Demystifying Critical Reflection: Defining criteria for assessment

Many university teachers in the social sciences and humanities, especially those interested in emancipatory educative practices, wish to see their students develop a capacity for critical reflection, considered essential for the development of higher-order thinking. However, critical reflection is rarely precisely defined nor are clear indications given about how teachers can develop appropriate criteria for assessing how well students reflect. This paper offers a framework for identifying indicators of a capacity for critical reflection in the social sciences, as well as demonstrating how criteria can be developed for assessing students' capability for critical reflection, including making distinctions between reflection on values, beliefs and assumptions. It is argued that offering clear criteria can assist in providing guidance to both students and teachers in developing critically reflective capacities.     

A Reaction to Mehrens's NCME Presidential Address

As a state level measurement specialist, Tom notes that some psychometricians always have a list of reasons test data cannot be used to enhance the quality of educational decisions. He welcomes Bill's exhortation to be hope-oriented and calls on measurement specialists to provide decision makers with practical, understandable ways to best use test data.     

Management training and national sport organization managers: Examining the impact of training on individual and organizational performances

Within sport, a tremendous amount of effort is committed to the on-the-field performance of athletes and coaches, neglecting the off-the-field performance and development of sport managers. This study examines the impact of human resource training on the performance of five Canadian national sport organizations (NSO) and their managers (N = 22). Data were collected on three outcome variables (learning, individual performance, organizational performance) and three mediating variables (motivation to transfer, training design, organizational climate) at three time measures (pretraining, post-training¹, post-training²). Results indicate that training improves the learning and individual performance of sport managers, as well as the organizational performance of NSOs. Varying relationships were found at each of the three time measures, demonstrating that a progression to training-related performance change exists. Implications and future research directions are discussed and highlighted the need for on-going training opportunities for Canadian sport managers.