The myth of objective assessment — An analysis in relation to primary education

This article focuses on the recent growth and development of the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England and discusses the issue of ‘quality’ in relation to the diversity of provision on which these developments are based. In particular the article discusses the ways in which cultural constructions of childhood and the theories of child development and learning espoused by stakeholders impact on assessments of ‘quality’.     

The changing nature of assessment in English primary classrooms: Findings from the PACE project 1989–1997

The effective use of evaluation is currently hailed as the ultimate tool in raising standards and ensuring accountability for virtually all areas of life. Nowhere has this been more in evidence than in the area of schooling. This increasing emphasis on target setting and the raising of standards through summative assessment has brought with it major changes to the educative experience for both teachers and their pupils. The PACE Project, which began in 1989, was designed to track these changes as they impacted on a representative sample of teachers and their pupils as they progressed through primary schooling. This article highlights some of the major issues which have emerged from the study and goes on to discuss what implications these might have for future policy-making.     

Long-term trends in home advantage in professional team sports in North America and England (1876 – 2003)

Home advantage is quantitatively defined and calculated for each season since the start of the main professional sports in North America and England. Over 400,000 games are analysed. The leagues represented are the National League (1876?–?2002) and American League (1901?–?2002) for baseball, the National Hockey League (1917?–?2003) for ice hockey, the National Football League (1933?–?2002) for American football, the National Basketball Association (1946?–?2003) for basketball, and the four levels of professional football, formerly called the Football League, in England (1888?–?2003). Problems caused by unbalanced playing schedules are considered. The results are presented graphically to show long-term trends and sudden changes. The highest levels of home advantage for all sports were in their early years of existence. Home advantage in ice hockey, basketball and football in England has declined over the last two decades. In baseball there has been very little change over the last 100 years, with home advantage consistently lower than in other sports. There was a large drop in home advantage in football in England following the 7-year suspension of the league during the Second World War. The trends and changes provide some evidence that travel and familiarity contribute to home advantage, but little in support of crowd effects.     

Sports Involvement across the Life Span: Expansion and Contraction of Sports Activities

Abstract

Self-determination theory (Deci &; Ryan, 1985) suggests that motivational orientation or regulatory styles with respect to various behaviors can be conceptualized along a continuum ranging from low (amotivation) to high (intrinsic motivation) levels of self-determination. This pattern is manifested in the rank order of correlations among these regulatory styles (i.e., adjacent correlations are expected to be higher than those more distant) and is known as a simplex structure. Using responses from the Sport Motivation Scale (Pelletier et al., 1995) obtained from a sample of 857 college students (442 men, 415 women), the present study tested the simplex structure underlying SMS subscales via structural equation modeling. Results confirmed the simplex model structure, indicating that the various motivational constructs are empirically organized from low to high self-determination. The simplex pattern was further found to be invariant across gender. Findings from this study support the construct validity of the SMS and have important implications for studies focusing on the influence of motivational orientation in sport.     

Forty years of struggle against illiteracy: The Zambian case

He has held similar post at the University of Zambia for many years. He has conducted research on adult literacy in both Kenya and Zambia and has published extensively in the field of adult education.     

Mixed deaf-hearing families: maximizing benefits and minimizing risks

This article examines certain dynamics that may occur in families where the parent(s) and one or more children differ in hearing status (i.e., 'mixed deaf-hearing families'). The essay has proved useful in promoting discussion during parenting workshops we have led. Hearing status differences between parents and children can be a cherished aspect of a family's diversity or a stage upon which family conflicts are acted out. We explore dynamics that lead to healthy versus unhealthy management of these hearing differences, especially as they relate to parental confidence, problem attribution, stages of child development, and information management.     

A learned flavor preference persists despite the extinction of conditioned hedonic reactions to the cue flavors

Learned flavor preferences can be strikingly persistent in the face of behavioral extinction. Harris, Shand, Carroll, and Westbrook (2004) suggested that this persistence may be due to flavor preference conditioning’s producing a long-lasting change in the hedonic response to the conditioned stimulus (CS+) flavor. In the present study, the CS+ flavor was presented in simultaneous compound with 16% sucrose, whereas the CS− flavor was presented with 2% sucrose. During subsequent two- and one-bottle tests, the CS+ and CS− flavors were presented in 2% sucrose. Hedonic reactions during training and test were assessed using an analysis of the microstructure of licking behavior. Conditioning resulted in greater consumption of the CS+ than of the CS− that did not extinguish over repeated two- and one-bottle tests. The mean lick cluster size was higher for the CS+ than for the CS− only on the first cycle of tests. Since lick cluster size can be used as an index of stimulus palatability, the present results indicate that although the hedonic reaction to the CSs did change, this was not maintained across repeated tests. Thus, changes in the hedonic response to the conditioned flavors cannot explain the resistance to the extinction of learned flavor preferences.