The Role of Extended Time and Item Content on a High‐Stakes Mathematics Test

The premise of a great deal of current research guiding policy development has been that accommodations are the catalyst for student performance differences. Rather than accepting this premise, two studies were conducted to investigate the influence of extended time and content knowledge on the performance of ninth‐grade students who took a statewide mathematics test with and without accommodations. Each study involved 1,250 accommodated students (extended time only) with learning disabilities and 1,250 nonaccommodated students demonstrating no disabilities. In Study One, a standard differential item functioning (DIF) analysis illustrated that the usual approach to studying the effects of accommodations contributes little to our understanding of the reason for performance differences across students. Next, a mixture item response theory DIF model was used to explore the most likely cause(s) for performance differences across the population. The results from both studies suggest that students for whom items were functioning differently were not accurately characterized by their accommodation status but rather by their content knowledge. That is, knowing students' accommodation status (i.e., accommodated or nonaccommodated) contributed little to understanding why accommodated and nonaccommodated students differed in their test performance. Rather, the data would suggest that a more likely explanation is that mathematics competency differentiated the groups of student learners regardless of their accommodation and/or reading levels.     

The invisible impact of educational research

Although there are policy calls for educational research to discover ‘what works’ and thereby inform decision making directly, the research literature argues instead for research to have a ‘conceptual’ impact on practice. Empirical studies also suggest that, when teachers use research, their use is conceptual; research influences the content and the process of their thinking, changing attitudes and perceptions and making educational decision making more intelligent. This study investigates the ways in which educational research has achieved impact on practice from the perspective of the researchers. A sample of highly-rated impact case studies in the UK’s research assessment exercise (REF2014) were subject to content analysis, using qualitative coding techniques. Analysis shows that most research is ‘invisible’ to education practitioners because it is embedded in educational policies, technologies, and services. This ‘invisible use’ is unlikely to realise the conceptual benefits claimed for research utilisation. If educational research is to make educational decision making more intelligent at its point of use, it will be necessary to re-think current notions of quality in research impact.     

Does a focal firm's technology entry timing depend on the impact of the technology on co-opetitors?

In this paper, I explore the role that the impact of a technological change on a firm's co-opetitors plays in the firm's technology entry timing. I hypothesize that where a co-opetitor dominates in the co-opetitor-firm relationship, a firm's technology entry timing does not depend on the impact of the technology on the firm's capabilities as predicted by previous research. Rather, it depends on the impact of the change on the dominant co-opetitor. If the change is incremental to a dominant customer, for example, the focal incumbent firm will start development of the new technology before new entrants, irrespective of whether it is radical or incremental to focal firms. If the change is radical to the dominant co-opetitor, new entrant focal firms will start development of the new technology before incumbent focal firms. I explore these hypotheses using the case of three major technological changes in supercomputers: vector processors, minisupercomputers, and massively parallel processors.     

Exploring the experience of ten Australian Honours students

Honours study is viewed as a transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study and/or to enhanced career prospects. In Australia, Honours is usually an adjunct to the standard undergraduate degree. This paper provides an ethnographic study of 10 Australian Honours students. Seeing their experience through their reflections, in their own voices, reveals that Honours may be more than transitional – these students were transformed personally. Such emotionally charged transformations require academics to reflect on the best forms of support for Honours students.     

Spurious Latent Classes in the Mixture Rasch Model

Mixture Rasch models have been used to study a number of psychometric issues such as goodness of fit, response strategy differences, strategy shifts, and multidimensionality. Although these models offer the potential for improving understanding of the latent variables being measured, under some conditions overextraction of latent classes may occur, potentially leading to misinterpretation of results. In this study, a mixture Rasch model was applied to data from a statewide test that was initially calibrated to conform to a 3‐parameter logistic (3PL) model. Results suggested how latent classes could be explained and also suggested that these latent classes might be due to applying a mixture Rasch model to 3PL data. To support this latter conjecture, a simulation study was presented to demonstrate how data generated to fit a one‐class 2‐parameter logistic (2PL) model required more than one class when fit with a mixture Rasch model.     

Crossing cultures: Analysing the experiences of NZ returnees from the EU (UK vs. non-UK)

While there is growing scholarly interest in returned and cyclical migration, and on young adult cultural or adventure seeking migration, there is still a lack of systematic empirical insights into how the experiences of being abroad, and after return, are mediated by exposure to different cultural environments. Addressing this conceptual and empirical gap, the paper analyses the experiences of New Zealand return migrants, or sojourners, who lived and worked in European countries (other than the UK) for more than one year and compares them with the experiences of NZ returnees from the UK. Drawing on 20 ‘non-UK’ and 22 ‘UK’ in-depth interviews, the paper revisits [Rhinesmith, 1975] and [Rhinesmith, 1986] typology of cross-cultural, or intercultural, adjustment (largely ignored in studies of return migration) to assess sojourners’ experiences throughout the migration cycle and serve as a useful tool for identifying and reporting psychological and socio-cultural elements in the returnees stories. The findings of sojourners’ possible identity shifts during intercultural transition are discussed with reference to the four-member paradigm of Cultural Identity Model (CIM) (Sussman, 2010) while addressing Sussman's (2002) argument that overseas adaptation and repatriation experiences are not directly associated. This paper demonstrates the need to understand first that the costs and benefits of circular migration or sojourning are country-specific, and that they do not ‘just happen’ at a particular moment or in one phase but are forged through a veritable rollercoaster of experiences of intercultural adjustment.     

Using clinical guidelines to assess the potential value of laboratory medicine in clinical decision-making

IntroductionIt is often quoted that 70% of clinical decisions are based on laboratory results, but the evidence to substantiate this claim is lacking. Since clinical guidelines aim to document best-practice decision making for specific disease conditions, inclusion of any laboratory test means that the best available evidence is recommending clinicians use it. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the world’s most common cause of mortality, so this study reviewed all CVD guidelines published by five national/international authorities to determine what proportion of them recommended laboratory testing.Materials and methodsFive leading CVD guidelines were examined, namely the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the Australian Heart Foundation (AHF) and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ).ResultsA total of 101 guidelines were reviewed. Of the 33 individual ESC guidelines relating to CVD, 24/33 made a direct reference to the use of clinical laboratory tests in either diagnosis or follow-up treatment. The same applied to 15/20 of NICE guidelines, 24/32 from the ACC and 15/16 from the AHF/CSANZ. Renal function and blood count testing were the most recommended (39 and 26 times), with lipid, troponin and natriuretic peptide measurement advocated 25, 19 and 19 times respectively.ConclusionsThis study has shown that laboratory testing is advocated by between 73% and 94% of individual CVD guideline recommendations from five national/international authorities. This provides an index to assess the potential value of laboratory medicine to healthcare.