Balancing varied assessment functions to attain systemic validity: Three is the magic number

Accountability-oriented reforms demand immediate and continual gains on achievement test, for all students, and without diminishing other outcomes or undermining instruction. This paper describes a framework for aligning classroom assessment and external testing with the aim of negotiating these seemingly contradictory goals. The framework varies the sensitivity to instruction and the representations of knowledge across approaches to assessment. Cycles of design- based studies successively refine relationships between a curriculum and the frame that each assessment provides. Doing so, we argue, leverages the unique formative and summative balance across assessments in order to scaffold learning and demonstrate the “consequential” validity of our strategy without compromising curricula, instruction, or the “evidential” validity that warrants their continued use.     

A mixed-methods evaluation of the longer-term implementation and utility of a teacher classroom management training programme in Irish primary schools

Inappropriate, aggressive and disruptive behaviour in the classroom can be detrimental to child and teacher well-being. This study involved a longer-term evaluation of the Incredible Years Teacher [Classroom Management] programme (IYTP) undertaken mainly within disadvantaged schools in south-west Ireland. The IYTP is designed to strengthen teacher classroom management competencies. Eleven teachers, who had previously participated in a group-randomised control trial (RCT), took part in a 12-month post-baseline follow-up assessment. Psychometric and observational measures were administered to assess teachers when interacting with children (n?=?217) in their classes. Qualitative data were collected from a sub-sample of teachers to explore their perceptions of programme impact and utility. The quantitative results showed some significant improvements in teachers’ classroom management, although few changes were recorded on teacher-child observation measures. Qualitative findings indicated continued implementation of proactive disciplining strategies and higher levels of teacher self-efficacy. These results suggest, albeit tentatively in view of the study limitations, that the IYTP can benefit teacher classroom management, as well as teacher well-being, particularly within disadvantaged schools where behavioural problems tend to be more prevalent. The IYTP could prove useful in improving teacher competencies and the classroom environment in the longer term, although a need for further research is indicated.     

Group composition and National Curriculum assessment at seven years

This paper presents the initial findings of a long-term study to examine whether the introduction of compulsory school science for pupils in UK schools in 1991 is effective in raising the general level of scientific literacy. The use of the term 'scientific literacy' in the literature is considered and a definition of the term as it is applied in this study is offered. The scientific literacy level of two groups of initial teacher training studentswith contrasting experiences of school sciencewas compared. Students completed a simple science test that had been originally written for 11-year-old children. The average test score of students who had experienced compulsory school science from the ages of 11 to 16 was found to be significantly higher (p = 0.014) than that of students for whom school science was optional at secondary level. The study also highlights specific areas of conceptual difficulty in basic science experienced by almost all of the students tested. Test questions relating to the circulatory system, light and sound produced very low scores from almost all students, regardless of their science background. The paper considers the implications of these findings for science teachers and policymakers in both the primary and secondary sectors.     

Factor structure,reliability and validity of the Parental Support for Learning Scale: Adolescent Short Form (PSLS-AS)

Parental involvement in children’s learning has been found to influence academic success. However, very few tools exist for measuring parental involvement, particularly ones that target adolescents’ self-report. The present study assessed the factor structure, reliability and convergent validity of a new scale to assess adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers’ and fathers’ educational involvement: the Parental Support for Learning Scale: Adolescent Short Form (PSLS-AS). The PSLS-AS, as well as a questionnaire measuring the risk of high school drop-out, was administered to a sample of 825 youth (aged 13–14 years). Exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure representing parental involvement: Controlling Involvement and Autonomy Supportive Involvement. Adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ involvement correlated with a risk of high school drop-out. Implications and future directions for further validation of the PSLS-AS are discussed.     

All Christians? Experiences of science educators in Northern Ireland

In this paper we respond to Staver’s article (this issue) on an attempt to resolve the discord between science and religion. Most specifically, we comment on Staver’s downplaying of difference between Catholics and Protestants in order to focus on the religion-science question. It is our experience that to be born into one or other of these traditions in some parts of the world (especially Northern Ireland) resulted in starkly contrasting opportunities, identities and practices in becoming and being science educators. The paper starts with a short contextual background to the impact of religion on schooling and higher education in Northern Ireland. We then explore the lives and careers of three science/religious educators in Northern Ireland: Catholic (Jim) and Protestant (Ivor) males who are contemporaries and whose experience spans pre-Troubles to post-conflict and a Catholic female (Colette) who moved to Northern Ireland during the Troubles as a teenager. Finally, we discuss the situation regarding the teaching of creationism and evolution in Northern Ireland—an issue has recently generated high public interest. The Chair of the Education Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly recently stated that “creationism is not for the RE class because I believe that it can stand scientific scrutiny and that is a debate which I am quite happy to encourage and be part of…” (News Letter 2008). It could be the case that the evolution debate is being fuelled as a deliberate attempt to undermine some of the post-conflict collaboration projects between schools and communities in Northern Ireland.     

Derived search keys for government documents

The purpose of this study was to propose a design for a Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) number search key to retrieve bibliographic records for United States Government documents from OCLC's On-Line Union Catalog. Experimentation with a test file of 25,000 records indicated that a search key derived from a maximum of the first 14 digits in the SuDocs number is sufficiently distinctive to obtain an expected average retrieval of 2.5 records per search. OCLC will implement a SuDocs number search key in the future. It is expected that this key will be a valuable tool for library catalogers and users.     

Argumentation: A strategy for improving achievement and revealing scientific identities

In this paper we explore the relationship between learning gains, measured through pre‐assessment and post‐assessment, and engagement in scientific argumentation. In order to do so, this paper examines group discourse and individual learning during the implementation of NASA Classroom of the Future’s BioBLAST!® (BB) software program in a high school biology classroom. We found that the argumentative structures, the quality of these structures, and the identities that students take on during collaborative group work are critical in influencing student learning and achievement in science. We provide recommendations for instructors implementing argumentation in their science classrooms, and provide suggestions for the development of future research in this area.     

Charismatic cops,patriarchs and a few good women: leadership,club culture and young peoples' drinking

The paper reports on key findings of a research project that examined the roles that community-based sporting clubs in the Australian state of Victoria play in shaping young people's understandings and uses of alcohol. Our research imagined clubs as community hubs that are located in complex networks that impact on the ways that clubs understand their locations in communities, and which have unpredictable influences and consequences on club histories, culture and orientations to issues such as young people and alcohol use. The paper focuses on understanding the key roles played by club leaders in facilitating change and transformation in these contexts, particularly in terms of alcohol-related practices and the potential impact of these on young people's uses and understanding of alcohol. We situate these findings in a framework that draws on the literature of complexity science and complex adaptive systems (CAS) to suggest that these practices and changes need to be understood in ways that allow for complexity, uncertainty, emergent behaviours and adaptive change.     

Producing Knowledge About Physical Education Pedagogy: Problematizing the Activities of Expertise

In the process of problematizing what intellectual work looks like, poststructuralist discourses have opened up new spaces through which to examine the processes of knowledge production. Our purpose is to engage with these processes of knowledge production as they attempt to tell particular truths about good pedagogy in Physical Education (PE). Indeed, there has been a long running debate between various forms of expertise claiming to tell the truth about what constitutes good pedagogy in PE. In this paper, we revisit this debate via a mobilization of Hall's (1985) theorization of articulation, and the reflexive modernization thesis of Beck, Giddens and Lash (1994). These lenses lead us to argue that a more reflexive modernity profoundly problematizes all forms of truth telling in Education.