East Meets West in Assessment Development: Western Technical Assistance to Eastern Needs. Part III. Reform of an Examination System: Shoulder to Shoulder in the Polish SMART Project

This is Part III of a three part series describing the consultancy and training demands that are encountered in technical assistance projects in Central and Eastern Europe. Part I dealt with strategic issues for a successful delivery of "Western Technical Assistance to Eastern Needs." Part II highlighted project management and co-operation aspects in delivering support to the Romanian Assessment and Examination Service. In this part, we address training of Polish subject experts who were preparing to take on responsibility for a decentralized and strongly innovative final exam, the Matura.     

The Dynamics of Opinion Formation in Local Popular Referendums: Why the Dutch Always Say No

There is growing research on voting behavior in referendums.However, the dynamics of opinion formation in popular referendums,referendums initiated by the electorate to approve or rejectdecisions made by representative bodies, has not yet been studied.This is especially unfortunate as voting decisions in popularreferendums differ from those in other referendums in interestingways. Opinion formation can be a very dynamic process in popularreferendums, making the referendum campaign crucial. This paperstudies the dynamics of opinion formation in popular referendumsand relates them to particular characteristics of the campaignsand the issues at hand. Based on the literature, we consideredthe effects of the intensity of the yes and no campaigns, familiaritywith the issue, and partisan cues. Our study uses content analysisdata and data from public opinion surveys dealing with variouspopular referendums held in the Netherlands. The study revealedseveral factors that contributed to the volatility of opinionsin the referendum campaigns: the issue (new and did not fittraditional political schemes), lack of support from societaland community organizations for the position of the local authorities,and low profile campaigns on the part of local authorities.While some of these factors are general and may play a rolein referendums everywhere, some can be considered ‘typicallyDutch’, related to the characteristics of popular referendumsin the Netherlands and the country’s political system.     

Resilience in higher education students: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

The health, wellbeing and employability of university students are key considerations within higher education. In response, interest in student resilience is on the rise. Reviews of contemporary resilience literature highlight both conceptual and methodological weaknesses, issues which hamper attempts to design effective resilience interventions. To inform the design of a student resilience program, to be piloted at three Australian universities, a scoping review of resilience specific to the higher education context was undertaken. Searches of three electronic databases (PsychINFO, CINAHL and ProQuest) were conducted. Seventy-two peer-reviewed articles published between 2007 and 2017 were included in the review. While the review reaffirms the conceptual and methodological issues found in previous resilience research, it provides a useful critique of key issues in relation to university student resilience and interventions to enhance students’ resilience. Recommendations for educators and researchers are provided.     

BE COOL! a digital learning environment to challenge and socially include gifted learners

Educational technology research and development - This paper describes the development of the BE COOL! learning environment that gives all children, gifted and non-gifted, the opportunity to learn...     

The Role of Students’ Personality Characteristics, Self-Perceived Competence and Learning Conceptions in the Acquisition and Development of Social Communicative Competence: A Longitudinal Study

An important purpose of higher social work education is to guide students to acquire and develop social-communicative competencies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role students’ personality characteristics, self-perceived communicative competence and learning conceptions play in the acquisition and development of social-communicative competencies. We designed and tested a hypothetical model on the student-related variables – self-perceived communicative competence, learning conceptions and reported learning activities regarding communication – in relation to performance scores. We were interested in developmental trends in the above mentioned variables. We also wanted to gain insight into the relationships among the variables. The study was set up according to a longitudinal, within-subjects design in order to study intra-individual changes. One-hundred and twenty-three first-year social-work students participated in this study. Many changes were found in students characteristics, reported deployed learning activities and study results during their first academic year. Except for confidence in “showing sympathy”, which was already relatively high at the beginning of the study, all scores on aspects of students’ self-perceived social-communicative competence increased. Assessment scores on comparable communication tests also increased significantly. Extraversion and emotional stability were the only two personality characteristics, which seemed rather stable. Agreeableness decreased while autonomy increased continuously during the first academic year. It seemed to be possible to set up a model, which may serve as a starting point for further research into the development of social-communicative competence.     

A randomized controlled trial of a home-visiting intervention aimed at preventing relationship problems in depressed mothers and their infants

This study examined the effect of a mother–baby intervention on the quality of mother–child interaction, infant–mother attachment security, and infant socioemotional functioning in a group of depressed mothers with infants aged 1–12 months. A randomized controlled trial compared an experimental group ( n = 35) receiving the intervention (8–10 home visits) with a control group ( n = 36) receiving parenting support by telephone. There were assessments pre, post, and follow-up after 6 months. The intervention had positive effects on the quality of mother–infant interaction. Infants in the experimental group had higher scores for attachment security and for one aspect of socioemotional functioning, namely, competence. The intervention proved successful in preventing deterioration of the quality of mother–child interaction.     

A study of the quality of practitioner research in secondary education: impact on teacher and school development

This study provides insight into the quality of practitioner research and the impact of this on the professional development of the individual teacher and the school as a whole. We examined the quality of practitioner research in relation to the goals of the research. We operationalized the quality of the research in terms of the validities outlined by Anderson and Herr. In our study we apply this way of thinking to 11 cases of teacher research in secondary education. We found at least some evidence of outcome validity and catalytic validity for the teachers’ practitioner research. However, evidence of process validity and democratic validity was only found in some of the projects. We conclude that the approach adopted in this study can be more generally used to increase the quality and thereby the impact of practitioner research.