Assessment to Increase Students’ Creativity: Two Case Studies

Changing the assessment method is a way to influence the students’ attitudes towards their studies; their ways of working to a large extent are determined by the assessment methods. One way to take advantage of this is to use the assessment to stimulate creativity and communication skills. This has been tried in full‐scale studies for students in engineering physics, computer science and mathematics at Uppsala University and Vdxjö University, both in Sweden. Undergraduate education in engineering, computer science and mathematics has by tradition emphasized training in skills. The examination often consists of problems that the students solve individually. It is difficult to give complex and/or loosely defined problems in such an examination. The students are not encouraged to analyze, judge, communicate or discuss these skills. In fact, in the authors’ experience, traditional examinations can actually inhibit the development of the students’ independence and creativity. Both projects have been supported by the Council for Renewal of Undergraduate Education, Sweden.     

Social Class,Gender and Ethnic Differences in Subjects Taken at Age 14.

In this paper, we identify patterns of subject and qualification choices made at age 14. Much of the previous research on ‘subject choice’ has focussed on the later stages of educational trajectories, particularly Higher Education. However, the choices made at early branching points can limit pupils’ subsequent options, potentially contributing to educational inequalities. This paper identifies the patterns of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) subjects chosen by a cohort of young people born in 1989/1990. We make use of the Next Steps data (formerly the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE)) which is linked to the National Pupil Database. We develop an approach to measuring the academic selectivity of subjects and qualifications. We examine the roles of social class, parental education, income, gender and ethnicity in determining participation in these curriculum groupings. Using measures of prior attainment from age thirteen, we address the question of whether curriculum differentials simply reflect differences in prior attainment or whether they actually operate above and beyond existing inequalities. We find clear socio-economic, gender, ethnic and school-level differences in subjects studied which cannot be accounted for by prior attainment.     

Big data as governmentality in international development: Digital traces,algorithms, and altered visibilities

Statistics have long shaped the field of visibility for the governance of development projects. The introduction of big data has altered the field of visibility. Employing Dean's “analytics of government” framework, we analyze two cases—malaria tracking in Kenya and monitoring of food prices in Indonesia. Our analysis shows that big data introduces a bias toward particular types of visualizations. What problems are being made visible through big data depends to some degree on how the underlying data is visualized and who is captured in the visualizations. It is also influenced by technical factors such as distance between mobile phone towers and the truth claims that gain legitimacy.     

Estimating the quality of performance assessments: The case of an ‘interactive examination’ for teacher competencies

Professional schools prepare students to become competent professionals. Consequently, there is a need for assessments that can determine the acquisition of the relevant professional competencies. Although using performance assessment to replace traditional paper-and-pencil tests might provide one way to move forward, the use of performance assessments for summative purposes has been shown to be problematic (e.g. marker consistency and construct representation). With the aid of a comprehensive framework of quality criteria for competence assessments, this article considers if one particular existing competence assessment methodology is suitable for summative as well as formative use. It is argued that the comprehensive quality estimation of the examination procedure aids in identifying strengths and weaknesses in the assessment methodology, and that this information can be used to facilitate the inclusion of performance assessment in higher education, both for summative and formative use.     

The Frequent Occurrence of Atacamite in Medieval Swedish Murals

Copper trihydroxychloride [Cu₂Cl(OH)₃] exists with four polymorphs: atacamite, paratacamite, clinoatacamite, and botallackite. They have all been used as green pigments, usually under the name atacamite. For many years, atacamite was regarded as a pigment mainly used in ancient South America, China, and Egypt. However, the last decades have shown that atacamite has been found in European medieval paintings, and quite often in Sweden. This paper gives a brief overview of the history of atacamite and its polymorphs. Green pigments from medieval murals in 56 Swedish churches were analyzed. The results show that atacamite and malachite are common, while green earth is less frequent and green vivianite rare. In particular, atacamite often occurs in medieval wall paintings on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The atacamite minerals are rare in Europe and are not found in the Swedish bedrock. Their occurrence in Swedish murals and their origin is discussed. Atacamite may be synthesized by various methods and is in fact often observed on corroded outdoor bronze statues in marine surroundings.     

Monetary organization and national identity: a review and considerations

This article develops a detailed overview of literature on the relationship between monetary organization, understood as currencies and central banks, and issues of national identity and nationalism. It demonstrates how the literature on this subject for the past 20 years has developed into a distinct research field and the article sketches a set of different methodological approaches as well as geographical and thematical variations within the field. In particular, the overview points to a recent shift in focus from a preoccupation with the identity-cultivating qualities of monetary organization to an emphasis on how collective identities legitimize monetary organization. Based on the literature review, the article points to two underdeveloped themes for future research to investigate: (1) further studies on the interrelation between the legitimacy of monetary organization and national identity, (2) an increased focus on central banks and monetary authorities, as well as the historical development in which monetary organization evolved in concert with ideas of the national identity and nationalism.     

The Transfer of Chemical Knowledge: The Case of Chemical Technology and its Textbooks

This paper is a study of textbooks in chemical technology in Sweden during the industrialisation in the 19th century. In this period, teaching in technological education in general became more and more founded on science. However, there existed very few textbooks in chemical technology, and it is argued that the reason was that the essentials of the knowledge used for developing chemical industry were of a tacit and local character. Such knowledge could only with difficulty be transferred through textbooks with scientific ambitions. Thus the textbooks written or translated by scientists were not as widely used as the ones written or translated by chemical engineers. The usefulness of the latter group can be explained by the fact that they had been adapted to local circumstances, and expressed generalisations, not as scientific laws, but as rules of thumb. Finally, a model for the diffusion of knowledge is suggested, by which the role of textbooks in chemical technology better can be understood.     

Successful schooling for pupils with intellectual disabilities: the demand for a new paradigm

A comprehensive review of educational interventions for pupils with intellectual disabilities showed that most studies report positive results for a variety of interventions. The aim of this article is to explore how these results can be understood. We draw on similar earlier findings concerning intervention effects in psychotherapy and social work, discussing the so-called Dodo bird conjecture, indicating that established methods for identification of evidence-based practices can provide false, positive results influenced by so-called common factors present in most interventions. In conclusion, we argue for a new paradigm of research on educational interventions for pupils with intellectual disabilities, replacing the present ambition to find evidence-based support for specific interventions in favour of a line of research exploring alternative explanations in terms of, for instance, common positive factors.     

The Effectiveness of a Large‐Scale Language and Preliteracy Intervention: The SPELL Randomized Controlled Trial in Denmark

The present article reports results of a real‐world effectiveness trial conducted in Denmark with six thousand four hundred eighty‐three 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds designed to improve children's language and preliteracy skills. Children in 144 child cares were assigned to a control condition or one of three planned variations of a 20‐week storybook‐based intervention: a base intervention and two enhanced versions featuring extended professional development for educators or a home‐based program for parents. Pre‐ to posttest comparisons revealed a significant impact of all three interventions for preliteracy skills (= .21–.27) but not language skills (d = .04–.16), with little differentiation among the three variations. Fidelity, indexed by number of lessons delivered, was a significant predictor of most outcomes. Implications for real‐world research and practice are considered.