Using cognitive science to assign test weights

This article attempts to develop an objective method for assigning weights to questions on examinations. Departing from the statistical discrimination approach of classical test theory, we use a domain-dependent approach. Our method is developed using cognitive science. Previously formulated methods of task analysis are used to break up a domain into segments that are independent pieces of knowledge. A Pareto distribution is used to assign relative weights. This distribution is selected simply because it is ubiquitous in the social sciences. Word frequency rankings, business firm sizes and ranking scientists by number of publications are all distributions that are skewed, or Pareto distributions. Optimistically, we are hoping that ranking knowledge elements by importance will follow the same distribution.     

From policy to practice?: the reality of play in primary school classes in Northern Ireland

As more countries align their curricular frameworks with play-based and experiential pedagogies, this paper provides a critical insight into the benefits and challenges that arise in practice when a play-based approach to learning and teaching becomes a political directive in Northern Ireland primary schools. Drawing on socio-constructivist and post-structural thinking, the messages from Foundation Stage teachers and the learning experiences provided are unravelled through the researchers' interpretive lens, exposing for critique two key discourses about the relationship between play as policy and practice – namely play as learning and play as pedagogy. Although this study may have raised more questions than answers about the debate, the authors conclude, in so doing, it has facilitated an original troubling of the established discourse and added to the knowledge base about the politicisation of play as practice in the early years of primary schooling.     

云端上的梦

俗话说,志当存高远——那么,渴望翱翔天际、腾云驾雾的梦想,着实够高够远了吧?头脑简单的我,也曾像许多人一样,对那群以飞来飞去为职业的人充满好奇和惊叹。仰视——正如我们需要抬起头来看在空中变得如绿豆般大小的飞机一样。你看啊,这帮人,人不傻,钱又多,而且都是帅哥美女,简直把世上的好处都占去了,能不招人羡慕妒忌恨吗?