Validity in teachers’ summative assessments

This paper describes some of the findings of a project which set out to explore and develop teachers’ understanding and practices in their summative assessments. The focus was on those summative assessments that are used on a regular basis within schools for guiding the progress of pupils and for internal accountability. The project combined both intervention and research elements. The intervention aimed both to explore how teachers might improve those practices in the light of their re‐examination of their validity, and to engage them in moderation exercises within and between schools to audit examples of students’ work and to discuss their appraisals of these examples. This paper reports findings, arising from this work, of the research that aimed to study how teachers understand validity, and how they formulate their classroom assessment practices in the light of that understanding. The paper also considers how that understanding might be challenged and developed. It was found that teachers’ attention to validity issues had been undermined by the external test regimes, but that teachers could re‐address these issues by reflection on their values and by engagement in a shared development of portfolio assessments.     

Images of assimilation: photographs of Indian schools in Arizona

In September 1939, Amy (Brown) Dauphinee took up her first teaching appointment at Tate Creek, British Columbia where 518 refugees had recently settled after fleeing Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. Amy – an avowed Social Democrat and member of the Young Socialist League – quickly embraced the refugees who were largely trade union activists and Social Democrats themselves. However, by January the district school inspector had moved Amy to a new school. This paper illustrates how Amy constructed her teaching identity and pushed the boundaries circumscribing the lives of young women teachers in British Columbia during the first half of the twentieth century.     

An exploration of anatomists’ views toward the use of body painting in anatomical and medical education: An international study

Previous research has explored the experiences of medical students using body painting as a learning tool. However, to date, faculty experiences and views have not been explored. This international qualitative study utilized a grounded theory approach with data collection through interviews with academics and clinicians who utilized body painting as part of their anatomical teaching. Twenty‐six anatomists participated in the study from 14 centers worldwide. Three themes emerged from the data: (1) the efficacy of body painting, (2) the promotion of knowledge retention and recall, (3) considerations and practicalities regarding the use of body painting as a teaching tool. Subthemes show that body painting is used as an adjunct to the curriculum for teaching surface anatomy and peer examination. Benefits included diffusing the formal curricula, high student engagement and learning for future clinical practice. Body painting was advocated for promoting knowledge retention and recall, particularly learning through the process of cognitive load due to combining the use of color and kinesthetic learning with anatomical theory. Critical discussions surfaced on the topic of undressing in the classroom due to cultural and personal considerations possibly leading to unequal involvement and different learning experiences. Overall results support previous research showing that anatomists appreciate body painting as an effective, enjoyable, engaging and cost efficient adjunct to the multimodal anatomy curriculum. The role of cognitive load theory in learning anatomy through body painting emerged from the data as a possible theoretical framework supporting learning benefits from body painting and is suggested for further investigation. Anat Sci Educ 11: 146–154. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Challenges and opportunities: using a science-based video game in secondary school settings

Simulations and games are not new artifacts to the study of science in secondary school settings (Hug, Kriajcik and Marx 2005), however teachers remain skeptical as to their value, use and appropriateness (Rice 2006). The difficulty is not only the design and development of effective play environments that produce measurable changes in knowledge and/or understanding, but also in their on-the-ground use (Jaipal and Figg 2010). This paper reports on the use of a science-focused video game in five very different secondary school settings in Ontario, Canada. A mixed-methods approach was used in the study, and included data gathered on general gameplay habits and technology use, as well as informal interviews with teachers and students who played the game. In total, 161 participants played a series of games focused on the ??life of a plant??, and were given both a pre and post quiz to determine if the game helped them retain and/or change what they knew about scientific processes like plant cell anatomy and photosynthesis. Participants showed statistically significant improvement on quizzes that were taken after playing the game for approximately one-hour sessions, despite difficulties in some cases both accessing and playing the game for the full hour. Our findings also reveal the ongoing challenges in making use of technology in a variety of school sessions, even when using a browser-based game, that demanded very little other than a reliable internet connection.     

Usage and evaluation of nonformal environmental education services at a state park: are anglers catching more than fish?

Although park naturalists should be inclusive in their attempts to reach a variety of audiences, visitors having a consumptive resource orientation may get overlooked. The activity involvement, place attachment and resource knowledge scores of trout anglers at Montauk State Park (Missouri, USA) were combined into a typology that consisted of four levels of recreation specialization (least, moderately, very and most). This continuum was used to explain anglers’ usage and evaluation of nonformal environmental education services at the park. A total of 532 trout anglers completed questionnaires during the summer of 2003. Results showed that specialized anglers participated more in educational opportunities than those who were less specialized. Each of level of the continuum was mutually exclusive. Nearly three‐fourths of the trout anglers (72.8%) believed that environmental education was important and that the park was doing a good job of providing this type of service. A positive trend between levels of specialization and evaluation of environmental education was observed. This study indicated that a segmentation procedure based on recreation specialization can be useful to accomplish some key park management objectives, such as environmental literacy.     

Anatomy of a Dead Heat: Visual Evidence at the 2012 US Olympic Trials

The adoption and use of visual technologies as decision aids in professional sport is increasing at a rapid rate, yet the study of such practice is virtually non-existent. Beyond the specific play or call in question, images used as decision aids in sport have immediate and far-reaching material and cultural impacts including athlete sponsorship packages, the professional reputation and expertise of athletes and officials, and lucrative contracts for imaging and technology companies. This paper borrows Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison's work on objectivity to examine one such case: the dead heat between Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix at the 2012 US Olympic Trials. The Tarmoh/Felix dead heat involved a complex assemblage of human and machine vision, and contains within it many of the issues involved in the use of sports decision aids. The paper argues that analyses of images used as decision aids in sport have much to offer academic and non-academic audiences interested in sport and visual culture.