Collaborative epistemic discourse in classroom information-seeking tasks

The authors discuss the relationship between information seeking and epistemic beliefs – beliefs about the source, structure, complexity and stability of knowledge – in the context of collaborative information-seeking discourses. They further suggest that both information seeking, and epistemic cognition research agendas, have suffered from a lack of attention to how information seeking as a collaborative activity is mediated by talk between partners – an area they seek to address in this article. A small-scale observational study using sociocultural discourse analysis was conducted with eight 11-year-old pupils who carried out search engine tasks in small groups. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were performed on their discussions using sociocultural discourse analytic techniques. Extracts of the dialogue are reported, informed by concordance analysis and quantitative coding of dialogue duration. The authors find that: (1) discourse which could be characterised as ‘epistemic’ is identifiable in student talk; (2) it is possible to identify talk which is more or less productive; and (3) epistemic talk is associated with positive learning outcomes.     

Cheating: The illusory edge

This experiment studied the relationships among cheating, overall test performance, and the relatedness of materials available and unavailable to the cheater. Subjects learned a free-recall list and were then tested for recall either when cheating was impossible or when half of the list had been left “carelessly” exposed. For half of the cheat subjects the exposed and the unexposed words belonged to different categories, while for the remaining halves the items belonged to the same categories. Recall was scored for both exposed and unexposed words. The results indicate that significant cheating did occur, that cheating did not improve overall performance, and that while cheating elevated the numbers of recorded exposed words it depressed recall of stored unexposed items (for both related and unrelated sets). This associated cost effect is discussed in connection with category retrieval, output interference, attention, and arousal.     

Detecting Item Drift in Large‐Scale Testing

The early detection of item drift is an important issue for frequently administered testing programs because items are reused over time. Unfortunately, operational data tend to be very sparse and do not lend themselves to frequent monitoring analyses, particularly for on‐demand testing. Building on existing residual analyses, the authors propose an item index that requires only moderate‐to‐small sample sizes to form data for time‐series analysis. Asymptotic results are presented to facilitate statistical significance tests. The authors show that the proposed index combined with time‐series techniques may be useful in detecting and predicting item drift. Most important, this index is related to a well‐known differential item functioning analysis so that a meaningful effect size can be proposed for item drift detection.     

THE ROLE OF SCHOOL LEVEL PROTECTIVE FACTORS IN OVERCOMING CUMULATIVE RISK FOR BEHAVIOR DIFFICULTIES IN CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND DISABILITIES

The study investigated whether school‐level protective factors could moderate the effects cumulative risk has upon behavior difficulties in children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The sample comprised 4,288 children identified with SEND: 2,660 pupils within 248 primary schools, and 1,628 pupils within 57 secondary schools. Risk factors associated with increases in behavior difficulties over an 18‐month period were summed to a cumulative risk score. Various school‐level factors were added to multilevel models, with interaction terms computed between cumulative risk and these variables to assess their potential protective effects. The primary school model revealed a significant interaction between cumulative risk and school academic achievement in predicting behavior difficulties. Higher levels of achievement in primary schools help reduce behavior difficulties for children most at risk. The secondary school model evidenced a significant interaction between cumulative risk and school percentage of students eligible for free school meals (FSM). Lower proportions within a school of children eligible for FSM were associated with reductions in behavior difficulties for children at high levels of risk. Interventions aimed at improving school‐level academic achievement and targeting high‐risk students attending schools with large proportions of children eligible for FSM would be beneficial.     

Towards an implementation framework for business intelligence in healthcare

As healthcare organizations continue to be asked to do more with less, access to information is essential for sound evidence-based decision making. Business intelligence (BI) systems are designed to deliver decision-support information and have been repeatedly shown to provide value to organizations. Many healthcare organizations have yet to implement BI systems and no existing research provides a healthcare-specific framework to guide implementation. To address this research gap, we employ a case study in a Canadian Health Authority in order to address three questions: (1) what are the most significant adverse impacts to the organization's decision processes and outcomes attributable to a lack of decision-support capabilities? (2) what are the root causes of these impacts, and what workarounds do they necessitate? and (3) in light of the issues identified, what are the key considerations for healthcare organizations in the early stages of BI implementation? Using the concept of co-agency as a guide we identified significant decision-related adverse impacts and their root causes. We found strong management support, the right skill sets and an information-oriented culture to be key implementation considerations. Our major contribution is a framework for defining and prioritizing decision-support information needs in the context of healthcare-specific processes.