Implementing Criterion-referenced Assessment Within a Multi-disciplinary University Department

This paper is concerned with the reconstruction, at the departmental level, of a university assessment policy that required a shift from norm-referenced assessment to criterion-referenced assessment (CRA). As such, it provides an account of a change process driven by a centralised policy imperative and yet implemented and driven also from a bottom-up process. A wide range of data was gathered using action research methods. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted with staff and students, participant journals were kept and successive drafts of criteria and standards, and samples of students' responses were collected. The data suggested that a top-down policy can be successfully combined with a departmental-driven process, if financial and time considerations are addressed and a collaborative process amongst staff is sustained. The use of action learning, as a tool for change, appeared to assist participants to begin to own a top-down policy.     

Another failure to replicate Lynn's estimate of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans

In his comment on our literature review of data on the performance of sub-Saharan Africans on Raven's Progressive Matrices, Lynn (this issue) criticized our selection of samples of primary and secondary school students. On the basis of the samples he deemed representative, Lynn concluded that the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans stands at 67 when compared to UK norms after a correction of the Flynn Effect. We criticize his methods for being unsystematic. Here we select only those samples that were based on stratified or clustered random sampling and were deemed representative by the original authors. We again fail to replicate Lynn's low estimate of the average IQ of Africans. We argue that these scores are hard to interpret in terms of latent cognitive variables such as g because of the psychometric incomparability we established and because the Flynn Effect has yet to take hold in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Phonological processing and emergent literacy in Spanish-speaking preschool children

Phonological awareness (PA), phonological memory (PM), and phonological access to lexical storage (also known as RAN), play important roles in acquiring literacy. We examined the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of these phonological processing abilities (PPAs) in 147 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children whose native language was Spanish. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the validity of each PPA as separate from general cognitive ability and separate from each other. Moreover, structural equation modeling found RAN uniquely associated with knowledge of Spanish letter names and Spanish letter sounds. PA was found the best predictor of children’s ability to distinguish alphabetic text from nonalphabetic text. Finally, general cognitive ability was only indirectly associated with emergent literacy skills via PPAs. These results highlight the importance of PPAs in the early literacy development of native Spanish speaking preschool children.     

Relations between physiological and cognitive regulatory systems: infant sleep regulation and subsequent executive functioning

The aim of this report was to investigate the prospective links between infant sleep regulation and subsequent executive functioning (EF). The authors assessed sleep regulation through a parent sleep diary when children were 12 and 18 months old (N = 60). Child EF was assessed at 18 and 26 months of age. Higher proportions of total sleep occurring at night time, at both 12 and 18 months, were related to better performance on executive tasks, especially those involving a strong impulse control component. Most relations held above family socioeconomic status, prior mental development and concurrent verbal ability. These findings add to previous results with school-age children in suggesting that sleep favors the development of higher order cognitive functions requiring prefrontal cortex involvement.     

我在中国教书

2006年,对我来说是一个全新的开始,我来到了中国衢州。在这个全新的国度里,我从事了一份以前未曾做过的工作,同时也交上新的朋友。对我来说,以前从未有过这样的经历,所以来到衢州时一直有些紧张和担心,而即将独自去面对所有的一切让我尤其感到焦虑不安。此前,我曾经到过中国首都北京,但那是完全不同的一种情况：那时我是学生,     

Can the Wisdom of Aging be Activated and Make a Difference Societally?

The Experience Corps?, a community-based intergenerational program, was developed to promote the health of older adults, while simultaneously addressing unmet social and academic needs in public elementary schools. The model was designed to draw on, and potentially activate, the wisdom of older adults. This paper explores the nature of wisdom-related knowledge and how older adults may apply such knowledge when tutoring and mentoring young children, as well as the potential for the intergenerational transmission of wisdom from the older adult volunteers to the school children being mentored by them. Developing an understanding of these issues may provide a basis for the creation of more extensive wisdom-generating opportunities for both older and younger generations.