Shifting the focus of validity for test use

The conventional focus of validity in educational measurement has been on intended interpretations and uses of test scores. Empirical studies of test use by teachers, administrators and policy-makers show that actual interpretations and uses of test scores in context are invariably shaped by local users’ questions, which frequently require attention to multiple sources of evidence about students’ learning and the factors that shape it, and depend on local capacity to use such information well. This requires a more complex theory of validity that can shift focus as needed from the intended interpretations and uses of test scores that guide test developers to local capacity to support the actual interpretations, decisions and actions that routinely serve local users’ purposes. I draw on the growing empirical literature on data use to illustrate the need for an expanded theory of validity, point to theoretical resources that might guide such an expansion, and suggest a research agenda towards these ends.     

Portfolios, Accountability, and an Interpretive Approach to Validity

How can the results of classroom-based portfolio assessment be communicated outside the classroom? How might a portfolio-based assessment system be designed and implemented? How can we evaluate the merits of portfolio-based assessments?     

Effects of a Teacher‐Designed and Teacher‐Led Numerical Board Game Intervention: A Randomized Controlled Study with 4‐ to 6‐Year‐Olds

The purpose of the current pilot study was to examine the effects of a teacher‐designed and teacher‐led numerical board game intervention. Fifty‐four 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds were randomly assigned to either the number board game intervention or an active control group. Relative to the control group, children who received the number game intervention demonstrated significant improvements on a numeral identification task. This finding is significant in so far as numeral identification skills play a critical role in more advanced numerical and mathematical reasoning. There was no evidence of training‐related improvements on any of the other tasks. In addition to the intervention effects, the present study provides an example of a successful teacher‐researcher collaboration, providing new insights into the making of bidirectional relations between research and practice.     

Verbal discussions about social problem-solving between friends and non-friends

In the field of developmental social psychology there is a consensus concerning the social nature of intelligence. In spite of the important empirical investigations in this field over the last fifteen years, the influence of the quality of a relationship on joint problem-solving and learning is still poorly understood. This explorary study investigated the influence of socio-affective context on the interactive modalities surrounding social problem-solving discussions conducted with 32 dyads of 8-year-old Swiss francophone children. Sociometric interviews with children and teachers were carried out to identify the following naturally-ocurring socio-affective contexts: reciprocal friendship (RF), asymmetrical friendship (AF) and reciprocal absence of friendship (“reciprocal non-friendship” RNF; excluding enemies). Comparisons of verbal exchanges and dyadic performance across the three groups suggests that reciprocal friendship facilitates collaboration and the organization of collective work. Two rival hypotheses opposing socio-affective proximity (reciprocal friendship) and socio-affective distance (asymmetrical friendship and reciprocal absence of friendship) are discussed with respect to the influence of social interactions on social problem-solving.     

Multilevel Factors Affecting College Students’ Perceived Knowledge Transferability: From the Perspective of Self-Determination Theory

Promoting students’ ability to transfer or apply their knowledge and skills to real-life situations is critical in higher education. The current study was designed to test the likelihood that the constructs based on self-determination theory (SDT) framework help understand college students’ perceived knowledge transferability. A total of 3783 undergraduates from 301 classes participated in this study. The results of a series of multilevel modeling analyses indicated that (a) competence satisfaction and identification were the most salient factors influencing students’ perceived knowledge transferability; (b) the SDT-related variables together explained 64.2% of the between-student variance in perceived knowledge transferability; (c) after controlling for student-level covariates and SDT-related variables, 7.9% of the variance in perceived knowledge transferability was caused by between-class differences, and 19.6% of it could be explained by course fields and course levels. Our results, which provide evidence of multilevel factors influencing college students’ perceived knowledge transferability, have implications for promoting transfer in higher education.

     

2014 Australian Association for Research in Education Presidential Address

The 2014, 41st Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) presidential address is both inspired and guided by the discursive genres of presidential addresses and the role of the president in a member association such as AARE. In the address, typically the president speaks to the members on an issue or issues that are to shape or conclude their term of office, as it is in my case. Like many of the 40 AARE presidents who have gone before me, I will embed some things that are professional, personal and political—not in the interests of advancing my research agenda, but to add “to the weave and pattern of the association’s history” (Reid 2010, p. v). Threads of my research since completing my PhD in 2000 will appear to support the broad argument. Also, I will draw on the outcomes of the 2014 Australian Research Council Discovery round (see Australian Research Council: ARC archives 2016) to encapsulate my key argument that educational research and its (ex)changes are being reshaped: in a post human digital age, the tree of knowledge is mutating. To make my argument, I will review how the thinking and doing of educational research mid-way through the second decade of the twenty-first century is constructed and ask what research endeavours might be created to make the best possible worlds for our member community and the aspirations of the association.     

Creating space for learning: conceptualizing women and higher education through space and time

This paper highlights the strengths of giving visibility to the concepts of space and time in research related to women's lives and higher education. It is based on research that explores the everyday practice and experience of women higher education students at a community college in the north of England. It focuses on the ways in which space and time to study are both socially and personally constructed. The concepts of space and time are drawn on to theorize and analyze women students' experiences and to draw attention to the ‘behind scenes of power and control’ shaping action (Layder, 1993 Layder D 1993 New strategies in social research (Cambridge, Polity)  [Google Scholar], p. 249). Women students from a range of backgrounds are considered, including younger/older, mother/non‐mother and differential class and geographical heritage. The paper highlights three issues. Firstly, the increasingly restricted ground available for academic studies in women's lives, resulting from the restructuring of paid work, social welfare and higher education. Secondly, the hierarchy of values and ambiguous meanings attached to higher education when women attempt to study. Thirdly, the intense negotiations undertaken by women students in order to construct space and time for academic work.     

Talk about texts: reading as a social event

Drawing on anthropological evidence that interactions with texts are often mediated through oral language practices and Vygotsky's ideas about the primacy of social dialogue for individual intellectual development, the authors argue that children's informal talk about both electronic and printed texts throws new light on the reading process as a whole. They analyse children's talk about a school library book, a piece of graffiti, a television programme and a film to show how readings are shaped by the social organization and personal relationships of the readers, whether in curriculum activities, friendship groups or at home in the family. Readings are constructed, contested and negotiated through talk at the point where texts are first calculated and reshaped again when they are jointly recalled. Talk also helps to construct the text's legitimate audience and the reader's position within it.