Examining the Dual Purpose Use of Student Learning Objectives for Classroom Assessment and Teacher Evaluation

The process of setting and evaluating student learning objectives (SLOs) has become increasingly popular as an example where classroom assessment is intended to fulfill the dual purpose use of informing instruction and holding teachers accountable. A concern is that the high‐stakes purpose may lead to distortions in the inferences about students and teachers that SLOs can support. This concern is explored in the present study by contrasting student SLO scores in a large urban school district to performance on a common objective external criterion. This external criterion is used to evaluate the extent to which student growth scores appear to be inflated. Using 2 years of data, growth comparisons are also made at the teacher level for teachers who submit SLOs and have students that take the state‐administered large‐scale assessment. Although they do show similar relationships with demographic covariates and have the same degree of stability across years, the two different measures of growth are weakly correlated.     

Healthism and Physical Education

Health has become a symbolic category of considerable importance, expressing a range of notions relating to well‐being, consumption and normality. A particular view of health as corporeal and individualistic has become pervasive within the new health consciousness, and school physical education represents one site among many where the ideology of healthism is produced. This paper draws on a study of an innovative programme in primary schools in Queensland, Australia. It explores how on the one hand the instructional discourse of ‘daily physical education’ varied across a number of sites of meaning production and how on the other hand this instructional discourse was embedded in the regulative discourse of healthism which set limits on the extent to which the people operating at these sites could make their own sense of daily physical education. We argue that a corporeal and individualistic concept of health, in which body shape and fatness play a central role, is being produced through health‐based physical education programmes like daily physical education. These programmes in turn represent an important site of the production of an individualistic and internalised mode of corporeal control.     

Americans ‘support’ the idea of tuition-free college: an exploration of sentiment and political identity signals otherwise

In January 2015, President Obama captured headlines in the US by announcing America’s College Promise (ACP), a policy that would reverse four decades of privatisation in higher education by making community colleges ‘tuition-free’. This research explores the conversation that unfolded across the Facebook pages of various media sources. Key phrases associated with sentiments and communication styles are uncovered using a Bag of Words (BoW) technique. Next, guided by political identity theory, the researchers employ logistic regression to explore variable effects (e.g. source, gender, race, age and political leaning) on communicating: (1) Against ACP, (2) in a Civil manner, and (3) Against/Civil/On-Topic. BoW models suggest those against the policy utilise anti-free-ride, privatisation rhetoric, whereas those using uncivil language attack commentators and groups who counter personally-held political beliefs – while also introducing non-sequiturs from other policies (e.g. healthcare and immigration). The combined communication styles unlocked tokens not found in larger sentiments, such as concerns over student loan debt. Logistic regression illustrates that, depending on sentiment or communication style explored, political identities and memberships associated with source and political alignment significantly affected likelihoods of communicating in the conversation. These findings are linked back to political identity theory.     

Different perspectives: Spatial ability influences where individuals look on a timed spatial test

Learning in anatomy can be both spatially and visually complex. Pedagogical investigations have begun exploration as to how spatial ability may mitigate learning. Emerging hypotheses suggests individuals with higher spatial reasoning may attend to images differently than those who are lacking. To elucidate attentional patterns associated with different spatial ability, eye movements were measured in individuals completing a timed electronic mental rotation test (EMRT). The EMRT was based on the line drawings of Shepherd and Metzler. Individuals deduced whether image pairs were rotations (same) or mirror images (different). It was hypothesized that individuals with high spatial ability (HSA) would demonstrate shorter average fixation durations during problem solving and attend to different features of the EMRT than low spatial ability (LSA) counterparts. Moreover, question response accuracy would be associated with fewer fixations and shorter average response times, regardless of spatial reasoning ability. Average fixation duration in the HSA group was shorter than LSA (F(1,8) = 7.99; P = 0.022). Importantly, HSA and LSA individuals looked to different regions of the EMRT images (Fisher Exact Test: 12.47; P = 0.018); attending to the same locations only 34% of the time. Correctly answered questions were characterized by fewer fixations per question (F(1, 8) = 18.12; P = 0.003) and shorter average response times (F(1, 8) = 23.89; P = 0.001). The results indicate that spatial ability may influence visual attention to salient areas of images and this may be key to problem solving processes for low spatial individuals. Anat Sci Educ 10: 224–234. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.     

Engineering Study Abroad?—"It's Like Expecting Carl Lewis to Run Backwards Without Any Training!”

This article deals with the experiences of European engineering students who, as part of their degree scheme, have left their country of origin to study abroad for periods of between 2 months and 2 years. In the light of these experiences, we shall consider the sort of linguistic and cultural preparation which is required to prepare these students to cope with the cultural differences in their new study environments and to benefit from their international sojourn more fully in the long term.     

Effects of locus of a brief stimulus in a second-order schedule with pigeons

On the completion by pigeons of four equal fixed intervals on one key, a light on a second key signaled that one peck on that key would be followed by food. In condition A, a brief stimulus of a further color was produced on the first key by the pecks that ended the first three (but not the fourth) fixed intervals. In condition B, no brief stimuli occurred at the end of the first three fixed intervals (tandem schedule). In condition C, the unpaired brief stimulus was presented on the second key after the pecks on the first key that ended the first three fixed intervals. An ABACA reversal design was used. Postreinforcement pauses were longer in condition B (tandem) than in condition A, an effect similar to that reported in similar conventional one-key second-order schedules. Postreinforcement pauses in condition C, with the brief stimulus on the second key, were also longer than in condition A, with the brief stimulus on the first key, although similar pauses were observed after the brief stimuli in both conditions. The locus of the brief stimulus appears to affect the control it exerts over behavior in a second-order schedule.     

Myth of the Inferior Status of Vocational Education: The Case of Hong Kong

Abstract

In this article, factors contributing to the poor perceptions and inferior status of vocational education in Hong Kong are discussed. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is employed as the methodology in examining the discursive construction of vocational education in the policy context. A total of five policy documents published between 1970 and 2015 are included. Our findings show that the socioeconomic transformation of Hong Kong in recent decades, massification of higher education, and cultural factors such as parental expectations are pertinent to the stigmatization observed in vocational education. This article discusses the implications from the findings and concludes with possible solutions for the future development of vocational education in Hong Kong under the novel vocational and professional education and training (VPET) initiative launched by the government.     

From the field of play to the laboratory: Recreating the demands of competition with augmented reality simulated sport

ABSTRACT

Biomechanical analysis has typically been confined to a laboratory setting. While attempts have been made to take laboratory testing into the field, this study was designed to assess whether augmented reality (AR) could be used to bring the field into the laboratory. This study aimed to measure knee load in volleyball players through a jump task incorporating AR while maintaining the perception-action couplings by replicating the visual features of a volleyball court. Twelve male volleyball athletes completed four tasks: drop landing, hop jump, spike jump, and spike jump while wearing AR smart glasses. Biomechanical variables included patellar tendon force, knee moment and kinematics of the ankle, knee, hip, pelvis and thorax. The drop landing showed differences in patellar tendon force and knee moment when compared to the other conditions. The hop jump did not present differences in kinetics when compared to the spike conditions, instead of displaying the greatest kinematic differences. As a measure of patellar tendon loading the AR condition showed a close approximation to the spike jump, with no differences present when comparing landing forces and mechanics. Thus, AR may be used in a clinical assessment to better replicate information from the competitive environment.