A changing assessment landscape in Ireland: the place of oral language

Although not a new discussion in the Irish context, the value of oral language development has recently gained prominence again in Irish Post‐Primary English classrooms. In this article we present how the recent introduction of Junior Cycle English, which now includes an Oral Communication Classroom Based Assessment (CBA) is renewing efforts to promote speaking and listening and has the potential to change teachers’ understanding of assessment in English. The rationale for this change is presented here from the perspectives of the different stakeholders in Irish Education; educational researchers, policymakers, the Inspectorate, teachers and students. To cite the Junior Cycle Framework: ‘until the examination changes, nothing else will’ (NCCA 2011: 6). However, past efforts to implement an oral assessment element illustrate how change is complex and fostering an awareness of the centrality of ‘classroom talk’ involves a cultural shift for the teachers implementing the Junior Cycle English Specification.     

Measurement error in short-term power testing in young people

The aim of this study was to examine the consistency or reproducibility of measuring cycling peak power in children and adults. Twenty-seven pre-pubertal girls and boys and 27 female and male physical education students (age 9.8 +/- 0.5 and 24.4 +/- 4.3 years, respectively; mean +/- s) participated in the study. All participants performed five tests over 15 days and underwent a habituation session before the study. Each test included four sprints against four different braking forces. We found that braking forces of 7.5% of body weight in children and 10% of body weight in adults were too high for most of the participants to elicit maximal cycling power. Unlike the children, the physical education students improved their performance between session 1 and session 2 (1025 +/- 219 vs 1069 +/- 243 W; P < 0.001). Therefore, to obtain reproducible measures of cycling peak power, a habituation session including a complete test protocol (i.e. warm-up plus three sprints) is highly recommended. When the protocol included three sprints in children and at least two sprints in adults, measurement of cycling peak power was found to be highly reliable (test-retest coefficient of variation approximately 3%). Finally, to avoid performance fluctuations, especially over several consecutive evaluations (e.g. longitudinal studies), it is necessary to maintain high motivation in children.     

Towards Program Evaluation in Archives

A review of the archival literature, including records and information management, indicates that archivists’ have shown over the last two decades an interest in program evaluation. The sparceness of the literature on the subject suggests a gap in an articulate body of knowledge, based on solid theoretical and methodological foundations, for evaluation of archival programs and activities. However, if they have not particularly investigated the subject from a theoretical perspective, archivists have developed in their different organizations and working environment practical knowledge of and experience with program evaluation. In large corporations as well as in public bureaucracies, they have been part of or subjected to specific or generic program evaluation initiatives conducted by internal and external evaluators. But archivists might need now to go some steps further and to look from a critical perspective at what is needed in order to get full benefit from program evaluation.     

Dictionary-Based Cross-Language Information Retrieval: Learning Experiences from CLEF 2000–2002

In this study the basic framework and performance analysis results are presented for the three year long development process of the dictionary-based UTACLIR system. The tests expand from bilingual CLIR for three language pairs Swedish, Finnish and German to English, to six language pairs, from English to French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Finnish, and from bilingual to multilingual. In addition, transitive translation tests are reported. The development process of the UTACLIR query translation system will be regarded from the point of view of a learning process. The contribution of the individual components, the effectiveness of compound handling, proper name matching and structuring of queries are analyzed. The results and the fault analysis have been valuable in the development process. Overall the results indicate that the process is robust and can be extended to other languages. The individual effects of the different components are in general positive. However, performance also depends on the topic set and the number of compounds and proper names in the topic, and to some extent on the source and target language. The dictionaries used affect the performance significantly.     

The scientific attitude inventory: A revision (SAI II)

The Scientific Attitude Inventory (SAI) was developed and field tested 25 years ago. It has been used extensively throughout the world, and it continues to be used. Reports of its use and suggestions for revision provide impetus for revision. The revision retains the original position statements of attitudes assessed and the original attitude statements with changes made only to improve readability and to eliminate gender-biased language. Also, in response to critical analysis, the SAI II uses a five-response Likert Scale. The new version is shorter, 40 items instead of 60 in the original. The SAI II was field tested with 557 students in Grades 6, 9, and 12. The top and bottom 27% of scorers for the total inventory were compared for the subscales. A statistically significant difference was obtained for each t-test comparison. Face validity for the SAI II is claimed on the basis of the original judgments of a panel of judges regarding the attitude position statements which have not been altered. A split-half reliability coefficient of .805 was computed for the entire group of 557 respondents. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient is .781. J Res Sci Teach 34: 327–336, 1997.