Constructivisms and Relativisms: A Shopper‘s Guide

Diverse forms of constructivism can be found in the literature today. They exhibit a commonality regarding certain classical positions that they oppose - a unity in their negative identities - but a sometimes wild multiplicity and incompatibility regarding the positive proposals that they put forward. In particular, some constructivisms propose an epistemological idealism, with a concomitant relativism, while others are explicitly opposed to such positions, and move in multifarious different directions. This is a potentially confusing situation, and has resulted in some critics branding all constructivisms with the charge of relativism, and throwing out the baby with the bath water. In addition, since the epistemological foundations of even non-relativist constructivisms are not as familiar as the classical positions, there is a risk of mis-interpretation of constructivisms and their consequences, even by some who endorse them, not to mention those who criticize. Because I urge that some version of constructivism is an epistemological necessity, this situation strikes me as seriously unfortunate for philosophy, and potentially dangerous for the practice of education.     

A method for transcribing signed and spoken language

Transcribing sign communication used simultaneously with spoken English presents investigators with a unique problem: the singular quality of the bimodal communicative interactions cannot be accurately depicted using accepted conventions for recording either spoken or signed language samples. This article proposes guidelines for transcribing such data. The need for guidelines arose during an earlier study of the language development of a hearing child of deaf parents. To meet the immediate needs of that study, rules and conventions from previous studies were combined with newly generated ones, resulting in the guidelines proposed in this article. The guidelines can be applied to data in which intermodal linguistic influence is suspected.     

The State of NCME: Remembering the Past, Looking to the Future

What are the roots of NCME? What were our initial goals and how well have we attained them? Are we drifting away from our practitioner orientation? What should be our policy on important matters in educational practice and our role in sociopolitical issues in educational measurement?