Development and evaluation of a Chinese version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI)

Teacher–student interpersonal relationships play an important role in education. The Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) was designed to measure students’ interpersonal perceptions of their teachers. There are two Chinese versions of the QTI for student use, and that inherited the weaknesses of the previous English versions, such as items that focus on class behaviour, instead of teacher behaviour, or that include conditionals and negations. The present study aimed to develop an improved Chinese version of the QTI which is conceptually parallel with the original QTI and with the use of optimal item wording. The process contained several steps, including expert panels and student and teacher interviews. New items were also created based on the Chinese secondary classroom context, rather than only using translations of English items. The final version of the Chinese version of the QTI presented in this paper was evaluated with a sample of 2000 students from 4 secondary schools in mainland China who rated a total of 80 teachers. The resulting version of the Chinese QTI had adequate validity and reliability, and it distinguished clearly between teachers. The predictive validity was supported by the relation between the students’ perceptions of their teachers and their academic emotions in class. Although further improvement of the instrument is recommended, it can be used to study interpersonal teacher behaviour in China and to help to improve Chinese teachers’ teaching practices.     

Evaluating assessment quality in competence-based education: A qualitative comparison of two frameworks

Because learning and instruction are increasingly competence-based, the call for assessment methods to adequately determine competence is growing. Using just one single assessment method is not sufficient to determine competence acquisition. This article argues for Competence Assessment Programmes (CAPs), consisting of a combination of different assessment methods, including both traditional and new forms of assessment. To develop and evaluate CAPs, criteria to determine their quality are needed. Just as CAPs are combinations of traditional and new forms of assessment, criteria used to evaluate CAP quality should be derived from both psychometrics and edumetrics. A framework of 10 quality criteria for CAPs is presented, which is then compared to Messick's framework of construct validity. Results show that the 10-criterion framework partly overlaps with Messick's, but adds some important new criteria, which get a more prominent place in quality control issues in competence-based education.     

New Learning Design in Distance Education: The impact on student perception and motivation

Many forms of e‐learning (such as online courses with authentic tasks and computer‐supported collaborative learning) have become important in distance education. Very often, such e‐learning courses or tasks are set up following constructivist design principles. Often, this leads to learning environments with authentic problems in ill‐structured tasks that are supposed to motivate students. However, constructivist design principles are difficult to implement because developers must be able to predict how students perceive the tasks and whether the tasks motivate the students. The research in this article queries some of the assumed effects. It presents a study that provides increased insight into the actual perception of electronic authentic learning tasks. The main questions are how students learn in such e‐learning environments with “virtual” reality and authentic problems and how they perceive them. To answer these questions, in two e‐learning programs developed at the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) designers’ expectations were contrasted with student perceptions. The results show a gap between the two, for students experience much less authenticity than developers assume.     

Mental health problems of deaf Dutch children as indicated by parents' responses to the child behavior checklist

Emotional/behavioral problems of 238 deaf Dutch children ages 4-18 years were studied. Parental reports indicated that 41% had emotional/behavioral problems, a rate nearly 2.6 times higher than the 16% reported by parents of a Dutch normative sample. Mental health problems seemed most prevalent in families with poor parent-child communication. Deaf children ages 12-18 showed more problems with anxiety and depression and more social problems than those ages 4-11. Deaf children with relatively low intelligence showed more social problems, thought problems, and attention problems than those with relatively high intelligence. The authors stress the need to get information on deaf children's mental health functioning not just from parents but from other informants such as teachers and the children themselves. An expansion assessment of deaf children, and of special services and treatments for deaf children and adolescents with emotional/behavioral problems, is recommended.     

COLLEGE TEACHING IN LEGAL EDUCATION: Teaching Method,Students' Time-on-Task,and Achievement

Based on the theory of teaching as assistedperformance (Tharp and Gallimore, 1988), the UtrechtUniversity Law School has implemented college teachingfocusing on a particular combination of various methods of assisting students' performance. In additionto the conventional case method in legal education, theproblem method was adopted as the primary method ofinstruction. This method focused on how students learn to solve legal problems by actuallyfinding, framing, and analyzing issues themselves.Contingency management was used to motivate students tocomplete problem-solving assignments and attend theseminars in which training was provided for legalproblem-solving skills. Analyses of variance wereperformed to examine the relation between the problemand the case method, and students' time-on-task andachievement. The results were favorable to the problemmethod: Compared to the case method, students spent moretime on learning activities and performed better,controlling for the analysis for their previousachievement, time-on-task in previous terms, and motivationfor the particular course. The differences inachievement between both teaching methods were mainlyrelated to the difference in the time students spent on the particular course.     

Learning to prove by investigations: a promising approach in Dutch secondary education

The Mathematics Department of the University of Nijmegen in collaboration with the Graduate School of Education has developed a math course in the field of fractals and dynamic processes for volunteer students in the second phase of secondary education in the Netherlands. The students, of approximately 16 years of age, show a special interest in, and an aptitude for mathematics and informatics. One of the main goals of the course was to highlight the deductive aspect of mathematics, an aspect that is neglected in the ordinary math curriculum of secondary education in the Netherlands. That goal was pursued by giving the students ample opportunity to conduct investigations on their own and in a way that they would be responsible for judging the correctness of their arguments in making mathematical deductions. In that way proving is imbedded in a larger structure and becomes a tool for the students to convince each other. During the courses we searched for the right way for teachers to coach these investigations, that is: to find a balance between mere concentration on guiding the process of the students' investigations and active intervention in the learning process of proving. In this article we illustrate with two examples – the first from the '95–'96 course and the second from the '96–'97 course – in what way we adjusted our coaching. Our results are explorative, but our approach appears promising and we are convinced that investigations as learning environment for proving would also be a valuable part for the regular secondary math education in the Netherlands. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Static versus dynamic kinematics in cyclists: A comparison of goniometer,inclinometer and 3D motion capture

Kinematic measurements conducted during bike set-ups utilise either static or dynamic measures. There is currently limited data on reliability of static and dynamic measures nor consensus on which is the optimal method. The aim of the study was to assess the difference between static and dynamic measures of the ankle, knee, hip, shoulder and elbow. Nineteen subjects performed three separate trials for a 10-min duration at a fixed workload (70% of peak power output). Static measures were taken with a standard goniometer (GM), an inclinometer (IM) and dynamic three-dimensional motion capture (3DMC) using an eight camera motion capture system. Static and dynamic joint angles were compared over the three trials to assess repeatability of the measurements and differences between static and dynamic values. There was a positive correlation between GM and IM measures for all joints. Only the knee, shoulder and elbow were positively correlated between GM and 3DMC, and IM and 3DMC. Although all three instruments were reliable, 3D motion analysis utilised different landmarks for most joints and produced different means. Changes in knee flexion angle from static to dynamic are attributable to changes in the positioning of the foot. Controlling for this factor, the differences are negated. It was demonstrated that 3DMC is not interchangeable with GM and IM, and it is recommended that 3DMC develop independent reference values for bicycle configuration.     

Uncovering contents of mentor teachers' interactive cognitions during mentoring dialogues

In the context of developing mentor teachers' use of supervisory skills, two consecutive studies were conducted, using stimulated recall. Firstly, with eight participants, an instrument was developed to categorize contents of interactive cognitions. Secondly, with 30 participants, the instrument was applied to uncover contents of mentor teachers' interactive cognitions, before and after training in supervisory skills. After training, mentor teachers demonstrate an increased awareness of their use of supervisory skills. This indicates that mentor teachers not only seem to emphasize pupil learning and needs when conducting a mentoring dialogue, but simultaneously focus on their own supervisory behaviour.