Book Review

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

THE PRESS AND CANDIDATE IMAGES

An examination of the news images of US presidential candidatessuggests that journalists portray candidates in ways consistentwith their position in the race. Strong candidates were generallygiven strong news images and weak candidates were saddled withweak images. Significantly, this pattern held also for the samecandidate if his position in the race changed. In 1988 Bush'snews image went from weak to strong when he surged ahead inthe polls during the general election. Such news images appearto affect voters' images of the candidates: to some degree,voters accept journalists' portrayals of the candidates.     

Sustainable assessment?: Critical features of the assessment process in a modularised engineering programme

This paper reports a project researching the interplay between a formal assessment system on the one hand and the development of students’ and teachers’ work in the actual assessment process on the other. Applying a social practice perspective, empirical data from the first year of an engineering programme mapped the assessment process through documentary studies and qualitative interviews with students and teachers.     

Effects of a rubric for mathematical reasoning on teaching and learning in primary school

Rubrics are assessment tools that help students gain complex competencies. Our quasi-experimental study aimed to evaluate whether rubrics help teachers teach and assess mathematical reasoning in primary school and whether such an instrument might support student learning. In two Swiss cantons, 762 students in 44 5th- and 6th-grade primary classes worked on their reasoning competencies, and half of them additionally employed our standards-based rubric. All of the teachers received a 1-day training and participated in the final project evaluation. To standardise and support the teachers during the implementation phase, they received a detailed curriculum. An achievement test and questionnaires for students and teachers were administered before and at the end of the intervention. The results of our quantitative longitudinal analyses indicate that the rubric fosters the teachers’ perceived diagnostic skills but only indirectly impacts their use of formative feedback. Based on the students’ perceptions, however, we observed a direct effect of the rubric on formative feedback and student self-assessment. Effects on students’ outcomes could not be observed, but there are indications of effects mediated by self-regulation and self-efficacy.     

Maximising resource allocation in the teaching laboratory: understanding student evaluations of teaching assistants in a team-based teaching format

Minimal research papers have investigated the use of student evaluations on the laboratory, a learning medium usually run by teaching assistants with little control of the content, delivery and equipment. Finding the right mix of teaching assistants for the laboratory can be an onerous task due to the many skills required including theoretical and practical know-how, troubleshooting, safety and class management. Using larger classes with multiple teaching assistants, a team-based teaching (TBT) format may be advantageous. A rigorous three-year study across twenty-five courses over repetitive laboratory classes is analysed using a multi-level statistical model considering students, laboratory classes and courses. The study is used to investigate the effectiveness of the TBT format, and quantify the influence each demonstrator has on the laboratory experience. The study found that TBT is effective and the lead demonstrator most influential, influencing up to 55% of the laboratory experience evaluation.     

GiveMe Shelter: a people-centred design process for promoting independent inquiry-led learning in engineering

It has become increasingly common for tasks traditionally carried out by engineers to be undertaken by technicians and technologist with access to sophisticated computers and software that can often perform complex calculations that were previously the responsibility of engineers. Not surprisingly, this development raises serious questions about the future role of engineers and the education needed to address these changes in technology as well as emerging priorities from societal to environmental challenges. In response to these challenges, a new design module was created for undergraduate engineering students to design and build temporary shelters for a wide variety of end users from refugees, to the homeless and children. Even though the module provided guidance on principles of design thinking and methods for observing users needs through field studies, the students found it difficult to respond to needs of specific end users but instead focused more on purely technical issues.