is predefined to represent the accelerations of vehicle in frontal crashes. Each segment in the model is corresponding to the energy absorbing component in the crashworthiness structure. With the help of Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD), a robust scheme is proposed for parameter identification. By adjusting the model structure and parameters according to the initial velocity, crash processes in different conditions are estimated effectively. The estimation results exhibit good agreement with finite element (FE) simulations in three different cases. It is shown that, the proposed model keeps low complexity. Furthermore, the structure information of vehicle is involved in improving the accuracy and ability of crash estimation.     

Florida public hurricane loss model: Research in multi-disciplinary system integration assisting government policy making

Homeowner insurance rate making is an important public policy issue in the State of Florida. The State of Florida has over 2 trillion dollars of residential properties exposed to hurricane risk. The State has declared that it shall adopt public policy to encourage the use of sophisticated actuarial methods to assure that consumers are charged lawful insurance rates (Section 627.0628(1)(a)). To that effect, the State's insurance regulatory agency, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR), sponsored the development of a Florida Public Hurricane Loss Model (FPHLM) to assess the risk and project insured residential losses. The FPHLM is an open and public model that has been developed primarily by university experts without influence from either the insurance industry or the state regulators. It is open to public scrutiny and provides an understandable baseline to check the assumptions as well as the outputs of the proprietary models. The FPHLM thus makes the rate evaluation process more objective and less political. It enables the state to justify rejecting or accepting rate increases based on an independent and transparent model, rather than a process that can be influenced politically. As a multi-disciplinary large scale research project with an iterative and incremental development cycle, the FPHLM system development and integration faced numerous challenges varying from technical factors to project management aspects. This paper will discuss the research experiences accumulated during the development of the FPHLM and the impact it has had on the homeowner insurance rate filing process in the State of Florida.     

Composite fault-tolerant control with disturbance observer for stochastic systems with multiple disturbances

In this paper, a composite fault tolerant control (CFTC) with disturbance observer scheme is considered for a class of stochastic systems with faults and multiple disturbances. The disturbances are divided into two parts. One represents the stochastic disturbance with partial known information which is formulated by an exogenous system. The other is independent Wiener process. A stochastic disturbance observer is designed to estimate exogenous disturbance. To make the first type of disturbance can be rejected and the fault can be diagnosed, a composite fault diagnosis observer with disturbance observer is constructed. Furthermore, a composite fault-tolerant controller is proposed to compensate disturbances and faults. Finally, simulation examples are given to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Optimal residual generation for fault detection in linear discrete time-varying systems with uncertain observations

This work deals with the problem of optimal residual generation for fault detection (FD) in linear discrete time-varying (LDTV) systems subject to uncertain observations. By introducing a generalized fault detection filter (FDF) with four parameter matrices as the residual generator, a novel FDF design scheme is formulated as two bi-objective optimization problems such that the sensitivity of residual to fault is enhanced and the robustness of residual to unknown input is simultaneously strengthened. A generalized operator based optimization approach is proposed to deduce solutions to the corresponding optimization problems in operator forms, where the related H_∞/H_∞ or $H_{?}/H_{\infty }$ FD performance index is maximized. With the aid of the addressed methods, the connections among the derived solutions are explicitly announced. The parameter matrices of the FDF are analytically derived via solving simple matrix equations recursively. It is revealed that our proposed results establish an operator-based framework of optimal residual generation for some kinds of linear discrete-time systems. Illustrative examples are given to show the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed methods.     

Acute effects of intense interval training on running mechanics

The aims of this study were to determine if there are significant kinematic changes in running pattern after intense interval workouts, whether duration of recovery affects running kinematics, and whether changes in running economy are related to changes in running kinematics. Seven highly trained male endurance runners (VO 2max = 72.3 +/- 3.3 ml kg -1 min -1 ; mean +/- s) performed three interval running workouts of 10 X 400 m at a speed of 5.94 +/- 0.19 m s -1 (356 +/- 11.2 m min -1 ) with a minimum of 4 days recovery between runs. Recovery of 60, 120 or 180 s between each 400 m repetition was assigned at random. Before and after each workout, running economy and several kinematic variables were measured at speeds of 3.33 and 4.47 m s -1 (200 and 268 m min -1 ). Speed was found to have a significant effect on shank angle, knee velocity and stride length (P ? 0.05). Correlations between changes pre- and post-test for VO 2 (ml kg -1 min -1 ) and several kinematic variables were not significant (P > 0.05) at both speeds. In general, duration of recovery was not found to adversely affect running economy or the kinematic variables assessed, possibly because of intra-individual adaptations to fatigue.     

Prioritization of intellectual capital indicators in knowledge-based industries: Evidence from pharmaceutical industry

During the last decade, intellectual capital (IC) and intangible assets have been widely considered as critical tool to deliver successful business in an intensive-knowledge environment. Accordingly, the main goal of this paper is therefore to develop and prioritize the most important indicators of intellectual capital in knowledge-based industries. Based on an extensive literature review, a valid and reliable questionnaire was designed. In order to data gathering, it was sent out to participants from both academic and university who qualified well in pharmaceutical practice. In order to exact prioritization of indicators, fuzzy TOPSIS technique as a MADM model was used. The fuzzy TOPSIS results revealed participants remark high concerns especially about knowledge and skills of managers and employees regarding to human capital, high concerns particularly about positive climate, ratio of investment in R&D and numbers of R&D projects according to structural capital, while considering the relational capital, more attention was paid to customers and strategic cooperation such as alliances and licensing.