Evaluating learning

Summary It is essential that any system of assessment or evaluation arise from what we are trying to do, what we value, what we think to be important. In informal education, we value growth and development, we value interest and involvement, and this must be reflected in the records we keep. We know that young children are at the beginning of the educational process, they are finding out about school, what's in education for them personally; they are learning about learning, building up learning styles and strategies. It is a critical period where learning power can be built or shifted, where learning can be exciting and personal, or dull and irrelevant. On no account can we allow irrelevant evaluation tools to get in the way of learning.The notions put forward here are that assessment and forward planning are interdependent. Continuous assessment is an essential feature of informal education and it is the basis of day-to-day planning. Additionally, there needs to be a profile, or cumulative record, of all aspects of children's growth throughout their school life.Examples of children's work kept in a folder over a long period of time provide the fullest example of the variety and range of a child's work and his growing ability to represent it, in writing and through the use of creative materials. They provide a basis for reporting to parents that gives them real information about their own child's learning.It is important that informal class teachers should develop some framework against which to measure children's work. The Piagetian tests provide measures of children's growth in mathematical, logical and moral spheres. There are instruments developed for measuring developing complexity in written and spoken language. Reading can be assessed and a diagnosis made using a simple inventory and the miscue analysis. These approaches have real relevance to informal education and once teachers become familiar with them, they can be used without fuss, without creating artificial conditions, without designating failures, in the everyday interaction of teacher and child.A teacher who finds a child failing, having particular difficulties, should have available skilled help for expert diagnosis. The school health service and the psychological service offer this kind of help. Particularly, a child who shows no sign of beginning to learn to read should not go beyond 7 years without careful screening to ascertain any real physipal or psychological problem. His late start may be due to immaturity or lack of experience or low intelligence. It may be due to poor teaching, or changing schools. A skilled psychologist and a medical examination will eliminate or confirm the likelihood of any other problem.One of the most damaging misconceptions about informal education is that it is woolly and vague. We can counteract this accusation only if we can show a high degree:of professionalism, and evidence or real knowledge about what and how children are learning, and demonstrate our competence in assessing this learning as a basis for future planning. Moira McKenzie is warden of the Ebury Center for Language in Primary Education in London. Wendla Kernig is headmistress of a London primary school. This article is taken from their forthcoming bookThe Challenge of Informal Education,to be published this fall by Agathon Press.     

Early social communication development in infants with autism spectrum disorder

Social-communication differences are a robust and defining feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but identifying early points of divergence in infancy has been a challenge. The current study examines social communication in 9- to 12-month-old infants who develop ASD (N = 30; 23% female; 70% white) compared to typically developing (TD) infants (N = 94, 38% female; 88% white). Results demonstrate that infants later diagnosed with ASD were already exhibiting fewer social-communication skills using eye gaze, facial expression, gestures, and sounds at 9 months (effect size: 0.42–0.89). Moreover, three unique patterns of change across distinct social-communication skills were observed within the ASD group. This study documents that observable social-communication differences for infants with ASD are unfolding by 9 months, pointing to a critical window for targeted intervention.     

Computer-based instruction for improving student nurses’ general numeracy: is it effective? Two randomised trials

In response to concern over the numeracy skills deficit displayed by student nurses, an online computer programme, “Authentic World®”, which aims to simulate a real-life clinical environment and improve the medication dosage calculation skills of users, was developed (Founded in 2004 Authentic World Ltd is a spin out company of Glarmorgan and Cardiff Universities, Cardiff, Wales UK.). Two randomised controlled trials were conducted, each at a UK University, in order to investigate the impact of Authentic World® on student nurses’ general numeracy abilities. All first year nursing students who gave consent were randomised equally into an intervention or control group. The intervention group were given access to Authentic World®. The primary outcome measure was the students’ scores on a general numeracy test. The Intention to Treat (ITT) analysis in both trials revealed a small negative effect of Authentic World® on general numeracy, which was statistically significant in one trial. However, compliance with the intervention was very low in both trials, with only 24 and 12% of students allocated to the intervention groups spending more than 15 minutes using the programme. Providing nursing students with access to Authentic World® is not an effective use of resources since use of the programme appears to be very low.     

OWL (On‐line Webstories for Learning): a unique web‐based literacy resource for primary/elementary children

Technology resources created for use by children have often been drill and practise or game‐like in approach. For a literacy resource, the use of narrative provides an opportunity for children to become more immersed in an environment rich in print and illustrations that supports the development of reading skills while encouraging the enjoyment of reading. This paper will examine the rationale for the incorporation of narrative in the OWL (On‐line Webstories for Learning) resource, and how the narrative line is supported by on‐line and off‐line activities.     

Moral issues in sport: the child's perspective

Sport offers opportunities for children to identify and resolve moral issues. Moral issues in sport have primarily been studied from the researcher's perspective, with the child's perspective relatively ignored. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the nature and content of the issues children experienced in sport. Interview participants consisted of 7 boys and 8 girls ranging in age from 10 to 12 years (M = 11.6 years, SD = 1.7) who had competitive youth sport experience. An inductive content analysis revealed that children identified issues surrounding three overall dimensions concerning fairness of adult's actions, negative game behaviors, and negative team behaviors. Specific examples of issues included unfair actions by coaches, disrespecting opponents, and selfish behavior in practice. The self-identified issues both confirmed and expanded upon the content found in hypothetical moral dilemmas in sport.     

Recouping and rethinking the effects of summer vacation on reading achievement

Vacations may have detrimental effects on maths and spelling performance, but the findings for reading are less conclusive. The purpose of this study was to analyse the effects of summer vacation on early literacy skills of young children. Participants included rising first and second‐graders, most of whom were at‐risk, struggling readers. No evidence of summer setback was evident for this sample of children; in fact, gains in reading (or, recoupment of any losses) were more common in children performing at lower levels than for those with higher scores at the end of the school year. Our outcomes are different from those reported by other researchers. We explain this with attention to the content of our comparisons, the grade levels investigated and measures used to assess performance, and discuss implications for future research based on our findings.     

HPE in Aotearoa New Zealand: the reconfiguration of policy and pedagogic relations and privatisation of curriculum and pedagogy

This paper centres on research that investigated the contemporary policy, curriculum and pedagogical landscape of Health and Physical Education (HPE) in Aotearoa New Zealand, in the light of increasing impressions that provision was moving to an ‘open market’ situation. Publicly available information sourced via the Internet was used to examine the public and privately funded initiatives, programmes and resources targeted towards the provision of HPE across all phases of education. The data arising revealed an array of government and non-governmental agencies and organisations acting as producers of resources and deliverers of HPE-related programmes in schools. It also clearly pointed to structural convergence between government and non-government sectors. This paper locates the findings from the research amidst developments in policy relations and networks spanning education, health and sport, and presents a theoretically oriented critical re-examination of the structural reconfiguration of contemporary HPE in Aotearoa New Zealand. Analysis brings together insights from Ball and Junemann's work on policy networks and Bernstein's theorising of the social construction of discourse to explore linkages between policy and pedagogic relations, and the discourses and practices in HPE. Attention is directed to the significance of changes in the nature of both the Official Recontextualizing Field and Pedagogic Recontextualizing field, and the connections between the two fields. Changes in the recontextualizing fields are discussed in relation to official pedagogic discourse of HPE and the pedagogic discourse of reproduction. This analysis brings to the fore prospective curriculum and pedagogic implications of new policy networks and new networks of providers associated with provision of HPE in schools. Discussion acknowledges potentially varied readings of contemporary developments and addresses the opportunities and challenges for teachers and teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.