Strategies for Examining the Consequences of Assessment and Accountability Programs

This article addresses issues in evaluating the consequences of assessment programs that are developed for the purpose of holding schools accountable to state standards. After providing a brief review of research examining consequential evidence, a validation study to obtain consequential evidence for state assessment and accountability programs is proposed. The proposal includes a validity argument, a set of propositions that follow from the validity argument, a delineation of the consequential evidence needed, and a way to model the relationship between performance gains and school, principal, teacher, and student variables.     

The frontline of refusal: indigenous women warriors of standing rock

Abstract

Indigenous women stand in solidarity on the frontline of refusal, protecting their ancestral homelands and their ways of life across North America and beyond. The Indigenous stand-off at Standing Rock in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline inspires this photo series of vignettes where Indigenous voices accompany images of Indigenous women in their battle as frontline water protectors. The intention of these vignettes is to share the intimacy of Indigenous experiences on the frontline that challenge perceptions of Indigenous women and instead situate them as warriors of wellness in the face of violence. The frontline in this reality represents the contested space where Indigenous people gather to refuse settler-colonial violence against Mother Earth, territorial lands, and Indigenous Peoples. Through the photo essay, we observe how Indigenous women reclaim identity through language revitalization, commitment to original instruction, and the right to visibility. Indigenous women define their missions of wellness and address direct challenges to community health they overcome in these spaces of refusal.     

Changes in time-related academic behaviour are associated with contextual motivational shifts

Research in the field of time-related academic behaviour (i.e. procrastination and timely engagement) has traditionally been focused on more stable factors, such as personality. Recent research suggests there may be a motivational component to these behaviours. The present study examines whether time-related academic behaviour is stable across time and context, and the degree to which change is predicted by contextual and motivational factors. The sample was comprised of 453 undergraduate college students at a large public university in the Midwestern US. We found that time-related academic behaviours were not stable, and changes in those behaviours were most closely linked to changes in self-efficacy, self-regulation and mastery-approach achievement goals.     

Using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate cross-cultural research: identifying and understanding non-invariance

Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) allows researchers to determine whether a research inventory elicits similar response patterns across samples. If statistical equivalence in responding is found, then scale score comparisons become possible and samples can be said to be from the same population. This paper illustrates the use of MGCFA by examining survey results relating to practising teachers' conceptions of feedback in two very different jurisdictions (Louisiana, USA, n?=?308; New Zealand, n?=?518), highlighting challenges which can occur when conducting this kind of cross-cultural research. As the two contexts had very different policies and practices around educational assessment, it was considered possible that a common research inventory may elicit non-equivalent responding, leading to non-invariance. Independent models for each group and a joint model for all participants were tested for invariance using MGCFA and all were inadmissible for one of the two groups. Inspection of joint model differences in item loadings, scale reliabilities, and scale inter-correlations established the extent of non-invariance. This paper discusses the implications of non-invariance within this particular study and identifies difficulties in using an inventory in cross-cultural settings. It also provides suggestions about how to increase the likelihood that a common factor structure can be recovered.     

Sustainability education in a botanical garden promotes environmental knowledge,attitudes and willingness to act

Abstract

Creating behavior change to mobilize transitions toward sustainability is a significant challenge of our time. Inspired by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Farmer Field School, we developed a novel community-based education program to engage people in local sustainability topics. In the Sustainable Communities Field School (Field School) program, advertised as team building tours, participants from local organizations are guided by instructors through University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, while receiving verbal and experiential education on topics of food systems and choices, biodiversity conservation, water conservation, and waste reduction. We found that after the Field School program, participants were significantly more knowledgeable about environmental issues, more connected to nature, showed greater intentions and willingness to engage in sustainability actions compared to garden visitors from the general public who did not go through the program. The results suggest that interactive sustainability education in a botanical garden setting can be a useful education model to mobilize public engagement on sustainability.     

Team-referent attributions among sport performers

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a team-referent attribution scale. Conducted over three studies, Study 1 modified items from McAuley, Duncan, and Russell's (1992) Causal Dimension Scale II by rewording items to reflect team attributions and adding one item per factor. This led to the development of a 16-item scale (Causal Dimension Scale-T, CDS-T). Study 2 tested competing models of attribution theory among a sample of 433 team sport players. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated strongest support for a four-factor model (robust comparative fit index = .961; root mean squared error of approximation = .054). Study 3 tested the predictive validity of the scale among a sample of 201 team players. Results indicated that winners reported more internal and stable attributions than losers. Further, performances perceived as successful were associated with stable attributions. The results of the study, therefore, suggest that the CDS-T provides a valid measure of team-referent attributions in sport.     

Generalizability and Validity of a Mathematics Performance Assessment

The QUASAR Cognitive Assessment Instrument (QCAI) is designed to measure program outcomes and growth in mathematics. It consists of a relatively large set of open-ended tasks that assess mathematical problem solving, reasoning, and communication at the middle-school grade levels. This study provides some evidence for the generalizability and validity of the assessment. The results from the generalizability studies indicate that the error due to raters is minimal, whereas there is considerable differential student performance across tasks. The dependability of grade level scores for absolute decision making is encouraging; when the number of students is equal to 350, the coefficients are between .80 and .97 depending on the form and grade level. As expected, there tended to be a higher relationship between the QCAI scores and both the problem solving and conceptual subtest scores from a mathematics achievement multiple-choice test than between the QCAI scores and the mathematics computation subtest scores.     

Surface plasmon resonance analysis to evaluate the importance of heparin sulfate groups'''' binding with human aFGF and bFGF

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Higher education — Public policy-making and implementation

The turbulence which occurred in higher education institutions in the 1960s and 1970s led to considerable interest in examining the processes involved in higher education reform. The most comprehensive attempt at planned change in higher education was made in Sweden. This article analyses the decision-making and the policy-implementation processes in Swedish higher education as a way of illuminating the more general problem of understanding the nature of the processes involved in higher education reform. The article concludes that the data do not fit the standard models of public choice nor do they confirm prevailing notions about policy failure.