Does immigration background matter? How teachers’ predictions of students’ performance relate to student background

Accurate teacher evaluations of student performance are crucial for effective teaching. This study examined whether students’ immigration and language background affect teachers’ evaluations. Multilevel analyses tested whether teachers overestimate the performance of immigrant relative to that of non-immigrant students. As part of the German PISA 2003 assessment, 305 teachers predicted the performance of seven of their students on two mathematics problems of different linguistic complexity. Results revealed an interaction effect of students’ language background and linguistic complexity of the problem on teachers’ predictions. Teachers overestimated the performance of bilingual students more than the performance of monolingual immigrant or non-immigrant students on a linguistically complex problem. Teachers need to consider both students’ language background and linguistic demands of the material used to appropriately support bilingual students.     

How accurate can A Level English Literature marking be?

This article considers in a wide perspective the crisis in the assessment of examinations in A‐level English Literature and current attempts to address the problems. Examining the implications of a survey of recent reports initiated by the regulator, it argues that trying to ensure reliability merely through technological advances and changes in examining practice obscures the need for English teachers’ communal understanding of academic standards to be developed through their professional experience. It proposes ways in which this should be achieved, for example by developing current and potential professional networks and communities of practice.     

Furthering alternative cultures of valuation in higher education research

The value of higher education is often implicit or assumed in educational research. The underlying and antecedent premises that shape and influence debates about value remain unchallenged, which perpetuates the dominant, but limiting, terms of the debate and fosters reductionism. The article proceeds on the premise that analyses of value are not self-supporting or self-referential but are embedded within prevailing cultures of valuation. It contends that challenging, and providing alternatives to, dominant narratives of higher education requires an appreciation of those cultures. It therefore highlights some of the existing cultures of valuation and their influence. It then proposes Sayer’s concept of lay normativity as a culture of valuation and discusses how it translates into the practices of research into higher education, specifically the practice of analysis. The discussion is animated by detecting the presence of lay normativity in the evaluative space of the capability approach.     

The disease burden of childhood adversities in adults: a population-based study

Objectives

There is much evidence showing that childhood adversities have considerable effects on the mental and physical health of adults. It could be assumed therefore, that the disease burden of childhood adversities is high. It has not yet been examined, however, whether this is true.

Method

We used data of a large representative sample (N = 7,076) of the general population in the Netherlands. We calculated the disability weight (DW) for each respondent. The DW is a weight factor that reflects the severity of a disease or condition on a scale from 0 (perfect health) to 1 (equivalent to death). We used an algorithm based on the SF-6D to estimate DW. Because the DW indicates the proportion of a healthy life year that is reduced by the specific health state of the individual, it also possible to calculate the total number of years lost due to disability (YLD) in the population. We calculated the years lived with disability (YLD) for 9 different childhood adversities (in the areas of parental psychopathology; abuse and neglect; major life events), as well as for major categories of mental disorders and general medical disorders.

Results

All 9 adversities resulted in a significantly increased DW, except death of a parent before the age of 16. Adversities in the category of abuse and neglect are associated with the highest DWs (0.057), followed by parental psychopathology (0.031) and life events during childhood (0.012). All adversities (46.4% of the population reports one or more adversity) are associated with 20.7 YLD/1,000, which is more than all mental disorders together (12.9 YLD/1,000). The category of abuse/neglect has the highest YLD/1,000 (15.8), which is also higher than all mental disorders together. Adjustment for the presence of mental and general medical disorders resulted in comparable outcomes.

Conclusions

Childhood adversities are more important from a public health point of view than all common mental disorders together, and should be a priority for public health interventions.     

Lexical Quality and Reading Comprehension in Primary School Children

In a cross-sectional study, we examined the relationship between the quality of lexical representations and text comprehension skill in German primary school children (Grades 1–4). We measured the efficiency and accuracy of orthographical, phonological, and meaning representations by means of computerized tests. Text comprehension skill was assessed with a standardized reading test with questions requiring recognition of text information and inferencing. Both the accuracy of and the efficiency of access to the three types of lexical representations contributed to explaining interindividual variation in text comprehension skill. Results from a path-analytic model suggest a specific causal order of the three components of lexical quality with the quality of meaning representations partly mediating the effects of form representations.