Viewing the reconstruction of primary schooling in Southern Sudan through education data, 2006–2009

After one of the longest wars in the history of Africa, Southern Sudan accomplished one of the world’s quickest education reconstruction programmes. Once the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in 2005, the international donor community and the government and people of Southern Sudan united under a common goal: to increase access to education for both children and adults. Southern Sudan’s experience leads to three lessons. First, countries entering a post-conflict situation should anticipate and plan for the possibility of a large and rapid influx of new students immediately after hostilities end. Second, after a prolonged conflict, an alternative education system is critical to allow children, and the young adults who were previously deprived of education, the opportunity to acquire the skills they need to earn a living. Finally, donors must respond rapidly, demonstrate considerable flexibility, forgo extensive planning and documentation before acting, and be willing to make a multi-year commitment.     

Predicting teachers’ continuance in a virtual learning environment with psychological ownership and the TAM: a perspective from Malaysia

Educational technology research and development - Psychological ownership (PO) is a sense of being psychologically tied to an object to the extent that it becomes part of the extended self. As...     

Learning barriers among Grade 6 pupils attending rural schools in Uganda: implications to policy and practice

The paper uses multilevel analysis procedures to examine individual- and group-level learning barriers that have the greatest impact on pupil achievement in Uganda. The data for this study were collected in 2014 among 2711 Grade 6 pupils attending 82 schools in two rural districts of Iganga and Mayuge in Uganda. Data used in this paper are part of a larger study which sought to examine the schooling patterns, as well as the quality of education received by children living in rural settlements in Uganda. Among the learning barriers with the greatest impact on pupil achievement at the individual-level were lack of parental involvement, lack of pre-primary school attendance, grade repetition, and lack of basic learning resources such as writing materials. At the school-level, the barriers with the most impact on pupil achievement were lack of teacher lesson preparedness, lack of teacher-classroom support by subject advisors, distance between school and teachers’ place of residence, lack of basic classroom resources, and whether or not the teacher kept pupil learning progress records. Implications of the findings for policy and practice are outlined.     

Students' rating of Speak Out television programme

This study is an evaluation of Speak Out television programme in Lagos State. A total of 300 junior secondary school students of Lagos State participated in the study: 150 class I and 150 class II students randomly selected from the six secondary schools in the two environment settings (200 urban and 100 rural).
Two groups of subjects featured—Experimental: representing students taught using the instructional television programme approach, and Control: representing those taught the same subject matter of the instructional television programme using the group activity (socio-drama) without the stimulus of the television programme.
The research tested three hypotheses. The findings revealed that there were significant differences found in the performance of the Experimental groups that were taught with the instructional television programme approach. In addition, there was a significant difference found between location and instructional method. The classes' performances were not significant. The article discusses the findings and makes some recommendations     

When Is It Democratically Legitimate to Opt Out of Public Education?

In this essay, Michele Moses and Terri Wilson explore the recent movement to opt out of state tests. They situate this activism within a diverse line of efforts to refuse aspects of public education, asking how to evaluate the democratic legitimacy of different kinds of refusal in public education. Drawing on specific examples of opting out, they point to different ethical principles at stake in conflicts over public education. They pose three sets of questions — emphasizing reasons, positionality, and consequences — to help guide local educational leaders, policymakers, and citizens in negotiating difficult cases of refusal in public education. Moses and Wilson conclude that opting out of tests may, under certain conditions, serve the public purposes of education in a democratic society. Although many opt-out activists justify their actions in terms of individual rights, others are concerned with public goals and ideals, including concerns about the narrowing of curriculum, the erosion of teacher authority, and the widening privatization of public education. Yet communicating across and between different interests in this movement remains a challenge, one that points to the need for spaces of democratic deliberation about the aims of education policy.     

Small-Sample Equating Using a Single-Group Nearly Equivalent Test (SiGNET) Design

A single-group (SG) equating with nearly equivalent test forms (SiGNET) design was developed by Grant to equate small-volume tests. Under this design, the scored items for the operational form are divided into testlets or mini tests. An additional testlet is created but not scored for the first form. If the scored testlets are testlets 1–6 and the unscored testlet is testlet 7, then the first form is composed of testlets 1–6 and the second form is composed of testlets 2–7. The seven testlets are administered as a single administered form, and when a sufficient number of examinees have taken the administered form, the second form (testlets 2–7) is equated to the first form (testlets 1–6) using an SG equating design. As evident, this design facilitates the use of an SG equating and allows for the accumulation of data, both of which may reduce equating error. This study compared equatings under the SiGNET and common-item equating designs and found lower equating error for the SiGNET design in very small sample size conditions (e.g., N = 10).     

Using Log-Linear Smoothing to Improve Small-Sample DIF Estimation

This study examined the extent to which log-linear smoothing could improve the accuracy of differential item functioning (DIF) estimates in small samples of examinees. Examinee responses from a certification test were analyzed using White examinees in the reference group and African American examinees in the focal group. Using a simulation approach, separate DIF estimates for seven small-sample-size conditions were obtained using unsmoothed (U) and smoothed (S) score distributions. These small sample U and S DIF estimates were compared to a criterion (i.e., DIF estimates obtained using the unsmoothed total data) to assess their degree of variability (random error) and accuracy (bias). Results indicate that for most studied items smoothing the raw score distributions reduced random error and bias of the DIF estimates, especially in the small-sample-size conditions. Implications of these results for operational testing programs are discussed.     

Articulation of medium of instruction politics in the Malaysian Chinese press

In postcolonial multilingual societies, matters of education are deeply rooted in the discourse of ethnicity. In Malaysia, the interface between ethnicity and education is reflected in recent debates on the choice of medium of instruction (MOI). In 2002, the Malaysian government introduced English as MOI by replacing Malay, the national language, for teaching mathematics and science, at the school level. However, in 2009, the policy was reversed to Malay. This policy initiative has been actively contested in the Malaysian media. Through an analysis of news reports on the controversy published by the Malaysian Chinese newspaper, Nanyang Siang Pao, this paper aims to illustrate how a sizeable ethnic minority is able to position itself vis-à-vis a national policy. To explain the ethno-political construction of MOI debates in the newspaper, we use two concepts, namely, ‘plurality of struggles’ (Laclau, 2006a, 2006b; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985) and ‘transmission of the speech of others’ (Bakhtin, 1981). These notions are contextualized in the macro-context of a multi-ethnic polity in which Chinese society, Chinese press and Chinese education are seen to co-construct community interests.