Students’ perceptions of undertaking workplace tasks within a foundation degree – health and social care

Foundation degrees (FDs) involve the fusion of academic and vocational paths in higher education (HE) qualifications; the challenge for academics and employers is the credible assessment of the student’s workplace learning. Focusing to the workplace enables participants to learn from their daily routines encountered at work. The challenge is to help them demonstrate learning from experience within the workplace, by developing their ability to think at a higher level. A vital aspect of using workplace learning in partnership with employers/sector skills councils is that the learning is valid to the role. In response, the programme development group, which was composed of academics and employers, felt that workplace tasks (WPTs) would allow students to demonstrate role development through experiential learning at work. Therefore, this article uses a pilot case study (n = 16), using a focus group methodology, to discuss the assessment of the WPTs within a FD and the students’ perception towards this form of assessment. Findings show that participants value WPTs, they motivate participants to learn and improve their self‐esteem, however, some groups need specialist skills training where workplace competence is required.     

The Dependence of Growth‐Model Results on Proficiency Cut Scores

States participating in the Growth Model Pilot Program reference individual student growth against “proficiency” cut scores that conform with the original No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Although achievement results from conventional NCLB models are also cut‐score dependent, the functional relationships between cut‐score location and growth results are more complex and are not currently well described. We apply cut‐score scenarios to longitudinal data to demonstrate the dependence of state‐ and school‐level growth results on cut‐score choice. This dependence is examined along three dimensions: 1) rigor, as states set cut scores largely at their discretion, 2) across‐grade articulation, as the rigor of proficiency standards may vary across grades, and 3) the time horizon chosen for growth to proficiency. Results show that the selection of plausible alternative cut scores within a growth model can change the percentage of students “on track to proficiency” by more than 20 percentage points and reverse accountability decisions for more than 40% of schools. We contribute a framework for predicting these dependencies, and we argue that the cut‐score dependence of large‐scale growth statistics must be made transparent, particularly for comparisons of growth results across states.     

Partially plastic thick-walled tubes

A theory is presented for the partial plastic yielding of thick-walled cylindrical tubes acted upon by any combination of internal pressure, external pressure and end load when the material follows an arbitrary stress-strain law. The solution combines (a) the distortion energy theory of plastic flow and (b) the effects of elastic compressibility of the plastic material.Numerical values for stresses and strains are given for certain special cases of internal pressure in thick-walled open-ended tubes for an idealized stress-strain law, and the results are compared with earlier approximate theories.