Standard Error of Measurement

The standard error of measurement (SEM) is the standard deviation of errors of measurement that are associated with test scores from a particular group of examinees. When used to calculate confidence bands around obtained test scores, it can be helpful in expressing the unreliability of individual test scores in an understandable way. Score bands can also be used to interpret intraindividual and interindividual score differences. Interpreters should be wary of over-interpretation when using approximations for correctly calculated score bands. It is recommended that SEMs at various score levels be used in calculating score bands rather than a single SEM value.     

The Concept of Inclusive Education: Teacher Training and Acquisition of English Language in the Hearing Impaired

Three languages are widely used in schools in Kenya – English, Kiswahili and Kenya Sign Language. Many pupils with hearing impairments are taught separately from the mainstream, in specialist settings. The fact that most of the formal teaching, assessment and examination processes in Kenyan schools rely upon spoken and written English compounds the separation of these pupils from the mainstream of education and, potentially, from the mainstream of society. In this article, Gertrude Wamae, graduate assistant in the Department of English and Linguistics at Kenyatta University, and Rachael Kang'ethe-Kamau, lecturer in the Department of Special Education at Kenyatta University, discuss the relationships between language, hearing impairment and inclusion in the Kenyan context. The article suggests that the use of signed exact English would enhance opportunities for inclusion for those with hearing impairments and that programmes of teacher training need to take account of persuasive research in this area. The article closes with a plea for further research, carried out collaboratively by educationalists, linguists, teacher trainers and practitioners, to develop policies and practices suited to more inclusive futures. The article is based on a paper presented to the International Conference on Inclusive Education run by Maseno University in September 2002.     

Reform and UK Higher Education in the Enterprise Era

Higher education in the United Kingdom is centrally funded, centrally planned, and insulated from market forces. It bears many similarities to the non-market centrally planned economies (CPEs) of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe while they struggled to reform but to retain a system of planning and central control. Examination of UK higher education and the CPEs before the transformation to market based systems highlights some of the issues facing higher education today. It also highlights the need for reforms, as well as the difficulties involved in them. Such comparison can also bring home problems faced by reformers in the transition economies.
Despite allegedly extensive reforms in UK higher education, the sector faces problems like those facing the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe and the former USSR in the 1970s and 80s. Parallels in a number of areas are particularly striking.