Culturally responsive student assessment and quality work in higher education

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

Top-down and bottom-up approaches to improve educational quality: their intended and unintended consequences

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

Social acceptance of students with Down syndrome and students without disability

We investigated the influence of teacher feedback on the social acceptance of peers with intellectual disabilities and peers without disabilities. A computer task was administered to 601 students in grades 3 and 4. Twenty-six per cent of the students attend an inclusive school; the others are in regular schools without students with special educational needs. Participants are introduced to ‘new’ virtual classmates, one student with Down syndrome (DS), and one control student with no obvious disability. Additionally, teacher feedback and feedback about fun playing with the new classmates is given. Social acceptance is evaluated by asking if one would like to sit next to him/her. Both feedbacks showed a strong effect. The child with DS was less socially accepted than the child without disability. No difference regarding the social acceptance of the students with DS was found between students from inclusive and regular classes. Students from regular classes rate the social acceptance of the student without disabilities significantly higher than students from inclusive classrooms.     

Efficacy of a cultural adaptation of the Identity Project intervention among adolescents attending multiethnic classrooms in Italy: A randomized controlled trial

This registered report evaluated the efficacy of an Italian adaptation of the Identity Project, a school-based intervention promoting adolescents' cultural identity. Migration background and environmental sensitivity were explored as moderators. After adapting and piloting the intervention, a randomized controlled trial was conducted between October 2021 and January 2022 on 747 ethnically diverse adolescents (M_age = 15 years, 53% girls, 31% with migration background) attending 45 classrooms randomly assigned to the intervention or control condition. Bayesian analyses confirmed the efficacy of the Italian IP in enhancing exploration processes (Cohen's d = .18), whereas no cascading effect on resolution emerged. Youth with higher (vs. lower) levels of environmental sensitivity benefited more in terms of exploration. Implications for developmental theory and practice are discussed.     

What Makes Characters’ Bad Behaviors Acceptable? The Effects of Character Motivation and Outcome on Perceptions,Character Liking,and Moral Disengagement

Many characters in entertainment content behave in morally questionable ways at least some of the time. However, the negative effects of those behaviors on individuals’ judgments of the character may be diminished in some instances. This study examined the effects of character motivation and outcome in a written narrative on character perceptions and moral disengagement. The findings of a 2 (motivation: altruistic, selfish) × 2 (outcome: positive, negative) experiment (N = 123) revealed that both motivation and outcome affect perceptions of the character's positive and negative attributes, character liking, and moral disengagement. Specifically, altruistic motivations and positive outcomes led to more favorable perceptions of a character's attributes, greater character liking, and more justification of the character's actions. Furthermore, moral disengagement mediated the effects of motivation and outcome on perceptions of characters' positive and negative attributes, and in turn positive attributes mediated the effect of moral disengagement on character liking. Implications for future entertainment research are discussed.