In search of quality criteria in peer assessment practices

With the increasing popularity of peer assessment as an assessment tool, questions may arise about its measurement quality. Among such questions, the extent peer assessment practices adhere to standards of measurement. It has been claimed that new forms of assessment, require new criteria to judge their validity and reliability, since they aim for specific goals and address different aspects of learning. But although new criteria have been formulated, little is known about how they are deployed and operate in actual peer assessment practices. This study intends to explicate the quality criteria relevant to the context of peer assessment. We conducted a survey in vocational education on peer assessment quality criteria applied in classrooms. Fifty-six teachers using peer assessment rated several quality criteria as relevant to their teaching practice. The findings suggest that peer assessment practices entail many of the quality criteria recognized in measurement and evaluation, although in an embedded way: the generic quality criteria are tuned or adapted to the peer assessment setting. The findings also show that peer assessment is very much in the hands of the teacher, who organizes and orchestrates the appraisal process in which students receive clear guidelines to appraise one another's work. Our results indicate that quality criteria hardly differ from the function peer assessment serves in classrooms, either within a summative or formative evaluation context. By gaining insight on the specific criteria of peer assessment and their precise purposes, we believe it becomes possible to help teachers improve its measurement quality.     

Included or excluded? The dual influences of the organisational field and organisational practices on new female academics

A number of measures have been taken by the society to ensure gender equality in higher education. Nevertheless, women still face great difficulties when pursuing an academic career. Our aim is to increase the understanding of how the society, conceptualised as the organisational field, interacts with organisational factors and personal actions as women try to establish themselves within academia. We followed a group of female PhD students and their struggle to graduate at a Swedish, traditionally male‐dominated, university department. The paper analyses how actors and regulations in the society interact with the department’s gendered structures and practices. Three processes that influenced the women’s career opportunities have been identified – a process of integration, liberation and legitimatisation. We also show that women can get accepted and realise their short‐term objective, based on support from the society, while not necessarily being included by the department in a longer‐term perspective.     

Die offene Ganztagsgrundschule in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags stehen konzeptionelle Hintergründe der 2003/04 begonnenen offenen Ganztagsschule (OGS) in Nordrhein-Westfalen sowie erste Ergebnisse der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung, wie sie sich im Rahmen einer explorativen Erkundungsstudie zeigen. Hintergrund der konzeptionellen Debatte sind zwei Elemente: zum einen die vielschichtiger gewordene Debatte über Betreuungs-, Bildungs- und Erziehungskonzepte, zum anderen die st?rkere Kooperation zwischen der Schule und der Kinder- und Jugendhilfe im Rahmen der offenen Ganztagsschule. Die OGS in Nordrhein-Westfalen beansprucht durch die verst?rkte Einbeziehung au?erschulischer Partner zu einem neuen Verst?ndnis von Schule und Lernen beizutragen. Im Konzept und Modell dieser neuen Angebotsform begegnen sich somit die Vorstellungen beider Bereiche zur ad?quaten Gestaltung schulischer und au?erschulischer Lern- und Bildungsprozesse. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden erste Befunde und sich abzeichnende Trends der realen Entwicklung in diesem Land dargestellt.     

Faculty Perspectives on Course and Teacher Evaluations

Student ratings of instruction have been the subject of numerous studies with much of the research focusing on the validity and reliability of the ratings themselves. Comparatively little empirical investigation has been devoted to the perceptions of the individuals who are the subjects of the ratings, that is, the faculty. The current study explored faculty perspectives on the usefulness of student ratings for formative and summative purposes, and the actual use of student ratings for summative purposes. Contrary to what might have been deduced from the anecdotal literature, the results of this study do not portray a great deal of resistance to student ratings in general or to their use for formative and summative evaluation. It was also found that student ratings are actually being used for the latter purpose. The usefulness of the student feedback was viewed differentially by the faculty, with feedback on their interaction with students seen as most useful, followed by feedback on their grading practices, global ratings of instructor and course, and finally structural issues of the course.     

Developing participation opportunities for young people with disabilities? Policy enactment and social inclusion in Australian junior sport

Abstract

Interventions aimed at increasing the participation of young people with disabilities in recreational sport have had mixed success. The authors draw on in-depth interviews with representatives from State Sporting Associations, local government officers and volunteers within community sports clubs in Victoria, Australia, to examine why some sports clubs are unable or unwilling to translate policy ambitions into practice. The findings indicate how by framing disability provision as ‘too difficult’, ‘not core business’ and antithetical to competitive success, community sports clubs are able to resist policy ambitions to modify existing structures and develop more inclusive practice. Greater priority needs to be given to transformational inclusion objectives and challenging ableism if clubs are to structurally progress the development of participation opportunities for young people with disabilities.     

Context matters in child and family policy

The traditional model of translation from basic laboratory science to efficacy trials to effectiveness trials to community dissemination has flaws that arise from false assumptions that context changes little or matters little. One of the most important findings in developmental science is that context matters, but this fact is not sufficiently taken into account in many translation efforts. Studies reported in this special issue highlight both the potential of systematic interventions in parenting, peer relations, and social-cognitive skills training, and the problems that will be encountered in trying to bring these interventions to a community context. It is advocated that developmental scientists start from within the community context itself so that translation to policy is only a small step. It is also advocated that this research be conducted through rigorous community randomized controlled trials.     

Hierarchical Mentoring: A Transformative Strategy for Improving Diversity and Retention in Undergraduate STEM Disciplines

In the United States, less than half of the students who enter into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate curricula as freshmen will actually graduate with a STEM degree. There is even greater disparity in the national STEM graduation rates of students from underrepresented groups with approximately three-fourths of minority students leaving STEM disciplines at the undergraduate level. A host of programs have been designed and implemented to model best practices in retaining students in STEM disciplines. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professors Program at Louisiana State University, under leadership of HHMI Professor Isiah M. Warner, represents one of these programs and reports on a mentoring model that addresses the key factors that impact STEM student attrition at the undergraduate level. By integrating mentoring and strategic academic interventions into a structured research program, an innovative model has been developed to guide STEM undergraduate majors in adopting the metacognitive strategies that allow them to excel in their programs of study, as they learn to appreciate and understand science more completely. Comparisons of the persistence of participants and nonparticipants in STEM curricular, at the host university and with other national universities and colleges, show the impact of the model’s salient features on improving STEM retention through graduation for all students, particularly those from underrepresented groups.