Does the treatment integrity of a literacy instruction program foster student reading comprehension? A field experiment

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This study focuses on conditions that improve reading comprehension at grade 7th. We analyze the impact of the Lirécrire program, and...     

Ideas: A system for international data exchange and access for science

An operational prototype inhomogeneous distributed database system has been built to provide homogeneous access for researchers and managers of science policy to data on research projects held in three countries. The architecture is sufficiently general not only to accommodate additional countries and databases on research projects, but also to provide a general framework for other international collaborative projects aimed at the provision of information. The design exhibits an optimal compromise between sufficient data to satisfy a retrieval request and the minimal data for transmission to maintain the database.     

Electronic Course Surveys: Does automating feedback and reporting give better results?

This paper discusses an electronic course survey system designed to support evaluation of a modular programme in management taught through distance education. The scale and communication issues raised by distance education, when compounded by a complex rolling modular programme, make conventional evaluation complicated, slow and expensive. To overcome these problems, an automated evaluation process was introduced, partly based on web-based surveying, but significantly emphasising the reporting process and allowing performance indicators and complex analyses to be embedded in high quality word-processed reports, that can be quickly and easily generated after each presentation of a module. The paper discusses the system and the impact that it has had on the evaluation process, before looking to future opportunities for developments in this field, and discussing some of the implications - both expected and unanticipated - that have come out of using automation in the evaluation process.     

How to achieve accurate peer assessment for high value written assignments in a senior undergraduate course

The psychometric measures of accuracy, reliability and validity of peer assessment are critical qualities for its use as a supplement to instructor grading. In this study, we seek to determine which factors related to peer review are the most influential on these psychometric measures, with a primary focus on the accuracy of peer assessment or how closely peer-given grades match those of an instructor. We examine and rank the correlations of accuracy, reliability and validity with 17 quantitative and qualitative variables for three senior undergraduate courses that used peer assessment on high value written assignments. Based on these analyses, we altered the single most significant variable of one of the courses. We demonstrate that the number of reviews completed per reviewer has the greatest influence on the accuracy of peer assessment out of all the factors analysed. Our calculations suggest that six reviews must be completed per reviewer to achieve peer assessment that is no different from the grading of an instructor. Effective training, previous experience and strong academic abilities in the reviewers may reduce this number.     

Grade repetition in Honduran primary schools

This paper looks at several dimensions of the grade failure issue in Honduras using a unique data set compiled by the UMCE evaluation project in 1998 and 1999. The analytical framework incorporates econometric analysis of standardized tests and teacher pass/fail decisions for roughly 13,000 second and fourth grade students. The results show that first time grade repetition, as well as repeating previous grades, is associated with lower marginal achievement on the UMCE exams, although the same is not true for students who are repeating the second or third time. The strongest predictor of grade failure is previous repetition, despite the inclusion of controls for achievement and attendance. The implications of this apparently strong stigma effect associated with grade repetition are discussed, as well as other policy issues related to grade repetition in developing countries.     

Captured by the Totally Pedagogised Society: Teachers and teaching in the knowledge economy

This paper makes use of one of the last concepts developed by Basil Bernstein (the Totally Pedagogised Society, TPS) to understand some of the forces and contradictions underlying today's teachers' work in Spain. In his last written work, Bernstein (2001) pointed out some arguments to illustrate the emergence of a TPS. Always interested in uncovering the sociological basis of pedagogy, Bernstein refers to the TPS as a society that introduces pedagogy in all possible spheres of life. Somewhat paradoxically, the shorttermism and the constant change in the knowledge base of society, where careers are replaced by jobs, require the emergence of the TPS. The TPS appears as a crucial regulator and legitimation strategy to translate uncertainty, risk and precariousness into a socialisation characterised by endless learning. 'Trainability' is referred as the key concept through which the TPS emerges. That is 'the ability to profit from continuous pedagogic re-formations and so cope with the new requirements of work and life'. The concept of trainability colonises educational policies and practices, and has a strong power in defining students' and teachers' work and identity. Flexible and global capitalism--the social base that regulates the pedagogic discourse--requires a specific type of pedagogic expression that erodes commitment, certainty and that is therefore socially empty. Interestingly, as Bernstein argues, the weak state of the global economy requires a strong state in the pedagogic field. The TPS is state driven and state funded. The state uses different type of strategies to make and distribute new forms of pedagogic 'knowledge' through owned or controlled agencies. Cadres of pedagogues become significant agents in the symbolic control field and produce and distribute new discourses and its ways of legitimation. That is, the official field 'captures'--through practices of co-option--key agents from the pedagogic field to construct and maintain the TPS. This paper develops two aspects related with the construction of the TPS as it is being developed in Spain. Firstly, it shows the state practices in the process of designing, planning and implementing the latest Curriculum reform (ERA, 1990) to understand the relationship between the official and the pedagogic fields and to illustrate the redefinition of teaching in this reform. Secondly, using data from two research projects, it shows some of the consequences that the TPS is having on teachers' work and identities. The capturing of teachers within the TPS has a number of implications on teachers' representations of their role in the new educational mandate, their understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment and their professional identities. These movements, it is argued, have significant consequences on the relationship between teachers' practices and ideology and the reproduction and legitimation of educational inequalities.     

If it's going to be,it's up to me: first-year psychology students’ experiences regarding academic success

Student life is marked by substantial growth in areas such as self-regulation abilities. In this article, the experiences of first-year Psychology students are explored through the lenses of the self-determination theory. Both content and thematic analyses were done with 79 students’ reflections on the aspects they regarded as facilitating/preventing success in their studies. Responses ranged from complete external control (amotivation and external regulation) to high levels of internal control (integration). While many participants articulated their perceptions of incompetence, other participants took ownership of their behavior and articulated how an interest in and enthusiasm for Psychology as a discipline moved them toward feelings of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. High value was placed on a well-structured but warm and responsive educational context.     

Research note: Some corrections and suggestions for working with the national faculty survey databases

Our ability to understand the faculty work environment has been greatly enhanced by the availability of largescale national surveys of the professoriate since the 1950s. This technical note identifies ways to improve data comparability among the national faculty surveys. It begins by identifying the national surveys and some of their attributes. The study then estimates faculty sizes and calculates weights for faculty in selected disciplines and institution types. The weights are designed specifically for four surveys conducted in 1969, 1975, 1980, and 1988.