Portfolios, Accountability, and an Interpretive Approach to Validity

How can the results of classroom-based portfolio assessment be communicated outside the classroom? How might a portfolio-based assessment system be designed and implemented? How can we evaluate the merits of portfolio-based assessments?     

Measuring Income Inequality in a General Education or Calculus Mathematics Classroom

Abstract

Income inequality is a central social justice concern, and hence excellent motivation for real-world applications in mathematics classrooms at every level. We describe the Mathematics for Social Justice course at Saint Michael’s College, giving a specific example of one of the typical social justice projects for the course, and showing how projects can be adapted to other courses such as Calculus. The projects described focus on the Gini coefficient, a commonly used measure of income inequality. The original lesson used the trapezoid rule and Microsoft Excel to estimate the Gini coefficient for a country, while the project developed for a Calculus I course uses Maple to fit a power function to data and then integration to calculate the Gini coefficient. We also include readings on the Gini coefficient’s role in policy formulation and advocacy.     

How to Keep a Good Woman Down: an investigation of the role of institutional factors in the process of discrimination against women academics

Women constitute a very small minority of the full time academic staff in British universities and are concentrated in the lower grades. Statistical evidence points to the fact that an important reason for this is that discrimination exists within the academic profession. However, there is very little empirical information on the nature of this discrimination and the institutional processes that serve to maintain it. The study reported here seeks to identify and illuminate these processes through the experiences and perceptions of women academics themselves. A total of 43 women were interviewed at length using a semi‐structured interview schedule, exploring issues such as recruitment and selection, probation, career development, appraisal, positions of power and the roles of women academics. It is suggested, in this paper, that we can begin to understand some of the factors which limit women's access to, and success within the profession by examining the evidence of women who have survived within the system.     

Aligning Teaching Quality Indicators with University Reward Mechanisms

Teaching quality emerged as asignificant issue in higher education duringthe 90s. This led to the implementation ofnumerous quality control, assurance andenhancement schemes as institutions attemptedto stay abreast of demands from variousstakeholders in a rapidly changing educationalenvironment. More recently, with theestablishment of the Australian UniversityQuality Agency (AUQA) in 2000, there is nowfurther impetus to review quality schemes inAustralian universities. This paper describeshow a teaching award programme may impact onplanning and review processes within universitydepartments and highlights how the alignment ofteaching award criteria with external qualityaudit requirements can lead tocross-institutional benefits for enhancing thequality of teaching.     

Attention in preschoolers: associations with effortful control and motivation

The current study examined how individual differences in children's temperament and motivation relate to attention skills in children from economically disadvantaged families. A total of 73 mother-child dyads participated in this study. Children were between the ages of 3 and 5, and all attended a Head Start program. Using multiple hierarchical regression analyses, the hypotheses that effortful control (an aspect of temperament) and motivation would individually and collectively relate to attention skills were supported. The current study supports the importance of understanding attention as a multifaceted concept (Posner & Petersen, 1990) that relates to cognitive, socioemotional, and motivational systems. The utility of applying a systems approach to school readiness issues in children of poverty is discussed.     

Better protestant than prostitute: A social portrait of a 19th-century reform school for girls

Conclusion Given the small number who either rose above their previous station or fell into disrepute, it seems that the girls took an indirect route to the place one might have expected them to be in their adulthood. A large majority remained in the class into which they had been born. They were employed in predictable positions and lived in predictable ways with the sorts of husbands one might have expected them to marry had they not been sent to Lancaster. The school thus seemed to provide a waystation for the adolescent daughters of the poor. Would they have fared the same regardless of their stay at Lancaster? We cannot tell. However, Lancaster may have acted as an employment agency for many of the 16-year-olds whose families found it difficult to place them in service. It seemed to have provided a pleasant place where poor girls were given adequate shelter and supervision: a home where their families and society could be assured that they were not exposed to vice and corruption. And, indeed, most of the girls remained poor, but respectable.In sum, Lancaster Industrial School for Girls seemed to have some of the effects the policy-makers had hoped for—it separated the girls from the influences considered to encourage promiscuity. It was able to do so without being harsh. Nevertheless, the focus of the founders to save the daughters of the poor, rather than to fundamentally change social ills, indicates the limits of mid-19th-century social reform.I would like to thank the following people for their help, time, patience, and insightuful comments: Mary Jo Bane, Joseph Featherstone, Michael Katz, Paulette Meleen, Michael Olneck, Steven Schlossman, and Stephan Thernstrom. Claire Donovan, present Superintendent of Lancaster Industrial School for Girls, was exceptionally generous in helping me to understand the school, and telling me about the available data; without her I couldn't have written this paper. The Schlessinger Library staff, and especially Eva Moseley, were also of tremendous help. The statistical data given in this paper are derived by coding the pertinent information given on each girl; they include 80 variables such as place of birth, family background, age, religion, crime, complainant, behaviour at the school, experience during indenture years, and several follow-throughs. This coded material was then analysed with the SPSS programming language to give relevant marginals, statistical proofs, and cross tabulations.     

Exploring the Usefulness of the Monsen Problem‐solving Framework for Applied Practitioners

This paper explores the reflections of practising educational psychologists on the usefulness of a framework used in training for the role of educational psychologist. The Monsen problem‐solving framework is taught on the M.Sc. Educational Psychology Programme at Strathclyde University. The framework aims to support learning in the processes of conceptualising complex and ill‐defined problems and in subsequently developing effective interventions. It offers systematic steps to help structure, organise and analyse the complexities of problems in a coherent way, facilitating understanding and transparency of processes for both psychologists and clients. How effective is the training device in ensuring that problems are understood and addressed in practice? Does the framework influence or shape the work of the fully‐fledged practitioner? The present study indicates that the Monsen framework is perceived to be highly effective in some executive areas and that these aspects transfer well to applied practice. However there is less transferability in those aspects relating more directly to psychological theory and thinking, in particular the formulation of hypotheses and the sharing of the problem dynamics with stakeholders. Respondents describe the limitations of the model in the contexts of collaborative working, time management and competing theories and frameworks. These issues are discussed in relation to professional practice and accountability. It is proposed that the advantages of using the Monsen model may be even clearer if the role of psychological theory is more fully articulated within the framework.