The Unfolding of Student Adjustment During the First Semester of College

Research in Higher Education - College sense of belonging and well-being constitute critical components of college student adjustment and success. Previous studies have generally measured these...     

Skill levels of educational interpreters working in public schools

The Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment, or EIPA, is an evaluation tool designed specifically for educational interpreters. An evaluation using the EIPA considers the child's grade level, the sign language or sign system that the interpreter is using as well as any other child-specific factors. Fifty-nine educational interpreters were evaluated using the EIPA. They had different backgrounds and training, and used different types of sign language or sign language or sign systems. The results show that not all of the educational interpreters were qualified to provide a child with an adequate interpretation of classroom discourse. Less than half of the educational interpreters assessed in this study performed at a level considered minimally acceptable. These data also show that sign vocabulary skills were significantly better than grammatical skills. Eighteen interpreters were evaluated twice in order to test-retest reliability, which showed that scores were not significantly different between the two evaluations. The picture that emerges from these data is that many deaf children receive an interpretation of classroom discourse that may distort and inadequately represent the information being communicated.     

Testing the usability of information technology applications with learners with special educational needs (SEN)

This paper reports on the 'usability' element of a study examining the development of a multimedia Learning Environment (LE) for Special Educational Needs (SEN) students, designed to match learner requirements to learning materials, as elicited from cognitive and accessibility profiles drawn up by teachers and learning support assistants. In developing the system, the researchers examined how usability tests could be undertaken that meaningfully involved people with cognitive disabilities. Methods were developed following interviews with staff and much observation of lessons involving the use of computers. The usability tests themselves consisted of a series of graded activities drawn from various SEN sources. They required only one or two actions – activating a mouse and/or guiding a cursor – for completion. The study highlighted a number of issues inherent in working with a user group comprising SEN students, including interpreting non-compliance and other behaviour patterns, making tasks meaningful, and accounting for the presence and degree of assistance given by a helper. Of particular interest was the issue of matching the intellectual level of tasks with the physical ease-of-use of the system. The paper suggests various methods for obviating problems elicited, and makes recommendations for the further development of computer-based activities designed to promote independent learning and inclusivity.     

‘You know what you've done right and what you've done wrong and what you need to improve on’: New Zealand students' perspectives on feedback

This study was designed to explore children's understanding of formative assessment and its effects on their learning, in order to establish what learners perceive as important to help them improve their learning. The study found that children have a good understanding of the concepts of feedback, and can articulate clearly the elements most useful for helping them to improve their learning. A key finding of the study was that although there is consistency about the factors involved in good assessment, there is variation in the type of feedback seen as effective in demonstrating those factors. Issues relating to possible gender differences in the reception of feedback, and in what is perceived as helpful, emerged during the study. Recommendations for future research include the need to explore these, followed by the identification of implications for classroom use if a gender‐based link relating to formative assessment is found.     

Divided attention performance and the matching law

This experiment examined the applicability of the generalized matching law to changes in divided-attention performance produced by variations in relative reinforcement rate. Pigeons were exposed to a delayed matching-to-sample procedure in which compound samples (color 1 line orientation) and element comparisons (two colors or two line orientations) were used. The relative rate of reinforcement for accurate matches on the two types of comparison trials was varied. Variations in relative accuracy with changes in relative reinforcement were well described by the generalized matching law. We suggest that the bias and sensitivity parameters of the generalized matching law may measure the contributions of sensory activation and stimulus pertinence, respectively, to divided-attention performance. Additional work using similar analyses might contribute to a more general quantitative account of how differential consequences contribute to decision processes involved in the allocation of attention.     

CACTUS: Command and control training using knowledge‐based simulations*

The CACTUS project was concerned with command and control training of large incidents where public order may be at risk, such as large demonstrations and marches. The training requirements and objectives of the project are first summarized justifying the use of knowledge‐based computer methods to support and extend conventional training techniques. The software designs are based on a world model in which crowd groups and police units are placed on a digitized map and have probabilistic rules that govern their interactive behaviour. The simulation runs as a decision‐making exercise that can include pre‐event logistic planning, incident management, and debriefing evaluation. A key feature is the flexibility of the software, for it provides not only a working simulation but also a methodology and software tools for customizing programs to suit particular circumstances and training needs.     

Sources of variance in end-of-course student evaluations

Abstract

Evaluation of college instructors often centers on course ratings; however, there is little evidence that these ratings only reflect teaching. The purpose of this study was to assess the relative importance of three facets of course ratings: instructor, course and occasion. We sampled 2,459 fully-crossed dyads from a large university where two instructors taught the same two courses at least twice in a 3-year period. Generalizability theory was used to estimate unconfounded variance components for instructor, course and occasion, as well as their interactions. Meta-analysis was used to summarize those estimates. Results indicated that a three-way interaction between instructor, course and occasion that includes measurement error accounted for the most variance in student ratings (24%), with instructor accounting for the second largest amount (22%). While instructor - and presumably teaching - accounted for substantial variance in student course ratings, factors other than instructor quality had a larger influence on student ratings.