Valid Normative Information From Customized Achievement Tests

This paper discusses how to maintain the integrity of national normative information for achievement tests when the test that is administered has been customized to satisfy local needs and is not a test that has been nationally normed. Using an Item Response Theory perspective, alternative procedures for item selection and calibration are examined with respect to their effect on the accuracy of normative information. It is emphasized that it is important to match the content of the customized test with that of the normed test if accurate normative data are desired.     

纳米科技引领绿色印刷新时代——变革性纳米产业制造技术聚焦纳米绿色印刷与器件制造技术项目研究进展

发展纳米制造技术是从纳米材料到器件规模化制造与应用发展的核心内容。传统的印刷技术主要是基于感光和刻蚀工艺,造成严重的环境污染和资源浪费。绿色印刷是一种增材制造技术,可以从源头大幅度降低能耗和减少环境污染。开发绿色印刷制造技术对我国相关产业的可持续发展具有重要的战略意义。同时,绿色印刷制造与传统微纳加工方法的结合,为器件的制造与集成提供了新的可能途径与方法,可望对产业制造技术产生变革性影响。文章介绍了纳米绿色印刷与器件制造技术项目的研究背景、项目目标与实施概况,以及已经取得的创新成果。     

‘Observation has set in’: comparing students and peers as reviewers of teaching

Peer review is a powerful method to enhance teaching in higher education. Peers, however, may not be the most relevant people in evaluating teaching success; as the most important stakeholders in learning, students’ evaluations need to be heard. Whilst some efforts to capture ‘the student voice’ are simplistic and may foster consumerist approaches, adopting ‘radical collegiality’ towards students may provide the benefits of peer review whilst avoiding some of its disadvantages. Here we describe the Students as Colleagues project, which trained student volunteers as evaluators of teaching. To assess the ability of students to provide useful reviews, we compared their evaluative feedback with that from academic peers, using a paired design and qualitative and quantitative data. Students gave significantly more positive comments, and just as many negative and directive comments, as academic peers. Student colleagues emphasised the positive personal (rather than professional) capacities of their reviewees, encouraged expressed vulnerability and drew on their broad experiences as students rather than from professional perspectives. Participation changed how students saw their abilities and helped ‘humanise’ both the reviewees and the university as a whole. Our results and standpoint theory suggest that students’ evaluative feedback is the most valuable perspective to inform teaching enhancement.     

Associations between academic and motor performance in a heterogeneous sample of children with learning disabilities

A heterogeneous sample of 137 school-aged children with learning disabilities (IQ > 80) attending special needs schools was examined on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC). The results show that compared to the available norm scores, 52.6% of the children tested performed below the 15th percentile on manual dexterity, 40.9% on ball skills, and 33.7% on balance skills. Furthermore, after controlling for IQ, significant small to moderate partial correlations were found between spelling and mathematics and the MABC total score, as well as small to moderate correlations between mathematics and balance, between reading and ball skills, and between spelling and manual dexterity. The present findings are compared with previously reported results obtained in more homogenous groups, and based on the resultant relationships between academic performance and motor development, recommendations for future motor intervention studies are made.     

Research cultures in English and Scottish university education departments: An exploratory study of academic staff perceptions

The paper reports the findings of a small‐scale qualitative investigation into academic staff perceptions of research cultures across 10 English and Scottish university education departments. The study sheds light on four interrelated issues: the nature of research cultures, perceived facilitators, perceived constraints and the emotional landscape of working within a research environment. The findings indicate that perceptions vary according to staff academic and scientific capital, largely determined by career background and the type of university institution in which they work. While there is evidence of a culture of performativity and intensification, there is also evidence of widespread commitment to (and enjoyment of) educational research, especially where its value is broadly conceived to include outputs of applied research (including action research) as well as basic and strategic research. It is concluded that a broader policy conception of what constitutes value in research, coupled with a deeper understanding of the complex social and emotional factors that impact on academic well‐being, will be important to building both commitment and long‐term research capacity.     

The role of parent expectations on adolescent educational aspirations

Parental expectations have long been studied as a factor in increasing adolescent educational aspirations, often linking these expectations to parental level of education and involvement in academic endeavours. This study further explores this relationship in a statewide Midwestern sample of parents and their adolescent children. Regression analysis and independent samples t‐tests were used to predict adolescent aspirations and compare groups. Results suggest that adolescent educational aspirations can to some degree be predicted by parental expectations. Parents reported high expectations for their children despite low levels of personal educational attainment. However, these high expectations were buffered by a reported unfamiliarity with college requirements and an expressed concern about college affordability and limited awareness of financial aid opportunities. Limitations and suggestions for future research and intervention are discussed.     

THE POSSIBILITY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN AN INSTRUMENTALIST AGE

In our increasingly instrumentalist culture, debates over the privatization of schooling may be beside the point. Whether we hatch some new plan for chartering or funding schools, or retain the traditional model of government‐run schools, the ongoing instrumentalization of education threatens the very possibility of public education. Indeed, in the culture of performativity, not only the public school but public life itself is hollowed out and debased. Qualities are recast as quantities, judgments replaced by rubrics, teaching and learning turned into exchange values. Schools should be central to public life: key locations for the regeneration of values, the cultivation of judgment, and the creation of the conditions for positive freedom. In this article Chris Higgins, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, goes beyond typical treatments of the schools as equalizer of individual opportunity to explore three aspects of educational publicity: the school as an object of communal concern, schooling as preparation for public life, and the classroom as public space.     

Visions of value: Leading the development of a view of the University Library in the 21st century

Over the course of 2018 the University of Sheffield Library conducted a series of interviews and workshops with stakeholders as part of a strategic project to reflect on the value of the university library in the 21st century. Using a mixed methodology, participants were asked to reflect upon the future Higher Education (HE) environment for the university and, for academic participants, their discipline. In this context participants were also asked to reflect upon the future value of the University Library in a series of questions designed to elicit value statements using a tool which the project group have called the ‘Wheel of Value’. The resulting reflections upon the future environment have been grouped into four categories reflecting the drivers for change; Digitalisation, Student Experience, Diversification and Collaboration recognizing that there is considerable overlap and interconnection between these. The reflections on the future value of the library are presented by Wheel of Value higher order categorization. This approach proved useful in eliciting responses from participants in the face of recognized difficulty in getting beyond current views of the library and the approach is recommended to other universities looking to carry out a similar project. The results of this research will be used to inform the development of a view of the library for the purpose of engaging with our university community and key partners.