A Literature Review of How Videogames Are Assessed in Library and Information Science and Beyond

In this paper the author explores how videogames and gaming are assessed in Library and Information Science (LIS) and in other fields. The author concludes with a discussion of some potential future directions for assessment practices of videogames and gaming in LIS.     

Effects of Resource Availability on Children's Behavior and Conflict Management

Contextual and interpersonal factors contribute to the nature of children's conflicts. This study examines the effect of resource availability on dyadic interaction of African American 3-5 year-olds in a painting activity that required the resource. Forty-eight, same-sex dyads were videotaped in two resource conditions: a Limited Condition with one brush and one piece of paper and a Plentiful Condition with two brushes and two pieces of paper. The Limited Condition promoted more resource and task conflict, while the Plentiful Condition promoted more nonconflictive social and task interactions. Boys engaged in more resource, while girls engaged in more social behavior. Contingent probability analyses of interactive behavior in the Limited Condition showed that cooperative offers and waits, and competitive grasps were the most successful strategies. The interdependence of children's strategies generated unilateral and mutual oppositions. Mutual goal attainment occurred by sharing the resource and engaging in alternate behavior. Reasons were ineffective. The results underscore the role of resource scarcity and of reciprocal interaction in children's conflicts. Children resolve object conflicts independently and accomplish their goals by influencing and adjusting to their partner's goals. Resource availability and children's conflict management patterns may determine the need for adult intervention.     

Brown and the politics of equality

Forty years afterBrown v. Topeka Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision declaring de jure segregated schools unconstitutional, we are still seeking the full implementation of that decree. Most Americans accepted limited implementation ofBrown, and the degree of acceptance is split along racial lines. Racial dialogue has changed. White Americans, who control the desegregation process, develop integration plans to their advantage. School integration was not implemented until after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and peaked in 1972. Today, school integration is declining due to a backlash, changing demographics, and declining resources. However,Brown was a success because it rid the country of legalized state segregation by race in education and in other areas of public policy. The Court could merge the equality standards ofPlessy v. Ferguson and the integration standards ofBrown to give us quality integrated education.     

Self-regulation of assessment beliefs and attitudes: a review of the Students’ Conceptions of Assessment inventory

How students understand, feel about and respond to assessment might contribute significantly to learning behaviour and academic achievement. This paper reviews studies that have used a relatively new self-reported survey questionnaire (Students’ Conceptions of Assessment – SCoA) about student perceptions and understandings of assessment. Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modelling results have shown, consistent with self-regulation theory, that the SCoA inventory has meaningful relations with academic performance among New Zealand high school students. Further, German, Hong Kong, American, and New Zealand studies have shown that the SCoA has relations to motivational constructs (e.g. effort, learning strategies, interest, self-efficacy and anxiety) that are also consistent with self-regulation. The SCoA inventory extends our understanding of how student conceptions of assessment are an integral part of self-regulation and provide a warrant for use in research studies investigating test-taker responses to assessment practices and innovations at both university and high school levels.     

Not all preconceptions are misconceptions: finding ‘anchoring conceptions’ for grounding instruction on students’ intuitions

This study begins the task of mapping out the domain of valid, potentially helpful beliefs of students and raises the possibility of drawing on these intuitions in teaching conceptual material. Some issues are explored surrounding the identification of such intuitions, referred to as anchoring conceptions or anchors. We attempt to: (1) propose some organizing theoretical and observational definitions of the anchor construct; (2) present some initial findings from a diagnostic test designed to uncover anchors for physics instruction; and (3) provoke an initial discussion of the new methodological issues that arise in this domain.

The results of the diagnostic test indicate that a number of group anchors exist. In addition, some unexpected non‐anchors were identified. Furthermore, evidence was found indicating that some anchoring examples may be ‘brittle’, i.e., evidence that the anchor could not be extended analogically to help a student make sense of a target situation.

Finally, it is suggested that further research is needed to construct a theory of anchoring conceptions that would, for example, specify what characteristics would indicate that an anchoring conception can provide the basis for conceptual change via analogical extension.     

Thinking with certainty or with doubt: a Lacanian theorisation of discursive knowledge in teacher education

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a theorisation of pedagogic knowledge formation, as a continuous attempt to understand the positions in discourse we occupy. The paper documents some participatory practitioner research by teacher educators centred on a course development initiative for student teachers of English, at an English university. Students researched their experiences of becoming a teacher within a course that was largely school-based, whilst their tutors researched their own involvement in the process (the main focus of this paper). Drawing on Lacanian theory, tutors are depicted as learning subjects having more or less certainty or doubt about the knowledge they possess. In attempting to understand this interplay of certainty and doubt, tutors arrive at stronger conceptualisations of learning. Through this approach, the paper provides a theoretically informed conception of professional knowledge, as involving a process of renewing ideas about learning, in meeting or resisting external demands.     

Social justice and school linkages in teacher education programmes

This paper investigates current research into the role of education in combating social injustice, assembles this research to indicate key features of a teacher education programme that would assist education for social justice, and links these features to one innovative university teacher education programme to ascertain some of the practical difficulties in establishing such a programme. The research indicated key approaches that would enhance the probability that graduates from teacher education programmes will be able to pursue social justice initiatives.     

“I Managed It Pretty Good”: Birth Narratives of Adolescent Mothers

The aim of this study was to understand adolescent mothers’ childbirth experiences. Semistructured interviews were conducted with participants recruited from a community-based program for adolescent mothers. Fourteen mothers described their birth experiences. Using a narrative analytic approach, responses were reconstructed into birth stories. Stories, condensed into poetic form, were compared and contrasted. Four unique categories emerged: connected births, surreal births, disconnected births, and disempowered births. Categories differed by agency, support, and emotional tone. Positive support was found in stories that portrayed high agency and positive affect, whereas problematic support was apparent in stories that conveyed passivity, frustration, and disappointment. This study has implications for tailoring childbirth education for adolescent mothers and can inform health-care professionals working with this population.     

Why Talk about Mental States? The Significance of Children's Conversations with Friends, Siblings, and Mothers

Natural language data from 38 47-month-olds recorded at home in unstructured observations were analyzed and comparisons made of characteristics of mental state term use in child-friend, child-sibling, and child-mother dyads. Significantly more references to mental states were made by the children in conversations with siblings and friends than with mothers. Frequent use of mental state terms by both partners was related to cooperative interaction in both child-friend and child-sibling dyads and several associations were found with measures of language fluency, gender, and maternal education, although these varied across the 2 dyads. Children's use of mental state terms in conversations with siblings and friends was correlated with their performance on two false belief measures. Results highlight the importance of extending investigations into the social implications of the development of children's "theories of mind."     

A study of the effectiveness of the primary education improvement program (science) in selected schools of Northern Nigeria

The Primary Education Improvement Program (Science) developed in Nigeria from 1970–1980 adopted a “process approach” to the teaching of science for children in Classes One and Two of primary school. In that insufficient formative data were available a study was organized to evaluate the attainment of the program's major objectives in terms of the children's ability to practice process skills. The study also attempted to measure children's interest, active participation and understanding of the lessons, as well as the availability of materials and ease of preparing and teaching the lessons for the teachers. Data were collected by means of teacher opinionnaires and a children's test to measure the attainment of process skills. The teachers who completed the opinionnaires rated the program as successful in terms of all the measured criteria. Children in the experimental and control groups were tested and their performances were compared. The results indicated that there were some significant differences in total test scores in favor of the experimental group after one year of primary school but none after two years. The program, though highly rated by teachers, did not produce the intended changes in children's behavior.