Getting assessment right at the classroom level: using formative assessment for decision making

Current high-stakes accountability mandates emphasize data use for school improvement. However, teachers often lack training for effective data use, and data is often too far removed from students to actually influence instructional practice. This qualitative case study was designed to gain a better understanding of a district-wide, teacher-centered approach to data use. Findings suggest that when data is used to “inform” instruction rather than “evaluate” instruction, teachers begin to practice reflective teaching. A common language emerged across grade levels facilitating a collaborative approach to data use. Using the theoretical framework of Self-Determination Theory, we propose a data informed instructional theoretical model that stakeholders in K-12 education systems can use to enhance instruction and learning at the classroom level. This teacher-centered model is of particular importance as a framework to build collective capacity by meeting psychological needs of teachers of autonomy, competence, and relatedness.     

Evidence‐Based Teaching in Higher Education: Application to Counselor Education

The authors examined best practices in university‐level teaching, as premised on the evidence‐based teaching (EBT) literature found in fields external to counselor education. Findings were reported in relation to 3 areas: developing an effective learning environment, structuring intentional learning experiences, and assessing teaching effectiveness. Implications regarding the training of doctoral‐level counselor educators using EBT practices are discussed.     

International Media

AMERICA'S OTHER VOICE: THE STORY OF RADIO FREE EUROPE AND RADIO LIBERTY by Sig Mickelson (New York: Praeger, 1983—price not given).

PRESS CONTROL AROUND THE WORLD edited by Jane Leftwich Curry and Joan R. Dassin (New York: Praeger, 1982—price not given).

METHODS FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION RESEARCH edited by William B. Gudykunst and Young Yun Kim (Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications 1984—S28.00/$14.00).

A STUDY OF FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR THE VOICE OF AMERICA IN THE CHANGING WORLD OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING by John E. Ward, et al. (Research Program on Communications Policy, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139—$10.00, paper).     

Utility value interventions in a college biology lab: The impact on motivation

Science writing, such as lab reports, allows students to form a meaningful understanding of scientific concepts. However, students often view scientific writing as unimportant and utilize surface level approaches when completing writing assignments. The current study implemented three experimental interventions (directly-communicated, self-generated, and hybrid) aligned with prior literature and designed to improve the utility value of lab reports in college settings. Participants (n = 1,002) were recruited from 43 lab sections of an introductory biology course at a large southeastern university. Measures of subjective task value (utility value, attainment value, cost, and intrinsic value) were collected pre-, mid-, and post-intervention. The self-generated and hybrid groups exhibited higher self-reported utility value by posttest compared to the control group. Requiring students to generate their own utility value toward a task, followed by a written reflection, increases students' maintained and situational interest for biology laboratory reports.     

A Liberal Arts Education: Global Trends and Challenges

The debate about the effectiveness of the liberal arts curriculum is centuries old, but recent financial and social pressures have placed the survival of the liberal arts in the United States at even greater risk. Using Kimball's (1995) notion of the oratorical and philosophical traditions of liberal education, this article first identifies the critical importance of balancing breadth and depth in the curriculum before honing in on breadth as being in particular danger in the current climate. After analyzing the major threats to breadth in American higher education, the article looks overseas to find a new case for the value of breadth in the curriculum. It focuses on Hong Kong's university system, where a large-scale, multiyear project is underway to graft a fourth year of general education onto a three-year model of discipline- or profession-specific training. The resulting contrast between American institutions discarding curricular breadth while foreign universities rediscover it is telling. This topic has particular relevance for Christian colleges and universities as they seek the holistic development of their students.     

Learning Multi‐unit Number Concepts and Understanding Decimal Place Value

Research indicates that many errors in secondary school mathematics can be attributed to lack of understanding of decimal place value. Recently it has been suggested that this arises from an underlying weakness in integer place value concepts and perception of multidigit numbers in unitary terms rather than base ten, multi‐unit structures. Development of place value and multidigit number concepts was examined in individual interviews with 262 primary school pupils, aged between 7 and 12 years, using subjects’ concrete representations of written numerals and associated verbal explanations. Almost all the children had some understanding of integer place value; most older children had multi‐unit concepts of three‐ or four‐digit numbers; but two‐digit numbers, especially values of 20 or less, were frequently perceived in terms of units by all age groups. This was particularly common for the value ten where 55% of subjects displayed unitary concepts. Implications for understanding and teaching decimal place value are discussed.     

Phantom Conflict: Lippmann,Dewey, and the Fate of the Public in Modern Society

Contrary to the prevailing view in media and cultural studies, philosopher John Dewey and journalist Walter Lippmann did not represent different schools of thought. They were not adversaries in a great public debate about the fate of the public in modern democracies in the 1920s. Rather, their exchange about the “phantom” public was reframed as a conflict in the early 1980s, a reframing which has achieved broad interdisciplinary acceptance even though its rests on a casual rhetorical trope, not historical documentation. The reframing provides a salutary but inaccurate origin story for American media and cultural studies, illustrates the hazards of relying on secondary interpretations of historical sources, and deflects attention away from realistic assessment of the problems confronting democracy today. Dismantling this disciplinary folklore is essential to the integrity of the emerging “new history” of media and communication.     

A preliminary analysis of the misidentifications of nine American vowels

The first step in the investigation of the affective power of dramatic performances is the identification of those ways in which performances, either of the same or of different plays, differ from one another. Various studies have suggested that relatively few factors or dimensions account for the major portion of the variance among concepts. Using the general format of the semantic differential, the author has used audience reactions to dialogue, plot, acting, scenery, costumes, and lighting of filmed dramatic performances to identify paired adjective scales which define factors relevant to dramatic performances.