Deciding to provide a 'reader' in examinations for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE): questions about validity and 'inclusion'

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) was designed as an 'inclusive' qualification, access to which has been supported by providing a 'reader' to some candidates during examinations. A candidate reading age criterion of ten years has been employed by the GCSE awarding bodies to determine eligibility for this provision. In this paper, Kevin Woods, a member of the Educational Support and Inclusion Research and Teaching Group in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manchester, examines the rationale and evidence for adopting this criterion and describes an investigation of the reading needs of a cross-sectional sample of 38 GCSE examination candidates in trial examinations. The investigation found a low level of candidate need for a reader, with candidate reading age and self-prediction being unreliable indicators of this need. Kevin Woods highlights the implications for the assessment process used to determine eligibility for a reader in GCSE examinations and pays particular attention to the feasibility and validity of including all students as eligible.     

Collaborative Approaches to the Management of Geospatial Data Collections in Canadian Academic Libraries: A Historical Case Study

The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) is a consortium of the twenty-one university libraries in Ontario, Canada. Since 1967, OCUL member institutions have worked together to share costs and workload through collective purchasing and licensing of information resources and more recently through the establishment of a shared digital infrastructure known as Scholars Portal. Under the auspices of OCUL, Ontario's university map librarians formed the OCUL Map Group in 1973 to seek opportunities to communicate and collaborate to improve the collections and services they offer their users. The opportunities provided by collaboration have ensured a greater capacity to manage evolving collections of geospatial data. The group has served as a community of practice, which has provided educational opportunities and facilitated collaborative problem solving through a listserv, conference calls, and face-to-face meetings. This collegial environment has also led to the completion of a number of projects, which have resulted in the creation of new technical infrastructures and strategies for sharing the workload of data management tasks. This paper discusses the role of collaboration in OCUL projects and offers some suggestions for others considering embarking on collaborations of their own.     

The use of player physical and technical skill match activity profiles to predict position in the Australian Football League draft

This study investigated the extent to which position in the Australian Football League (AFL) national draft is associated with individual game performance metrics. Physical/technical skill performance metrics were collated from all participants in the 2014 national under 18 (U18) championships (18 games) drafted into the AFL (n = 65; 17.8 ± 0.5 y); 232 observations. Players were subdivided into draft position (ranked 1–65) and then draft round (1–4). Here, earlier draft selection (i.e., closer to 1) reflects a more desirable player. Microtechnology and a commercial provider facilitated the quantification of individual game performance metrics (n = 16). Linear mixed models were fitted to data, modelling the extent to which draft position was associated with these metrics. Draft position in the first/second round was negatively associated with “contested possessions” and “contested marks”, respectively. Physical performance metrics were positively associated with draft position in these rounds. Correlations weakened for the third/fourth rounds. Contested possessions/marks were associated with an earlier draft selection. Physical performance metrics were associated with a later draft selection. Recruiters change the type of U18 player they draft as the selection pool reduces. juniors with contested skill appear prioritised.     

Discriminating talent-identified junior Australian football players using a video decision-making task

This study examined if a video decision-making task could discriminate talent-identified junior Australian football players from their non-talent-identified counterparts. Participants were recruited from the 2013 under 18 (U18) West Australian Football League competition and classified into two groups: talent-identified (State U18 Academy representatives; n = 25; 17.8 ± 0.5 years) and non-talent-identified (non-State U18 Academy selection; n = 25; 17.3 ± 0.6 years). Participants completed a video decision-making task consisting of 26 clips sourced from the Australian Football League game-day footage, recording responses on a sheet provided. A score of “1” was given for correct and “0” for incorrect responses, with the participants total score used as the criterion value. One-way analysis of variance tested the main effect of “status” on the task criterion, whilst a bootstrapped receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve assessed the discriminant ability of the task. An area under the curve (AUC) of 1 (100%) represented perfect discrimination. Between-group differences were evident (P < 0.05) and the ROC curve was maximised with a score of 15.5/26 (60%) (AUC = 89.0%), correctly classifying 92% and 76% of the talent-identified and non-talent-identified participants, respectively. Future research should investigate the mechanisms leading to the superior decision-making observed in the talent-identified group.     

Using Activity Theory to explore the management of General Certificate of Education (GCSE) access arrangements

Access arrangements are the way in which awarding bodies for public examinations in England, such as the General Certificate of Secondary Education, make reasonable adjustments for students with special educational needs and disabilities. SENCos have expressed concerns about the onerous nature of managing requirements for access arrangements, both administratively and practically, but there has been little explanation of why an apparently straightforward process proves so challenging. In this study, the development of a whole-school system to improve the administrative and practical management of access arrangements is used to seek to understand how the requirements set (and re-set) annually interact with school systems and processes to render the administration of access arrangements potentially complex, time-consuming and unpredictable. Scotland's flexible, school-led framework of requirements for the management of public examination assessment arrangements is highlighted as potentially more fit-for-purpose for the organisation of statutory reasonable adjustments for educational assessment.     

Communication Forms as Predictors of Issue Knowledge in Presidential Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Assessment

Theory and past research argue for the importance of understanding the effect of various campaign communication forms (e.g., newspapers, television news, radio, debates, candidate advertising, and personal discussions) on levels of issue knowledge (IK). This study used a meta-analytic approach to examine how well these forms predict IK. The aggregate analysis indicates that any of these forms can affect IK but that the different forms are not equally successful. Findings also indicate that the level of campaign interest moderates the effect of reading newspapers and watching television news and that those who watch debates in years with incumbents are less likely to learn. In addition, studies of newspapers are less likely to find significant effects in recent years, even though the issue content of newspapers has increased. The findings also suggest that television news is more likely to influence IK when levels of issue content are greater. These data indicate that measures of media use and IK can systematically influence the study results. Several conclusions are drawn from the research in the hopes of moving toward a theoretical model of communication forms and the attainment of IK.     

The science supervisor and the utilization of curriculum materials

Would the reader identify with a supervisor of K-6 science, a supervisor selecting NSF-sponsored materials, or a university science educator? The author finds differences in the perception of a supervisor's role.