Dr Smith goes to Los Alamos

Long before the complex pressure-temperature phase diagram of plutonium (shown below) was determined, Cyril Stanley Smith’s suggestion that adding small amounts of some impurity atoms to liquid plutonium might retard its undesirable transformation to the brittle alpha phase enabled the fabrication of the world’s first nuclear device tested successfully in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.     

Estimating High School GPA Weighting Parameters With a Graded Response Model

The high school grade point average (GPA) is often adjusted to account for nominal indicators of course rigor, such as “honors” or “advanced placement.” Adjusted GPAs—also known as weighted GPAs—are frequently used for computing students’ rank in class and in the college admission process. Despite the high stakes attached to GPA, weighting policies vary considerably across states and high schools. Previous methods of estimating weighting parameters have used regression models with college course performance as the dependent variable. We discuss and demonstrate the suitability of the graded response model for estimating GPA weighting parameters and evaluating traditional weighting schemes. In our sample, which was limited to self‐reported performance in high school mathematics courses, we found that commonly used policies award more than twice the bonus points necessary to create parity for standard and advanced courses.     

Trust in results

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

The development of ESD-related competencies in supportive institutional frameworks

Although Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a matter of global importance, the requirements and needs of people differ according to their regional circumstances. (Not only) in Germany—in keeping with the increasingly international focus of “output” evaluations—one dominant educational debate has centred on effective ways of mapping and understanding pupils’ competencies. This article provides a Model of Competence for ESD in the formal education sector. This model aims to inform the organisation of teaching and to help assess the learning outcomes of pupils who have received instruction in issues relating to ESD. The competence model was developed and extended in connection with two German federal state innovation programmes which aimed to implement the concept of ESD in schools across the country.