An assessment arms race and its fallout: high-stakes grading and the case for slow scholarship

This research questions the impact of assessment on university teaching and learning in circumstances where all student work is graded. Sixty-two students and lecturers were interviewed to explore their experiences of assessment at an institution that had adopted a modular course structure and largely unregulated numbers of internal assessments. Lecturers rewarded student work with grades and controlled study behaviour with assessment. In some situations it was possible to experience hundreds of graded assessments in an academic year. Students were single-minded when it came to grades and would not work without them. These conditions contributed to competition for student attention and a grading arms race between academics and subjects. In this context, the spaces for achieving certain educational objectives, such as fostering self-motivated learners, were marginalised. Both students and lecturers were unsatisfied with this situation, but neither group could envisage radical change. Students were generally happy to accumulate small marks, while being irritated and stressed by frequent grading. Lecturers were aware of better practices but felt trapped by circumstances. The idea of slow scholarship is introduced to encourage a re-think of such assessment practices, support a positive shift in assessment culture and contribute to the theories of assessment.     

Incorporating students’ voices in the ‘Lesson Study’ as a teacher-training and improvement strategy for inclusion / La incorporación de la voz del alumnado a la ‘Lesson Study’ como estrategia de formación docente y mejora para la inclusión

An experience of collaborative action research to improve teaching practices from an inclusive perspective is discussed. The aim of the project is to promote teaching practices for compulsory secondary education teachers that facilitate all students’ learning and participation. We have used two strategies as catalysts of change. The first is student participation and the second is teacher collaboration in developing what is called the Lesson Study. Different phases in the action research are discussed, as are the dynamics used. The didactic experience focuses particularly on student participation. The results show the potential of the planning process to help student voices to be heard and taken into account as a way to improve teaching practice and reduce marginalization. Finally, we examine some lessons learned, including conditions and barriers that may limit these processes, as well as challenges.     

The relationship between civic attitudes and voting intention: an analysis of vocational upper secondary schools in England and Singapore

From 2009 to 2011, a team from the Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies carried out a mixed-methods study of young people in England and Singapore. With regard to civic attitudes, the study showed that there was a greater sense of political self-efficacy and collective (school) efficacy in Singapore than in England. In addition, the group in Singapore scored higher on future voting relative to the group in England. Further, while both political self-efficacy and collective (school) efficacy were correlated with future voting in England, only the latter was correlated in the case of Singapore. For some, the results may seem counter-intuitive. The article reflects on these results, particularly those relating to democratic outcomes.     

Quasi-stiffness of the knee joint in flexion and extension during the golf swing

Biomechanical understanding of the knee joint during a golf swing is essential to improve performance and prevent injury. In this study, we quantified the flexion/extension angle and moment as the primary knee movement, and evaluated quasi-stiffness represented by moment–angle coupling in the knee joint. Eighteen skilled and 23 unskilled golfers participated in this study. Six infrared cameras and two force platforms were used to record a swing motion. The anatomical angle and moment were calculated from kinematic and kinetic models, and quasi-stiffness of the knee joint was determined as an instantaneous slope of moment–angle curves. The lead knee of the skilled group had decreased resistance duration compared with the unskilled group (P < 0.05), and the resistance duration of the lead knee was lower than that of the trail knee in the skilled group (P < 0.01). The lead knee of the skilled golfers had greater flexible excursion duration than the trail knee of the skilled golfers, and of both the lead and trail knees of the unskilled golfers. These results provide critical information for preventing knee injuries during a golf swing and developing rehabilitation strategies following surgery.     

Playing with Our Friends and Making Money: Real Madrid FC’s Economic Model and the Impact of International Friendly Matches, 1955–1963

This paper analyzes how Real Madrid Football Club took advantage of the enormous international prestige that they gained thanks to their victories in the first five editions of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (between 1956 and 1960) to arrange a large number of international friendly matches that generated great income. Real Madrid created a new strategy by means of friendly matches and international tours that favoured an economic model centred on signing the best players of the day, as a way to attract fans to their stadium and to achieve new victories. Having access to the documentation of the Real Madrid archive has allowed the author to rely on primary sources which support these arguments, sources that hitherto had not been used. In the same way, this research demonstrates the important economic benefits that this activity brought to the Franco dictatorship.     

Investigating the double-deficit hypothesis of developmental dyslexia in an orthography of intermediate depth

The present study aimed to investigate the double-deficit hypothesis (DDH) in an orthography of intermediate depth. Eighty-five European Portuguese-speaking children with developmental dyslexia, aged 7 to 12, were tested on measures of phonological awareness (PA), naming speed (NS), reading, and spelling. The results indicated that PA and NS were not significantly correlated, and that NS predicts reading fluency (but not reading accuracy and spelling) beyond what is accounted for by PA. Although the majority of the children with developmental dyslexia have double deficit (62.4%), some children have a single phonological deficit (24.7%) or a single NS deficit (8.2%). Children with a double deficit were not more impaired in reading fluency, reading accuracy, and spelling than both single-deficit subtypes. In conclusion, the findings of the present study are partially consistent with the DDH and provide evidence for the multifactorial model of developmental dyslexia. Implications of the DDH for an orthography of intermediate depth are emphasized.

     

Towards an understanding of technical change in semi-industrialized countries

Contrary to canventional wisdom, semi-industrialized countries engage, to an appreciable extent, in R&D activities leading to technical change. Much of their technical change activity consists of adaptation of foreign technology to local inputs and market preferences, and is carried out in response to contraints and distortions prevailing in their economies. Moreover, in this context, limited consideration is given to cost reduction, since the main objective is to manufacture under protection and technical change becomes a complementary response to the productive effort.A key factor in the ability to engage in such technical change activities is the availability of technically competent manpower, including scientists, engineers and technicians. At the same time, previous investment in the formation of such technical skills may result in an “excessive” supply of skilled labor, which , coupled with import constraints, will induce eexcessive adaptation of machinery and equipment and may deter from the importaion of new technology embodied in such equipment. Conversely, a pronounced scarcity of technicl skills may impade the adaptation of technology and result in excessive importantion of machinery and limit local efforts of modification, adaptation, etc.Because of the eay technical change is generated, it does not necessarily follow that it is all cases beneficial to the national economies of the countries in which it takes place. However, proper cost benefit accounting of the social returns to technical change activities is complicated by the intractable nature of many of the indirect and secondary effects, like learning from the R&D, or the impact of adaptation to domestic inputs in the development of local suppliers, etc. Also, th interdependencies between technical change and production and between various technical change activities are little understood.conventionall economic theory has contributed little to the understanding of the technical development process. The analysis of technical change in terms of the market failure metaphor, while providing useful insights, is also not very as far as understanding the problem of not very helpful as far as understanding the problem of technical change in semi-industrialized countries is concerned, since the roles of uncertainty and externalities in that situation are quite different from those foreseen in the market failure analysis for industrializerd countries. Special attention should be given to the possible application of the metaphor in trying to improve our understanding of the problems arising in the use of technical information and not only its creation. This would be particularly helpful in connection with the technical development problems of small enterprises not enjoying the benefits of the devesion of labor which are possible in larger firms.