Steps Toward More Effective Implementation of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing

The goal of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing is to improve testing practices, but their impact on practice appears spotty. Self-regulation clearly fails in some instances. The establishment of an external agency to oversee testing practices and adherence to the Standards would face substantial hurdles, and the ambiguity of many of the Standards would hobble such an organization if one were created. Many of the Standards are general statements of principle, and past controversies make clear that we in the field often disagree about the reasons for them, their applicability to specific cases, and their practical meaning in specific contexts. This paper argues that the field should follow two approaches to lessen this ambiguity. First, using journals, conferences, and other vehicles, we should foster more frequent and more protracted debate about the practical meaning of key Standards, such as 13.6 and 13.7, which mandate that a decision that will have a "major impact" on a student should not be based on a single score. Second, future revisions of the Standards should use concrete examples of testing practices to clarify the meaning of the Standards, much as the legal system uses case law to clarify the meaning of the general principles embodied in statutes .     

RESEARCH SECTION: Examining the nature and perceived causes of indiscipline in Zimbabwean secondary schools

The problem of student indiscipline is an issue of concern for teachers and parents around the world. Teachers need to maintain student discipline and for them to do so it is important that they also understand the nature of discipline problems. This study, by Lawrence Kofi Ametepee, who is studying for a PhD in special education, Morgan Chitiyo, board certified behaviour analyst and Assistant Professor of Special Education, both at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA, and Susan Abu, who is currently a graduate student in the Department of Women's Studies at Texas Women's University, was designed to examine the nature and perceived causes of student indiscipline in Zimbabwean secondary schools. The authors anticipate that such an examination will promote teachers’, parents’ and policy makers’ understanding of student indiscipline, which will, in turn, enhance disciplinary policies and practices, making schools safer for all students and more effective in their role as educational and socialising agents.     

Investigation of Poor Academic Achievement in Children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a neurogenetic developmental disorder that presents with progressive muscular weakness. It is caused by a mutation in a gene that results in the absence of specific products that normally localize to muscle cells and the central nervous system (CNS). The majority of affected individuals have IQs within the normal range, generally with lower verbal than performance IQ scores. Prior work has demonstrated selective deficits on tests of verbal span and immediate memory. For the current study, 26 boys with DMD (and normal intellectual function) and their unaffected siblings were evaluated. Paired comparisons demonstrated that the children with DMD had significantly poorer academic achievement scores than their siblings, even though their vocabulary levels and home and educational environments were comparable. Children with DMD also had more behavioral concerns, physical disabilities, and poorer verbal memory spans. Linear regression indicated that behavioral concerns, executive function, and physical disability did not contribute substantially to academic performance, whereas performance on verbal span did. DMD presents with a selective developmental aberration in verbal span that has wide‐ranging consequences on learning skills.     

Assessing School Readiness: Validity and Bias in Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers' Ratings

As a part of efforts to evaluate and monitor the increasing public investment in early childhood education, teachers are being asked to assess children's school readiness. In this study, preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers rated children's skills in three areas (kindergarten readiness, academic skills, and communication skills), and these ratings were compared with direct assessments of the children's skills. Ratings by both groups of teachers tended to be more highly related to basic skills, such as counting and number naming, than to abilities such as solving applied problems and using expressive and receptive vocabulary. Preschool teachers' ratings had a lower association with children's observed skills and abilities than kindergarten teachers' ratings. Ratings of children attending Head Start were systematically inflated, but this relationship was mediated to a significant extent by the teachers' levels of education. More educated teachers rated children in a manner consistent with the children's directly assessed skills. Implications of these findings for informing future efforts to assess school readiness by using teacher ratings are discussed.     

对我国高校体育发展现状的调查

采用搜集文献资料、访谈、问卷等方法 ,对我国高校体育工作现状进行调查。研究表明 :各高校体育课的授课形式有所不同 ,多数高校进行大胆改革 ;对体育理论课重视程度不够 ;体育课开设项目相对集中 ,受学生欢迎的一些项目不少学校没有开展 ;课外体育活动丰富多彩 ;场地、器材相对短缺。     

我国西南诸省(区)农村学校体育现状调研

就西南诸省 (区 ) (广西、四川、贵州 )乡镇以下中、小学的体育教学、课余体育、影响农村学校体育发展的因素等问题进行了调查 ,发现西南诸省 (区 )农村学校体育仍然处于明显的落后状态。观念落后、场地、器材和专业及兼职师资缺乏、无适用教学大纲和教材是制约其发展的主要因素 ,据此提出了发展对策建议。     

电动跑台对提高竞走运动员步频的研究

采用竞走运动员无氧阈值速度的测定与应用方法 ,分别对运动员进行 3个阶段逐级提高速度的跑台竞走实验 ,经过统计学处理和实际比赛的对比 ,结果表明 :利用电动跑台进行辅助训练 ,可以加快发展竞走运动员的动作速率 ,有效提高竞走运动员的步频 ,创造优异成绩。