Setting Standards for English Foreign Language Assessment: Methodology,Validation, and a Degree of Arbitrariness

Cut‐scores were set by expert judges on assessments of reading and listening comprehension of English as a foreign language (EFL), using the bookmark standard‐setting method to differentiate proficiency levels defined by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Assessments contained stratified item samples drawn from extensive item pools, calibrated using Rasch models on the basis of examinee responses of a German nationwide assessment of secondary school language performance. The results suggest significant effects of item sampling strategies for the bookmark method on cut‐score recommendations, as well as significant cut‐score judgment revision over cut‐score placement rounds. Results are discussed within a framework of establishing validity evidence supporting cut‐score recommendations using the widely employed bookmark method.     

Computer based readers for intermediate foreign‐language students

The question that we are trying to answer in this article is how can computer technology and the WWW help us in enabling and motivating students to read in a foreign language? The article starts with some general considerations about the nature of foreign language teaching and the role of technology, as well as the research in the field of reading in general vs. computer assisted reading in particular, and is followed by the discussion of two computer based pedagogical readers. The article concludes with some suggestions for the development and design of new computer and on‐line readers for foreign language teaching. In this article, pedagogical readers are defined as authentic texts in a foreign language that are enhanced with interspersed questions, activities and glosses in multimedia format to assist low level students in learning how to read authentic texts and to understand them. This application is different from another very popular use of the WWW, namely as a source of authentic readings for students at more advanced language proficiency levels.Recueils des textes basés sur ordinateurs par les étudiants en langues vivantes. La question à laquelle nous essayons de répondre dans cet article est de savoir comment la technologie de l'ordinateur et le WWW nous aident à motiver les étudiants à la lecture des textes en langue étrangère. L'article débute par des considérations générales sur la nature de l'enseignement des langues étrangéres et le rôle de la technologie, aussi bien sur la recherche dans le champ de la lecture en général par rapport à la lecture assisté par l'ordinateur en particulier. L'article comporte ensuite une discussion sur deux recueils de textes pédagogiques fondés sur ordinateur. En conclusion on trouve des suggestions pour le développement et la conception de nouveaux recueils de textes online pour ordinateur pour l'enseignement des langues étrangères. Les recueils de textes pédagogiques sont définis comme des textes authentiques en langue étrangère renforcés par intervalles par des questions, des activités et des glosses et commentaires pour aider les étudiants de bas niveau à apprendre comment lire des textes authentiques et à les comprendre. Cette application est différente d'autre usage trés populaire du WWW, source de textes authentiques pour les étudiants à un niveau plus avancé.Computer basierte Leseprogramme für beginnende Fremdsprachenstudenten. Dieser Artikel geht der Frage nach, wie uns Computer und moderne Technologie helfen können, Schüler besser zum Lesen, in unserem Falle dem Lesen in einer Fremdsprache, zu befähigen und zu motivieren? Beginnend mit einigen allgemeinen Bemerkungen zum Fremdsprachenerwerb und zur Rolle von Technologie, zur Forschung auf dem Gebiet des Lesens mit und ohne Computerunterstützung, sowie gestützt auf die Diskussion zweier computergestützter pädagogischer Leseprogramme, soll der Artikel einige Anregungen für die Entwicklung und Gestaltung zukünftiger computergestützter Leseprogramme für den Fremdsprachenunterricht geben. Als pädagogische Leseprogramme bezeichnen wir in diesem Artikel fremdsprachige Orginaltexte, die durch eingeschobene Inhaltsfragen, Aktivitäten, Anmerkungen, Bilder und andere multimediale Hilfsmittel adaptiert wurden, um dem in der Fremdsprache noch relativ unerfahrenen Leser zu zeigen, wie man liesst, und um ihm zu helfen, das Gelesene zu verstehen. Diese Anwendung ist zu unterscheiden von einem anderen, sehr verbreitetem Gebrauch des Internets, nämlich als einer blossen Quelle für Originaltexte für fortgeschrittene Fremdsprachenlerner.     

Promoting academic satisfaction and performance: Building academic resilience through coping strategies

The aim of this article is twofold: (a) to validate the psychometric properties of the Academic Resilience Scale (AR‐S) in a Spanish university context; and (b) to test a model where different coping strategies are antecedents of AR, and where academic satisfaction and performance are its consequences. The studies were conducted with 185 (study 1) and 780 (study 2) students. In study 1, the construct validity, reliability, and convergent and divergent validity of the AR‐S were analyzed. The hypothesized model (study 2) was tested using structural equation modeling. The results confirmed the good psychometric properties of the AR‐S in the Spanish context, providing evidence of its validity. Furthermore, the distinctive role of different coping strategies in resilience was confirmed, as well as the relationship between resilience and academic satisfaction. No direct relationship between resilience and performance was found, highlighting the full mediation of satisfaction.     

Auswirkungen einer Intervention auf die Auseinandersetzung und Arbeit mit Bildungsstandards bei Mathematik-Lehrkräften

The introduction of educational standards in Germany forced teachers to change their perspective in order to achieve competence-oriented teaching. The initial representative surveys throughout Germany indicated that a short time after the introduction of the educational standards, teachers in various school forms were still very slow to implement the idea of competence-oriented teaching in their everyday school life. This article presents the effects of a newly developed intervention programme in which mathematics teachers familiarised themselves with educational standards for the first time. The teacher data and the performance data of the pupils of the schools participating in the project are compared in a longitudinal study with the data of schools which were not included in the intervention programme. The results indicate that after the intervention programme has run for one year, mathematics teachers in the project schools are more competence-oriented in their teaching and reflect more intensively on the concept of the educational standards than mathematics teachers in the comparison schools.     

Teachers as mediators: an exploration of situated English teaching

Within the context of lower secondary English teaching in South West England, this study identifies in broad terms the competing goals between which English teachers mediate and the explicit and hidden tensions that result. To understand the interactions of competing goals, teachers' goal‐oriented behaviours are referenced to a set of idealised ‘role types’ based on the dimensions of goals, norms, discourses and practices. It is asserted that competing goals, significant to particular educational circumstances, emanate from various sometimes contradictory local, national and perhaps broader social and cultural influences on practice. Yet the teachers observed moved smoothly between goal‐oriented behaviours in a continuous and comfortable style, easily and without reflecting any tensions between them. Thus, this article elaborates an account of situated English teaching.     

Differential effects of home and preschool learning environments on early language development

The present study is based on longitudinal data from a German early childhood education and care (ECEC) governmental initiative assessing children's grammatical and vocabulary development between 2;6 and 4;0 years (N = 1,331), quality of the home learning environment and quality of the preschool setting. Results showed that the quality of the home learning environment predicted development in grammatical skills, but not in receptive vocabulary at age 4, while the effects of preschool process quality showed similar relative impacts on both language outcomes. Further analyses revealed effects of accumulated advantages of preschool quality for children from medium‐ and high‐quality home learning environments in their vocabulary development. The results are compared with previous findings from the German ECEC context and discussed with respect to implications for policy efforts to improve ECEC quality and ways in which both learning environments act together on children's development.     

Development and challenges of the credit point system in Dutch higher education

Abstract

This article will focus on the credit point system and especially on the Dutch system. In many countries such a system has a long history, but in others it is a relatively new phenomenon. In the first section, the objectives of credit point systems will be introduced. In the second section the emergence and characteristics of the credit point system in the Netherlands will be presented. In the third section, some results of student behaviour in the first year in Higher education will be shown for different groups of students, such as how many credit points on average they earned and how many hours per week on average they studied. The findings demonstrate how empirical results from student behaviour, combined with the norms of the credit point system, can be used to evaluate the accountability of the academic programmes. In the last section, some challenges for the use of credit point systems in the nearby future will be discussed. Recently, one can see a rapid change from the traditional ways of testing to the assessment of competencies of students and student portfolios.     

Teachers’ conceptions of quality and organisational values in higher education: compliance or enhancement?

Teachers are often assumed to have a negative attitude towards quality endeavours of their institutions and to hold defensive organisational values. However, there is little empirical research on this issue. This study focuses on teachers’ conceptions of quality, on their preferred organisational values and on the relationships between the two. A written questionnaire was presented to the teaching staff from 18 departments of universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands (N?=?266). It comprised 18 questions about teachers’ conceptions of quality, representing two quality scales: compliance and accountability and enhancement and improvement. A further 24 questions, related to organisational values, represent two scales that typify flexible organisations, and two that typify control-oriented organisations. The results reveal a neutral score on the compliance and accountability conceptions of quality and on the control-oriented organisational values, and a high score on enhancement and improvement and on the flexibility-oriented values. Both pairs appear to be moderately positively correlated. Despite the need for further qualitative research, it can be concluded that teachers perceive quality first and foremost as enhancement and improvement, rather than as compliance to external standards and accountability. These findings offer interesting perspectives for the further development of an internal quality culture in higher education.     

本科生医学教育课程的国际认证

本文是一篇由世界医学教育联合会(WFME)执委会起草的文件。该文件系统地论述了WFME一项对本科生医学教育机构和课程实施国际认证的政策,重申认证医学教育机构和课程的基本原则。在这一文件中,作者也论述了认证的目的、目标、内容和方法。最后,作者宣布,为适应认证的需要,WFME将出版一本新的卫生专业教育机构全球指南,并开发一个有关认证医学院校和课程的数据库。