It's not what you do; it's the way that you question: that's what gets results

Many professionals and carers who support people with the label of autism look to lecturers and 'trainers' in autism to provide the answers on how to 'manage' the 'condition'. This article describes how two lecturers in autism respond to this challenge by encouraging their students to focus on questions rather than answers. It is argued here that it is through the process of reflective thinking that people will find the most appropriate solutions to the issues that concern them. The article identifies some of the key questions that can support the reflective process and illustrates the applicability of these, beyond the limitations of labels, to every relationship between educator and learner.     

Talking about Assessment: Mentor-student dialogues about pupil assessment in initial teacher training

This is an account of a study, conducted over the period of one extended school placement lasting a term, which monitored the dialogues between student teachers undertaking their school-based initial training and their mentors. The study took place in the context of the increasing emphasis placed on pupil assessment in England and Wales and the increasing prominence of school-based work in initial teacher training. This particular analysis focuses on the extent and kind of attention within the dialogues given to the assessment of pupil learning, and the ways in which school-based mentors model assessment practice through their formative discussions with student teachers. The evidence suggests that the dialogues are tending to define assessment in terms of examinations, tests and class control rather than in terms of pupil learning. While this suggests that there is scope for continued development of the mentoring role and the interpretation of initial teaching competences, it also adds to existing evidence that pupil-assessment is an area of difficulty for many experienced teachers.     

A NEW LOGICAL SCORING KEY FOR THE MINNESOTA TEACHER ATTITUDE INVENTORY1

This study tested three scoring keys for the MTAI—the published empirical key (E); a logical key with three different weights, i.e., + 1, 0, -1; and a new logical key with five different scoring weights, one for each of the five responses in MTAI items, i.e., +2, +1, 0, -1, -2. The latter, termed the pentachotomous-logical (P-L), provided scores with slightly higher internal consistency and a frequency distribution which is not so significantly skewed as the others and which provides greater spread among extreme positive and negative scores. Use of the P-L scoring weights would facilitate the psychological interpretation of the MTAI. However, conclusion that the P-L scoring key is an improvement must be tempered by the fact that an expected increase in construct validity was not found.     

SURVEY TESTING ON AN OUT-OF-LEVEL BASIS

"Out-of-level" testing, assigning pupils to levels of a standardized test on the basis of previous (close to chance level) test scores rather than their present grade assignment, has been used in Philadelphia since 1968. An extensive number of pupils were tested in this way in 1970, in contrast to the two previous years, and overall performance indices seemed depressed as a result.
The test results of 1500 children tested out-of-level in 1970 were reviewed to see if their performance supported the rationale behind the practice. More reliable performance definitely resulted from the procedure for this sample, but there is considerable question about the publisher's assurance regarding comparability of in-level and out-of-level scores.