Web-Based Student Assessment for Program Evaluation

As part of an overall evaluation of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, (GLOBE) program, we designed a Web-based assessment environment to measure students' environmental awareness and data analysis skill. It was expected that students who were identified as high implementers in the GLOBE program would outperform low implementers in their ability to construct environmental inferences and the degree to which they could analyze environmental data. Seven high and middle school classrooms were identified as either high or low GLOBE implementers depending on the amount of atmospheric data they had collected during the year. Within each classroom students were assigned into smaller learning groups of three students per group. A total of 32 groups participated in this study. Analysis of students' responses to the tasks revealed that the students differed in their performance. Overall, the results showed that students in the high implementing classrooms were more likely to construct higher-level environmental inferences than students in the low implementing classes. Contrary to expectations, middle school students were more likely than high school students to solve the data analysis problem correctly. However, upon further analyses, high school students constructed more data graphs and were more skilled in providing correct evidence to support their decision making than were middle school students in GLOBE. This study confirms the viability of using technology-based assessments for measuring students' environmental awareness and data analysis.     

Professional Development for School Library Media Professionals: Elements for Success

The American Association for School Librarians suggests an important mission for school librarians is to ensure personal growth through ongoing exposure to conferences, journal articles, webinars, presentations, and membership in professional organizations. As professional educators, School Librarians should exemplify the vision for being life-long learners. Methods and means to grow in the profession should be evaluated and examined for elements that lead to success in growth and maturity as professionals in school library media. This article investigates the attributes of successful professional development experiences which include learning environment, characteristics of learners, methodologies, and instructional design of staff development workshops.     

An Empirical Investigation Demonstrating the Multidimensional DIF Paradigm: A Cognitive Explanation for DIF

Differential Item Functioning (DIF) is traditionally used to identify different item performance patterns between intact groups, most commonly involving race or sex comparisons. This study advocates expanding the utility of DIF as a step in construct validation. Rather than grouping examinees based on cultural differences, the reference and focal groups are chosen from two extremes along a distinct cognitive dimension that is hypothesized to supplement the dominant latent trait being measured. Specifically, this study investigates DIF between proficient and non-proficient fourth- and seventh-grade writers on open-ended mathematics test items that require students to communicate about mathematics. It is suggested that the occurrence of DIF in this situation actually enhances, rather than detracts from, the construct validity of the test because, according to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), mathematical communication is an important component of mathematical ability, the dominant construct being assessed. However, the presence of DIF influences the validity of inferences that can be made from test scores and suggests that two scores should be reported, one for general mathematical ability and one for mathematical communication. The fact that currently only one test score is reported, a simple composite of scores on multiple-choice and open-ended items, may lead to incorrect decisions being made about examinees.     

Radical Artists & Art Students versus Management & Bureaucracy during the 1970s

This paper is an account of the impact of Conceptual art and art theory upon art students, studio tutors and managers during the 1970s in certain British art schools. The impact on students resulted in a shift away from the making of physical artefacts to the production of writings and magazines. It also problematised ‘the visual’ and encouraged critiques of art and the art education system. Some tutors responsible for art theory courses were dismissed and some students became politicised and attacked those in charge of art schools and polytechnics. Managers disciplined the students and, in some instances, failed and expelled them. William Furlong and Bruce McLean were two London based artists who responded to the ever‐increasing bureaucracy of art colleges by mounting a parodic performance.     

Sending Minnie the Minx Home: Comics and reading choices

This paper reports on aspects of two qualitative studies which focused on children's interests in comics. The earlier study (Millard, 1997) was part of a larger survey of 254 boys' and girls' reading interests, sampled at the point of transition between primary and secondary school. The second study, which forms the main body of this paper, explores the reactions to a home-school comic lending library based in three primary classrooms over a period of seven weeks. Results from both studies are discussed in this paper and the implications for the development of the primary school literacy curriculum explored.     

Do teachers’ wages matter for proficiency? Evidence from a funding reform in Brazil

This paper uses the 1998 reform in the funding of fundamental education in Brazil (FUNDEF) to identify the effect of teachers’ wages on the proficiency of public school pupils. Wages are set by legislation at the local level and this reform established a floor on the share of expenditures on teacher wages out of total revenues in each Brazilian State and Municipality. The evidence using micro-data suggests that increases in relative wages within the public system brought about by the reform had a positive impact on the students’ proficiency.     

Distancing to self‐protect: the perpetuation of inequality in higher education through socio‐relational dis/engagement

This paper explores the social class‐differentiated behaviours of access and traditional‐entry students, based on a three‐year constructivist grounded theory study with 45 undergraduates at an Irish university. The participant groups behaved significantly differently within the socio‐relational realm, engaging in various forms of distancing behaviours motivated by a desire to self‐protect and based on perceived relative social positioning. The paper illustrates some ways in which both disadvantage and privilege are performed at the post‐entry stage in a widening participation context. It is argued that the ‘closure’ behaviours of class‐based groups constrain the building of social capital by working‐class students, thus potentially limiting the ability of widening participation policies in achieving equality goals.