The Use and Misuse of Standardized Testing: A Whiteheadian Point of View

First an overview is given about the actual national and international situation concerning standardized testing. Then two major reasons are presented why accountability systems based on standardized testing have become so widespread: (a) the missing validity and reliability of teachers’ assessment of students’ achievement, and (b) the important role standardized testing plays for out-put management in educational systems.On the basis of these considerations Alfred North Whitehead’s critical remarks on external standardized testing are presented. Whitehead’s main point is that external standardized testing limits the freedom of teachers to adapt to the complex, situation specific circumstances in order to obtain a maximum of the creative learning process for students who are conceived as specialists. Instead external testings lead to “teaching to the test.” As a consequence, the attitude of creative, adventurous exploration is undermined and substituted by simple pattern recognition, narrow visions, and even boredom. Finally, the question is raised whether there is any possibility of developing a measurement tool which on the one side meets scientific test criteria, and on the other side is still flexible enough to do justice to needs of individual schools – which according to Whitehead are the essential educational unit – and not vice versa, as it is the case at present with external standardized testing. That such a flexible approach to evaluation is possible is demonstrated by the presentation of the basic ideas of the MSS (Module Approach to Self-Evaluation of School Development Projects) which has been developed and examined in ten schools by the author and his collaborators.     

One size fits all?: Towards a differentiated regional innovation policy approach

Innovation has moved to the foreground in regional policy in the last decade. Concrete policies were shaped by “best practice models” derived from high-tech areas and well performing regions. These are often applied in a similar way across many types of regions. Here an attempt is made to show that there is no “ideal model” for innovation policy as innovation activities differ strongly between central, peripheral and old industrial areas. In this paper we analyse different types of regions with respect to their preconditions for innovation, networking and innovation barriers. Based on this classification different policy options and strategies are developed.     

Light's retention scale: Does it have content validity?

The content validity of the Light's Retention Scale (LRS) was examined by assessing the use of selected retention criteria from the scale. Results indicated that several criteria were not typically considered in retention decisions and the remaining criteria varied widely in their use. Suggestions for limitations on use of the LRS were included.     

A common error term regulates acquisition but not extinction of causal judgments in people

In three experiments, we used the allergist task to examine the role of error correction mechanisms in the acquisition and extinction of causal judgments in people. Consistent with existing human and animal studies, acquisition of causal judgments was influenced by the discrepancy between the allergenic outcome and that predicted by all of the cues present on a trial (the "common error" term). However, in the present experiments, we failed to detect any evidence for the use of a common error term in extinction learning: Judgments of the allergenic properties of a cue were unaffected by the predictive value of the other cues present on a trial. This asymmetry in the use of a common error term in acquisition and extinction learning is inconsistent with previous animal studies and also with most models of associative learning. However, approaches that allow learning to be specific to a particular arrangement of elemental cues (context specific and state based) offer some explanation of the observed asymmetry.     

Parental self-confidence, parenting styles, and corporal punishment in families of ADHD children in Iran

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the relationship between parental self-confidence, warmth, and involvement, and corporal punishment in families of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHOD: The diagnosis of ADHD was established through clinical interviews with the parents, children, and teachers, according the criteria in DSM-IV-TR. This diagnosis was also established by having the parents complete the Conners' Parent Rating Scale, and the teachers complete the Conners' Teacher Rating Scale. Two groups of Iranian parents, one group with children who have ADHD (N=130) and a control group (N=120), completed questionnaires measuring parental self-confidence and parenting styles. RESULTS: Parents of children with ADHD were found to have lower self-confidence and less warmth and involvement with their children, and used corporal punishment significantly more than the parents of control children. CONCLUSIONS: The study provides strong evidence that children with ADHD are at considerable risk of abuse by their parents. Rather than focusing only on the child's ADHD, treatment may also need to address the parents' functioning.     

Untangling the effects of shared book reading: Multiple factors and their associations with preschool literacy outcomes

Evidence strongly suggests that shared book reading at home and in preschool is important for young children's development of the foundational skills required for the eventual mastery of decoding and comprehension. Yet the nuances of how learning from book reading might vary across these contexts and with children's skills are not well understood. One hundred and thirty children participating in a longitudinal investigation of literacy development were videotaped reading a storybook with a parent. Children were also videotaped in their 33 preschool classrooms during the instructional book-reading portion of the day. Readings were coded for adult and child contextualized and decontextualized language relating to both decoding and meaning-making skills, and relations between this talk and emergent literacy outcomes were analyzed. Results demonstrate that parents and teachers overwhelmingly focus their book-related talk on meaning-related rather than code-related information, and that the relations between outcomes and talk depend in part on children's initial levels of vocabulary skills. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Concurrent validity of the test of nonverbal intelligence with learning disabled children

Results of the TONI, WISC-R, and WRAT were compared for a sample of 66 learning disabled children: 51 males (32 white, 19 black) and 15 females (9 white, 6 black) whose mean age was 9–5 (SD = 1–10). The mean score of the TONI was significantly different from the Performance IQ. Nonsignificant differences were found between the TONI and Full Scale IQ and between the TONI and Verbal IQ. Correlation coefficients between the TONI and WISC-R ranged from a low of .35 for the Verbal IQ to .44 for both the Full Scale and Performance IQs. The correlation coefficients between the TONI and standard scores of the WRAT were .38, .27, and .23, for Reading, Spelling, and Arithmetic, respectively. Implications of these findings are discussed.