MULTIPLE CHOICE VERSUS TRUE-FALSE: A COMPARISON OF RELIABILITIES AND CONCURRENT VALIDITIES

The purpose of this study was to compare the reliabilities of true-false (TF) and multiple choice (MC) tests and to determine the concurrent validities of both. Two methods, judgmental and discrimination, were devised for objectively converting MC items to TF form. The TF items generated by the two methods from 70-item MC natural science and social studies tests were incorporated in eight final forms which were differentiated by subject matter, conversion method, and item form order. A sample of 1018 nonurban high school students each responded to one of the eight forms. Examinees tried three TF items for every pair of MC items attempted. The TF tests were significantly less reliable than the MC tests but did tend to measure the same thing as the corresponding MC tests.     

Personal Computers in Laboratory Teaching of Control

This paper reports on the incorporation of personal computers in the laboratory program at UMIST's Control Systems Centre. Laboratory practice is an integral component of all our control course. The laboratory facilities provide a mechanism for testing and verifying theoretical and design approaches. Incorporating computers in all phases of the laboratory program makes possible the use of current techniques in the analysis and design of realistic control systems. The control systems laboratory at UMIST has been developed with the goal of providing real world analysis and design experience in a laboratory setting. A collection of scale model experiments representing the major categories of industrial control problems has been constructed. These working models are coupled with a standard instrumentation interface and analogue and digital computers to implement control strategies. In all cases, great care has been taken to retain realism and allow the student to concentrate on control issues rather than configuration or programming problems. The primary objective of using personal computers in the control laboratory is to provide an on-line link between the student and the laboratory model. This provides direct ‘hands on’ experience of digital control ideas, interactive digital control experimentation and use of the computer as a multi-function virtual instrument. In addition, the computer is used off-line to simulate model performance as various control strategies are tried. At this point in time, each laboratory model station has been equipped with a personal computer containing A/D and D/A converters, hard and floppy disk, and a real-time clock. The computers are networked to provide access to printing and file storage facilities. Originally the software packages were written primarily in BASIC, and ran on BBC computers. These versions are however in the process of being replaced by PC-based packages written in C. Both the original BASIC and the C-successors have been developed to provide interactive, real-time control of the model using a choice of digital control algorithms. Using the keyboard as a control panel, the student can observe model performance, vary controller parameters, choose display characteristics and record parametric and graphical data. Future developments will expand the choice of available control algorithms and enhance the off-line analysis and design tools.     

Democracy,inclusive schooling and the politics of education

Drawing on a variety of social and political theories about the nature and future of democracy, this paper develops athesis about the politics of inclusive education. It concludes with a brief preliminary evaluation of the potential of the UK Labour Government's Education Action Zones policy for the development and governance of inclusive schools.     

The double‐dialectic and lifelong learning

This paper was provoked by Ted Bailey’s article, ‘Analogy, dialectics and lifelong learning’ which appeared in the March–April 2003 edition of this journal. Dr. Bailey argued that students can be enabled to learn the key concepts of the subjects they are studying through the dialectical operation of analogy which makes new knowledge accessible by comparing it to familiar experience. It is the aim of this paper to show that dialectics extend far beyond this particular application, and that indeed they may be said to underpin the very concept of lifelong learning itself. The paper begins by examining the concepts of the dialectic and the double‐dialectic, relating these to the writings of Giambattista Vico. The dialectical interplay of Nature and History is seen to be the foundation of human knowledge. This unitary view is then contrasted with specialism in the categorization of knowledge. The implications for lifelong education are considered, and illustrated through an example of a curriculum project.     

In Byzantium1

During Spring 1997 we experimented with a research method combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to documenting visitor experiences in The Glory of Byzantium, a special exhibition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to using standard demographic and behavior surveys, a small team of researchers and volunteers gathered information, compared experiences, and summarized their observations of people in the exhibition. Each team member conducted about a dozen structured conversations with visitors as they left the exhibition. Subsequently the team met as an informal focus group to describe their experiences. We found that many museum users arrived with relevant experiences and high expectations for this somewhat specialized exhibition; we also found users whose approach to the exhibition was less well‐informed, but whose enthusiasm and trust for the museum experience moved them to attend with satisfaction. We believe that such team approaches to research might well be used as a regular part of museum work as we search for answers to the many elusive questions about museum use.