Modeling Change in Effort Across a Low-Stakes Testing Session: A Latent Growth Curve Modeling Approach

ABSTRACT

We examined change in test-taking effort over the course of a three-hour, five test, low-stakes testing session. Latent growth modeling results indicated that change in test-taking effort was well-represented by a piecewise growth form, wherein effort increased from test 1 to test 4 and then decreased from test 4 to test 5. There was significant variability in effort for each of the five tests, which could be predicted from examinees’ conscientiousness, agreeableness, mastery approach goal orientation, and whether the examinee “skipped” or attended the initial testing session. The degree to which examinees perceived a particular test as important was related to effort for the difficult, cognitive test but not for less difficult, noncognitive tests. There was significant variability in the rates of change in effort, which could be predicted from examinees’ agreeableness. Interestingly, change in test-taking effort was not related to change in perceived test importance. Implications of these results for assessment practice and directions for future research are discussed.     

Classroom,Home and Peer Environment Influences on Student Outcomes in Science and Mathematics: An analysis of systemic reform data

Using secondary analysis of a large database from a Statewide Systemic Initiative, we examined the effects of several types of environments on student outcomes. Over 3 years, nearly 7,000 students in 392 classes in 200 different schools responded to a questionnaire that assesses class, home, and peer environments as well as student attitudes. Students also completed an achievement measure that, developed by scientists, teachers, and science educators, was not aligned with any particular curriculum. Students were enrolled in middle‐school science and mathematics classes in schools that had participated in the Statewide Systemic Initiative. Rasch analyses allowed us to compare across student cohorts and across schools. Findings confirmed the importance of extending research on classroom learning environments to include the learning environments of the home and the peer group. Although all three environments accounted for statistically significant amounts of unique variance in student attitudes, only the class environment (defined in terms of the frequency of use of standards‐based teaching practices) accounted for statistically significant amounts of unique variance in student achievement scores. The findings are supported by other studies of systemic reform in the United States.     

Supporting and Developing Teachers through Telecommunications

Abstract

This article looks at how knowledge can be accessed using current technologies, so that forms of alternative delivery can be made available. It examines the effect of establishing links between schools and the university producing ‘virtual institutions’, and looks to the future.     

A case study of integration and destreaming: Teachers and students in an Ontario secondary school respond

The direction that secondary school reform should take has become a contested question in the province of Ontario, Canada, during the 1990s. This case study of one secondary school examines some of the issues surrounding the transition years. Two policies, destreaming and integration, mandatedbythe OntarioMinistryof Education in 1993, and fully implemented by 1995, are examined by means of interview and survey. Administrators, teachers and students commented on the transition from elementary to secondary school. We discuss questions related to destreaming (especially how teachers contend with mixed-ability classes) and integration (with a particular focus on mathematics, science and technology).     

An Analysis of Some New Statistical Methods for Selecting Test Items

In this study, the relationship between student affective performance and classroom physical environment, social climate, and management style were investigated in a sample of classes in Hong Kong primary schools. The results of Pearson and canonical correlation analyses indicated that among the measures of classroom environment, perceived quality of physical environment and class master's expert power, personal power, and coercive power were the strongest predictors of affective performance. This finding supports the importance of class master's management style in the classroom environment. Students' attitudes toward school and teachers appeared to be most sensitive to variation in the classroom environment, and self-concept was the least sensitive among the seven student affective measures. Students' self-efficacy of learning and intention to drop out were moderately sensitive to classroom environment. Profiles of effective and ineffective classroom environments were also mapped. In effective classrooms, class masters care for students, pay attention to teaching, do not use force or punishment but do create a good classroom climate with their professional knowledge, personal morality, and personality. Physical environment and psychological environment are both important; a good classroom environment is highly correlated with student affective performance.     

The communal constraints on parody: The symbolic death of Joe Bob Briggs

Arguments and Addresses of Joseph H. Choate. Collected and edited by Frederick C. Hicks, LL. B., Litt. D. With a Memorial by Elihu. Boot. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1927. 1189 pp.

Great Speeches, by Elizabeth W. Baker. New York: Allyn and Bacon, 1927. Pp. 191 and Appendix.

The Speech Arts, by Alice Evelyn Craig. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926. 500 pp.

The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan. Philadelphia: Winston and Company, 1925. 556 pp.

The Growth of the Mind—An Introduction to Child‐Psychology. By Kurt Koffka. Translated by R. M. Ogden. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1924. xvi + 383 pp.

Psychology and Education, by Robert Morris Ogden. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1926. xiii + 364 pp.

Causes and Their Champions, by M. A. DeWolfe Howe. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1926.

Trumpets of Jubilee, by Constance Mayfield Rourke. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927.

The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, by P. G. Fowler and H. W. Fowler. American Edition, revised by George Van Santvoord. Oxford University Press, American Branch. Pp. xvi +1029.

The Romance of Words, by Ernest Weekley, M. A. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1927. Pp. xi + 225.     

Between patriotism and nationalism: Johan Hendrik Swildens and the ‘pedagogy of the patriotic virtues’ in the United Dutch Provinces during the 1780s and 1790s

The dominant influences that forged curriculum policy in relation to the literacy curriculum in New Zealand during the 1930s can be seen to be enmeshed in the politics of the wider context of what de Castell and Luke have identified as the ‘literacy ideologies of the British Empire’. ^{1 1} See de Castell, Suzanne and Allan Luke. “Literacy Instruction: Technology and Technique.” American Journal of Education 95, no. 3 (1987): 413–440. It was these literacy ideologies and concerns over the cultural authority of ‘standard English’ that were to spark a growing public and professional concern during the 1930s over New Zealanders’ speech and the growing ‘insidious’ influence of American‐derived popular culture. These tensions led to debates that would eventually highlight the need for New Zealanders to develop their own national and cultural identity. They would also bring into question the role of Maori language and culture in New Zealand primary school education, and herald the first challenges to the cultural dominance of the English language in New Zealand’s Native schools in the late 1930s.     

Staff deployment in an age of contraction

Teacher educators from eight European countries undertook a collaborative study into children's understanding of their own national and European identity, their understanding of the geography and cultures of Europe and finally their understanding of how countries are governed. The views of the British children are reported here, set alongside a summary of those from the seven other countries. Findings indicate a confusion with the notion of British identity, a limited understanding of Europe's geography and peoples, but a high level of acceptance of those from other cultures and countries. The implications for geography teaching and for teaching about identity, tolerance, respect and European citizenship are discussed.