The Use of Telidon in Canada

Telidon is the result of the marriage between a computer and a telephone. There are multiple configurations that can be devised with its constituent elements: a TV monitor, a keyboard or keypad; a decoder; a telephone signal, wired or wireless; and a computer.     

Berlin Film Week

From 12 to 16 March 1979 the 15th International Week of Educational and Teaching Films took place at the AV-Centre Berlin (West), a centre for audio-visual media. About 100 visitors from 17 different member count everybody the opportunity to select films according to his particular interests. However, how should a reporter go about trying to give a comprehensive impression of the Film Week? What I did was to talk to as many visitors as possible, compare their remarks and comments, and try to formulate some results.     

Curriculum Reform and the Legitimation of Educational Objectives: the case of the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

Taking the political and scholarly debates about curriculum reform in the Federal Republic of Germany as a case in point, the article develops the notion of ‘compensatory legitimation’ as a theoretical construct for better understanding the political dynamics of making and implementing educational policy under conditions of conflict. Among various strategies of compensatory legitimation, special attention is given to the recourse to legal and constitutional norms, the utilisation of expertise, and the invocation of the discourse of participation.

     

FROM PISA TO EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS: THE IMPACT OF LARGE-SCALE ASSESSMENTS ON SCIENCE EDUCATION IN GERMANY

The German education system does not traditionally rely on standardized testing. However, when the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study revealed an average performance of German students compared to other participating countries, a particular proportion of low-performing students, and remarkable disparities between the federal states, German policy makers decided for a major reform of the education system. A core piece of this reform was the introduction of National Education Standards. For science education, these standards were heavily influenced by the PISA results and its underlying framework. That is, with the standards, a paradigm shift took place from the German notion of Bildung towards the Anglo-American notion of literacy. With the introduction of these standards, a new field of empirical educational research was created: research on models of scientific literacy or competency models as a basis of benchmarking the standards. This article describes the German education system before PISA, summarizes the major findings from PISA, and describes how these findings informed the formulation of the performance standards for science education. It also details the measures undertaken to benchmark these standards. Finally, it provides insight into the issues with developing and benchmarking performance standards and points out future areas of research on evidence-based decision making in educational policy.     

Longitudinal relations between perceived autonomy support and basic need satisfaction in two student cohorts

The relation between autonomy support and basic need satisfaction was investigated by applying a longitudinal design at a time interval of two years, and by comparing two different grade level cohorts of students. Participants comprised 1.225 Norwegian students divided by two subsamples (6th and 8th grade level/8th and 10th grade level). The results showed stationary effects of autonomy support and basic need satisfaction, respectively, from Time 1 to Time 2. There was also evidence of a causal effect from T1 to T2 between autonomy support and basic need satisfaction, and reciprocal causation from basic need satisfaction T1 to autonomy support T2. These effects were grade level and gender specific. The present study provided support for longitudinal relations between autonomy support and basic need satisfaction. Autonomy support and basic need satisfaction are both antecedents to and consequences of themselves, also when measured at long term intervals.     

Policy and evidence: a critical analysis of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check in England

“This paper aims to present a critical analysis of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check (PSC), with special focus on the relationship between the UK Department for Education's policy‐making and the evidence considered in the process of developing and evaluating the PSC. The reports from the in‐house Standards and Testing Agency and from commissioned external organisations with limited remits have been analysed, with emphasis on how the screening check findings have been used in DfE decision‐making. My conclusion is that the department has overestimated both the validity and the reliability of the check: partly because important sources of measurement error have not been explored, and partly because the available evidence has not been analysed in sufficient depth — or perhaps simply been ignored by the department. The whole phonics screening check seems to be the product of policy‐based evidence, rather than evidence‐based policy‐making. This has, in my view, seriously undermined the value of the PSC as a screening instrument, and one must wonder whether it is ‘fit for purpose’.