The impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK for doctoral and early career researchers

Higher Education - Doctoral researchers and early career researchers (ECRs) are crucial to producing scientific advancements and represent the future of academic leadership. Their research...     

The Researcher and the Studier: On Stress,Tiredness and Homelessness in the University

Recent European policy has seen a shift from a concern with lifelong learning in the Lisbon Strategy to research and innovation in the Horizon 2020 programme. Accordingly, there has been an increased policy focus on the researcher who, like the lifelong learner must be entrepreneurial, adaptable, mobile, but who must also find new ways in which to develop and deploy her skills and competences and smart solutions to current problems in order to ensure sustainability. The subject position of the researcher, therefore, is not a figure distinctive to the university today, but rather one required of us all. For the excellent researcher in the university, resources exist to enable her to identify those aspects of herself that are in need of development in order to keep all aspects of her personal and professional well‐being in balance, often drawn from the field of psychology. Here, rather than analysing directly the ways in which the researcher is addressed by such devices, we focus on the common experience of being in the university today. In everyday conversation, we do not describe ourselves as entrepreneurial, innovative, leading, etc., but more often as tired, stressed and not feeling at home there. Rather than taking these as impediments to productivity and aspects of ourselves requiring psychological strategies, the educational aspects of these are explored in relation to the figure of the studier, as developed from Giorgio Agamben by Tyson Lewis. The shift of discourse from lifelong learning to innovation and research in recent policy is seen to effect a further desubjectivation, a division of ourselves from ourselves.     

Generating Random Parallel Test Forms Using CTT in a Computer-Based Environment

This paper describes a procedure for automated test forms assembly based on Classical Test Theory (CTT). The procedure uses stratified random content sampling and test form pre-equating to ensure both content and psychometric equivalence in generating virtually unlimited parallel forms. The procedure extends the usefulness of CTT in automated test form construction, yielding classical item statistics based on representative sample distributions and pre-equated test forms with known psychometric characteristics. A rationale for the procedure is presented followed by an example application and discussion of psychometric considerations related to its use.     

Supporting Learners' Agentic Engagement With Feedback: A Systematic Review and a Taxonomy of Recipience Processes

Much has been written in the educational psychology literature about effective feedback and how to deliver it. However, it is equally important to understand how learners actively receive, engage with, and implement feedback. This article reports a systematic review of the research evidence pertaining to this issue. Through an analysis of 195 outputs published between 1985 and early 2014, we identified various factors that have been proposed to influence the likelihood of feedback being used. Furthermore, we identified diverse interventions with the common aim of supporting and promoting learners' agentic engagement with feedback processes. We outline the various components used in these interventions, and the reports of their successes and limitations. Moreover we propose a novel taxonomy of four recipience processes targeted by these interventions. This review and taxonomy provide a theoretical basis for conceptualizing learners' responsibility within feedback dialogues and for guiding the strategic design and evaluation of interventions.     

The Social Validity of Bug-in-Ear Coaching: Findings From Two Studies Implemented in Inclusive Early Childhood Environments

Coaching is a promising method for providing professional development, which takes many forms. One such form is real-time coaching through bug-in-ear technology. This study explored the social validity of bug-in-ear coaching when provided as a form of professional development with preservice and in-service early childhood educators. Data from two studies were qualitatively analyzed to describe early childhood educators’ perceptions of the acceptability of bug-in-ear coaching with respect to the learning opportunities provided, feasibility, difficulties, and child-level outcomes. Findings suggest that BIE is deemed to be important and effective at producing educator and child outcomes. Further, educators are satisfied with the intervention and view it to be an acceptable means for receiving professional development.