Stichwort: Weiterbildung im Spiegel empirischer Bildungsforschung

In the course of empirical educational research, there is an increasingly broad approach to inter-disciplinary contributions to academic questions related to the processes of institutionalised teaching and learning and their effects. By reference to a multi-level structure, inter-disciplinary studies are presented which focus on continuing education, the level of participation in continuing education and the effects of continuing education. A particular concern is to review approaches to research which are methodically designed to generalise findings about the effects of continuing education. Using monitoring studies as a starting point, economic and sociological education studies are considered which have their empirical basis in large-scale data records; the evaluation of in-service training courses in business enterprises is a branch of research which has been used, especially in the meta-analysis of smaller evaluation studies, to develop models of the effectiveness of company in-service training. To supplement these approaches which consider the effects of continuing education especially in the context of paid employment, the discussion also examines further social benefits of continuing education and various approaches to teaching and learning research. Finally, the current state of the research is then discussed in order to examine the implications for research strategy.     

Addressing the Needs of the Homeless: A San José Library Partnership Approach

Describes an urban joint-use library's approaches to library programs for homeless children, teens, and adults as well as agencies the library could partner with. Proposes that libraries put more effort into reaching out to the homeless community instead of assuming the normal expectation that people will come to the library.     

An Investigation of Explanation Multiple-Choice Items in Science Assessment

Both multiple-choice and constructed-response items have known advantages and disadvantages in measuring scientific inquiry. In this article we explore the function of explanation multiple-choice (EMC) items and examine how EMC items differ from traditional multiple-choice and constructed-response items in measuring scientific reasoning. A group of 794 middle school students was randomly assigned to answer either constructed-response or EMC items following regular multiple-choice items. By applying a Rasch partial-credit analysis, we found that there is a consistent alignment between the EMC and multiple-choice items. Also, the EMC items are easier than the constructed-response items but are harder than most of the multiple-choice items. We discuss the potential value of the EMC items as a learning and diagnostic tool.     

Assessing Knowledge Integration in Science: Construct,Measures, and Evidence

In response to the demand for sound science assessments, this article presents the development of a latent construct called knowledge integration as an effective measure of science inquiry. Knowledge integration assessments ask students to link, distinguish, evaluate, and organize their ideas about complex scientific topics. The article focuses on assessment topics commonly taught in 6th- through 12th-grade classes. Items from both published standardized tests and previous knowledge integration research were examined in 6 subject-area tests. Results from Rasch partial credit analyses revealed that the tests exhibited satisfactory psychometric properties with respect to internal consistency, item fit, weighted likelihood estimates, discrimination, and differential item functioning. Compared with items coded using dichotomous scoring rubrics, those coded with the knowledge integration rubrics yielded significantly higher discrimination indexes. The knowledge integration assessment tasks, analyzed using knowledge integration scoring rubrics, demonstrate strong promise as effective measures of complex science reasoning in varied science domains.     

Assessing knowledge growth in a psychology curriculum: which students improve most?

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into determinants of knowledge growth among first-year psychology students in a curriculum that uses the Progress Test (an assessment method for long-term retention of knowledge and knowledge growth) as its main assessment tool. To that end, the relation between the level of initial learning, prior knowledge, class attendance and individual study time, and Progress Test scores was analysed. The data showed that level of initial learning was positively associated with prior knowledge and class attendance. Further, level of initial learning was positively related to knowledge growth at the end of the first year of the curriculum. Students with higher levels of initial learning had a more extended knowledge base at the end of the first year of their curriculum than students with lower levels of initial learning. Prior knowledge, class attendance and individual study time did not have a significant relation with knowledge growth.     

Validating Measurement of Knowledge Integration in Science Using Multiple-Choice and Explanation Items

This study explores measurement of a construct called knowledge integration in science using multiple-choice and explanation items. We use construct and instructional validity evidence to examine the role multiple-choice and explanation items plays in measuring students' knowledge integration ability. For construct validity, we analyze item properties such as alignment, discrimination, and target range on the knowledge integration scale using a Rasch Partial Credit Model analysis. For instructional validity, we test the sensitivity of multiple-choice and explanation items to knowledge integration instruction using a cohort comparison design. Results show that (1) one third of correct multiple-choice responses are aligned with higher levels of knowledge integration while three quarters of incorrect multiple-choice responses are aligned with lower levels of knowledge integration, (2) explanation items discriminate between high and low knowledge integration ability students much more effectively than multiple-choice items, (3) explanation items measure a wider range of knowledge integration levels than multiple-choice items, and (4) explanation items are more sensitive to knowledge integration instruction than multiple-choice items.     

Children’s Physiological and Emotional Reactions to Witnessing Bullying Predict Bystander Intervention

Study goals were to explore whether children clustered into groups based on reactions to witnessing bullying and to examine whether these reactions predicted bullying intervention. Seventy‐nine children (M = 10.80 years) watched bullying videos in the laboratory while their heart rate (HR) was measured, and they self‐reported on negative emotion after each video. Bullying intervention was assessed by school peers. Two groups emerged based on reactions to the bullying videos: The Emotional group (43% of children) displayed HR acceleration and reported high negative emotion, whereas the Unemotional group (57% of children) showed HR deceleration and reported low negative emotion. Group membership predicted bullying intervention, with peers reporting that Emotional children were more likely to stop a bully than Unemotional children.     

Learning to read politically: narratives of hope and narratives of despair in Push by Sapphire

The ability to shift reading position has long been recognised as a means for politically minded readers – particularly those motivated by Marxist, feminist and/or race-related agendas – to read against the grain and uncover the implicit ideologies in the text. Little research has been conducted on how inexperienced and thus less sophisticated readers learn to make strategic decisions about how they will respond to the reading position offered by the text. Reading against the grain is a highly sophisticated reading practice which cannot be mastered successfully before the reader is able to simultaneously recognise the communicative practices of the author and reject the proffered viewpoint. This paper begins by examining how the novel Push by Sapphire (1996) encourages readers to try out more than one reading position, and in doing so enables her readers to gain the prerequisite skills for future political readings.