Quality assurance of assessment and moderation discourses involving sessional staff

Quality assurance is a major agenda in tertiary education. The casualisation of academic work, especially in teaching, is also a quality assurance issue. Casual or sessional staff members teach and assess more than 50% of all university courses in Australia, and yet the research in relation to the role sessional staff play in quality assurance of student assessment outcomes is scarce. Moderation processes are a pivotal part of robust quality assurance measures. Drawing upon previous work surrounding four discourses of moderation, this pilot project reports the results of research into the role and impact of sessional staff in moderation processes at tertiary level. Qualitative data were gathered through focus interviews. Results, in the form of various moderation discourses, indicate that sessional staff impact the formal quality assurance processes in numerous ways.     

Reading comprehension difficulty is often distinct from difficulty in reading fluency and accompanied with problems in motivation and school well-being

Abstract

This paper examined if difficulty in reading comprehension (PISA) is distinct from difficulty in reading fluency and if the distinct types of reading difficulties are differently associated with learning motivation, school burnout, and school enjoyment. The participants were 1324 Finnish ninth graders. Findings suggested that difficulties in reading comprehension are often distinct from difficulties in reading fluency. Three reading difficulty groups were identified: (1) poor readers with both fluency and reading comprehension difficulties (n?=?46, 3.5%), (2) slow readers with only fluency difficulties (n?=?70, 5.3%), and (3) poor comprehenders with only reading comprehension difficulties (n?=?88, 6.5%). The slow readers had low scores only in reading-related motivation. Poor comprehenders and poor readers reported low motivation also in math and science, as well as higher level of burnout and lower school enjoyment than typical readers. The findings were similar for boys and girls.     

Sensitivity Analysis of the No-Omitted Confounder Assumption in Latent Growth Curve Mediation Models

Latent growth curve mediation models are increasingly used to assess mechanisms of behavior change. For latent growth mediation model, like any another mediation model, even with random treatment assignment, a critical but untestable assumption for valid and unbiased estimates of the indirect effects is that there should be no omitted variable that confounds indirect effects. One way to address this untestable assumption is to conduct sensitivity analysis to assess whether the inference about an indirect effect would change under varying degrees of confounding bias. We developed a sensitivity analysis technique for a latent growth curve mediation model. We compute the biasing effect of confounding on point and confidence interval estimates of the indirect effects in a structural equation modeling framework. We illustrate sensitivity plots to visualize the effects of confounding on each indirect effect and present an empirical example to illustrate the application of the sensitivity analysis.     

Assessing children's perceptions of prosocial and antisocial peer behaviour

The aims of this study were to administer an assessment measure that would identify prosocial children, bullies and their victims, and to examine the underlying structure of children's perceptions of peer social behaviour in these three groups. Three versions (peer nomination, self and teacher rating) of a newly developed child social behaviour questionnaire (CSBQ) were completed by children (aged 9/10 years, n=321) and their teachers in 14 Scottish primary schools. The CSBQ is distinguished from other extant measures by its joint focus on both prosocial and antisocial child behaviours, and by its use of concrete and empirically derived items. In conjunction with sociometric data, which was also elicited from the children, the CSBQ yielded scores on 12 behavioural dimensions. Based upon the peer nomination data, a set of rigorous criteria, capable of reliably identifying children in the three groups, was developed to take account of varying peer nomination practices within and between schools. Factor analysis of the 12 measures yielded four factors (two antisocial factors, a prosocial factor and a victim factor) which accounted for 71% of the variance, and which offer further insight into the organisation of children's perceptions of social behaviour. Gender differences in peer nomination patterns and comparisons between the different informant groups are discussed in relation to previous work.     

Practitioners' perspectives and experiences of supporting bilingual pupils on the autism spectrum in two linguistically different educational settings

With greater linguistic diversity in educational settings around the world as a result of international migration, and a rise in autism diagnoses, educators are more frequently teaching children who are both neurodiverse and linguistically different to their peers. The aim of the present study was to uncover the perspectives and experiences of educational practitioners who provide support for bilingual learners on the autism spectrum in two linguistically different educational settings: England and Wales. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 practitioners (5 teachers, 4 teaching assistants, 3 special educational needs coordinators and 1 speech and language therapist) working in mainstream schools. Data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), which seeks to illuminate participants' lived experience. Three superordinate themes were extracted from the data: (1) perspectives on bilingualism in autism; (2) comparisons across two linguistically different settings; (3) creating inclusive learning environments. The results demonstrate that practitioners had concerns about the feasibility of bilingualism for some autistic pupils, and argued that exposure to two languages may have a negative impact on their development. Future research should focus on finding effective ways to identify and support learning needs among bilingual pupils to ensure that children who are ‘doubly different’ from their peers not only have access to educational provision, but also have opportunities to harness and celebrate their differences.     

Kindergarten pre-reading skills predict Grade 9 reading comprehension (PISA Reading) but fail to explain gender difference

Reading and Writing - One of the aims for compulsory education is to diminish or alleviate differences in children’s skills existing prior to school entry. However, a growing gender gap in...     

Thinking with Posthuman Perspectives in Self-Study Research

In this study, we set out to explore processes of individual and group becomings of a self-study collective over time and distance, and with/through technology. Born out of a self-study project in one of our early doctoral courses, our self-study community has evolved over several years to one that is hybrid in nature. As we have continued our collaboration through online media, a tension arose at the juncture of our fundamentally relational work together, our need for the physical, embodied aspect of learning and self-study and the hybrid, often disembodied, experience provided by substituting online meetings for those conducted in-person. In this article we explore these tensions through pivotal moments and lines of flight in our self-study work over the past year. To frame these moments, we draw on ideas from posthumanism, which offers ways to conceptualize our collective as a multiplicity, account for the relational and material aspects of our work, address the agency of non-human actors (such as technology) in our collaboration, and consider our self-study practice a dynamic, complex, contextualized, situated phenomenon.     

Why do boys and girls perform differently on PISA Reading in Finland? The effects of reading fluency,achievement behaviour,leisure reading and homework activity

The present study examined gender gap in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Reading and mediators of the gender gap in a Finnish sample (n = 1,309). We examined whether the gender gap in PISA Reading performance can be understood via the effects of reading fluency, achievement behaviour (mastery orientation and task‐avoidant behaviour) or the amount of time spent with leisure reading and homework. Girls outperformed boys in all measures except for achievement behaviour. The models explaining PISA Reading were not different: For boys and girls, reading fluency, mastery orientation, leisure book reading and homework explained the variance in PISA Reading scores. The gender effect on PISA Reading was, however, for the most part mediated by differences in reading fluency. These findings suggest that while mastery orientation, homework activity and leisure book reading are concurrent predictors of PISA Reading over and above reading fluency, they do not explain gender difference.