Formative assessment in the Grenadian lower secondary school: teachers’ perceptions,attitudes and practices

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions, attitudes and frequency of use of formative assessment strategies of teachers in the Grenadian lower secondary school (Forms 1, 2 and 3). The study, which was quantitative in nature, involved 252 lower secondary school teachers. Overall the participants had positive perceptions and attitudes towards formative assessment. Significant differences in the perceptions of formative assessment held by trained and untrained teachers (p?p?=?.001) were found. Trained and untrained teachers were found to have similar frequencies of practice of formative assessment strategies. About half of the teachers reported not allowing students to provide input into test construction and encouraging students to engage in journal writing. The study raises questions about the hindrances that teachers face in the integration of some formative assessment strategies and provides policy-makers with valuable information to support strengthening of teacher education efforts.     

The effects of childhood abuse on symptom complexity in a clinical sample: Mediating effects of emotion regulation difficulties

The purpose of the present study was to first examine whether childhood abuse predicts symptom complexity, as indicated by the number of clinically elevated scales on the MMPI-2 in an adult clinical sample. Secondly, we investigated whether emotion regulation difficulties mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and symptom complexity. A total of 162 adult outpatients not presenting with psychotic symptoms completed the Korean Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (K-CTQ), Life Events Checklist (LEC), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and Korean Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). Partial correlation analysis results indicated that after controlling for the presence of adulthood trauma, childhood abuse was associated with more symptom complexity, or more clinically elevated scales on the MMPI-2. Furthermore, structural equation modeling results showed that emotion regulation difficulties partially mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and symptom complexity. These findings indicate that individuals who had experienced childhood abuse evidence simultaneous presentation of diverse clinical symptoms.     

High self-control predicts more positive emotions, better engagement, and higher achievement in school

The control-value theory of academic emotions has emerged as a useful framework for studying the antecedents and consequences of different emotions in school. This framework focuses on the role of control-related and value-related appraisals as proximal antecedents of emotions. In this study, we take an individual differences approach to examine academic emotions and investigate how trait self-control is related to students’ experience of academic emotions. We posited a model wherein trait self-control predicted academic emotions which in turn predicted engagement and perceived academic achievement. Filipino university students answered relevant questionnaires. Results indicated that self-control positively predicted positive academic emotions (enjoyment, hope, and pride) and negatively predicted negative emotions (anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, and boredom). Academic emotions, in turn, had a significant impact on engagement, disaffection, and perceived achievement. Implications for exploring synergies between research on trait self-control and the control-value theory of academic emotions are discussed.     

The road to self-assessment: exemplar marking before peer review develops first-year students’ capacity to judge the quality of a scientific report

Lack of clarity about assessment criteria and standards is a source of anxiety for many first-year university students. The Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning (DUAL) programme was designed as a staged approach to gradually familiarise students with expectations, and to provide opportunities for the development of the skills required to successfully complete assessment tasks. This paper investigated the students’ perceptions of the first two components of the DUAL programme, which assist first-year biology students to engage with stated assessment criteria and standards in order to develop their capacity to make judgements about scientific report exemplars, their peers’ scientific reports and ultimately their own. The study found strong evidence (96% of responses) that the marking and discussion of exemplar reports with peers and demonstrators clarified expectations of scientific report writing. A key feature of this element of DUAL was the opportunity for structured discussion about assessment criteria and standards between peers and markers (demonstrators). During these discussions, students can clarify explicit statements and develop a tacit knowledge base to enhance their ability to judge the quality of others’ work and their own. The peer review exercise (the second element of DUAL) was not rated as highly, with 65% of students finding the process helpful for improving their report. The negative reactions by a sizeable minority of students highlight the need to clearly communicate the expectations and benefits of peer review, with a focus on how the process of giving feedback to peers might benefit a student as much as receiving feedback on their own report.     

Measuring the Interactive Skills of Caregivers in Child Care Centers: Development and Validation of the Caregiver Interaction Profile Scales

Research Findings: High-quality caregiver–child interactions constitute the core of high-quality child care for young children. This article describes the background and development of the Caregiver Interaction Profile (CIP) scales to rate 6 key skills of caregivers for interacting with 0- to 4-year-old children in child care centers: sensitive responsiveness, respect for autonomy, structuring and limit setting, verbal communication, developmental stimulation, and fostering positive peer interactions. Each interactive skill is rated on a 7-point scale based on observation of video-recorded caregiver–child interactions. Together, the 6 scale scores constitute an Interaction Profile for individual caregivers that may serve as a starting point for education and training to improve the quality of caregiver–child interactions. This article also presents the results of a 1st study with the CIP scales, in a sample of 145 caregivers from 75 child care groups in 47 child care centers in The Netherlands. Practice or Policy: Results provide promising preliminary evidence supporting the reliability and validity of the CIP scales.     

Replacing Old Spatial Empires of the Mind

In this article we argue for the spatialization of research on educational transfer in the field of comparative education within a theoretical framework that focuses on networks, connections, and flows. We present what we call a "spatial empire of the mind," which is comprised of a set of taken-for-granted "truths" about space and place that have legitimized much research in the social sciences. We critique this spatial empire of the mind and present some of the core ideas associated with the spatial turn. The next part of the article reviews three possible ways that new spatial theorizing has been taken up in educational research. Here we make reference to existing educational studies that engage with new ways of rethinking space and place. The argument that we put forward is that the most promising approach, for research on educational transfer within the field of comparative education, is network spatiality. We argue that there is great value in rethinking space and place not simply as objects of study, but within a theoretical framework that focuses on networks, interconnections, and movements within and between them, as well as their productive capacity to produce and shape knowledge, identities, and human subjectivities.     

Reconsidering human performance technology

This article discusses three perceived challenges in the field of human performance technology: a missing link from training to performance, limitations in gap analysis and cause analysis, and a lack of attention to business and organization performance. It then provides possible alternatives for each issue, such as instructional system development frameworks for organizational learning, a soft performance technology framework, and a proposed framework for four levels of performance.     

Effects of child-caregiver ratio on the interactions between caregivers and children in child-care centers: an experimental study

To investigate the effects of child-caregiver ratio on the quality of caregiver-child interaction in child-care centers, 217 caregivers (ages 18-56 years) from 64 child care centers were observed during two structured play episodes: one with a group of three children and one with a group of 5 children. As predicted, a child-caregiver ratio of 3:1 produced a significantly higher quality of caregiver-child interaction than a ratio of 5:1 and particularly for younger children. Significant and meaningful effects were found for both the interactive behaviors of the caregivers and the children's well-being and cooperation. Significant correlations with caregiver-child interaction during lunchtime and throughout the remainder of the morning confirmed the ecological validity of the caregiver-child interactions observed during structured play episodes.     

Orthogonal-polynomials-based integral inequality and its applications to systems with additive time-varying delays

Recently, a polynomials-based integral inequality was proposed by extending the Moon’s inequality into a generic formulation. By imposing certain structures on the slack matrices of this integral inequality, this paper proposes an orthogonal-polynomials-based integral inequality which has lower computational burden than the polynomials-based integral inequality while maintaining the same conservatism. Further, this paper provides notes on relations among recent general integral inequalities constructed with arbitrary degree polynomials. In these notes, it is shown that the proposed integral inequality is superior to the Bessel–Legendre (B–L) inequality and the polynomials-based integral inequality in terms of the conservatism and computational burden, respectively. Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an illustrative example of stability analysis for systems with additive time-varying delays.