Assessment drives learning: The effect of central exit exams on curricular knowledge and mathematical literacy

In this paper, we use data from the German PISA 2003 sample to study the effects of central exit examinations on student performance and student attitudes. Unlike earlier studies we use (i) a value-added measure to pin down the effect of central exit exams on learning in the last year before the exam and (ii) separate test scores for mathematical literacy and curriculum-based knowledge. The findings indicate that central exit exams improve curriculum-based knowledge but do not affect mathematical literacy. Students, although showing a better performance, are less intrinsically motivated in school.     

Examining charter student achievement effects across seven states

Since their inception, charter schools have been a lighting rod for controversy, with much of the debate revolving around their effectiveness in improving student achievement. Previous research has shown mixed results for student achievement; this could be the consequence of different policy environments or varying methodological approaches with differing assumptions across studies. In our analysis, we discuss these approaches and their assumptions and estimate charter school achievement effects using a consistent methodology across seven locations.     

Infusing Mentoring and Technology within Graduate Courses: Reflections in practice

This article provides an overview of relevant connections that can be used to strengthen an instructor's mentoring abilities, specifically those connections between adult development, technological interaction elements, use of course management software, and corresponding mentoring practices. From a context supported by literature within adult development and computer-mediated communication, the authors examined a series of courses at a large university and how mentoring and instruction were infused. In this article, mentoring refers to a collective process that guides and facilitates a learner's educational growth. The unique nature of adult learners and their educational needs emphasises the need for a facilitative rather than a didactic approach in technology-supported courses. Various facets of interactions and the concept of transactional distance provide an additional framework from which to examine professional practice. The authors recommend further refinement and development of the mentoring practices that infuse emerging technologies and facilitate the teaching and learning process.     

The influence of closing poor performing primary schools on the educational attainment of students

This paper examines whether the closure of poor performing primary schools improved students' educational attainment. It is believed that school closure affects children's educational outcomes positively because children switch to better primary schools. At the same time, school closure creates a social disturbance such that educational outcomes may be affected negatively. There is no previous literature on the effect of this type of school closure on student performance. The empirical results indicate that student test scores are not affected by the school closure. Children are, however, tracked into higher secondary education levels after the school closure if they received more education years at the new primary school. This effect fades out and eventually becomes negative for children who received more than one education year at the new primary school. The results further suggest that there are no detrimental effects of a school closure in terms of educational performance.     

A survey of parental involvement in middle schools in New Zealand

This article reports the results of a survey of parental involvement (PI) policy and practice in middle schools in a large New Zealand city. Principals at all 11 middle schools in the city were contacted and agreed to be interviewed. Interviews were conducted using a schedule that focuses on 11 aspects of PI: encouraging parents into school, policy formation, acting as a resource, collaborating with teachers, sharing information on children, channels of communication, liaison with school staff, parent education, parent support, involving diverse parents, and teacher professional development. Analysis of data from the interviews indicates that there are some common strengths and weaknesses with regard to PI in middle schools. There were also important differences between schools in the types of PI they engaged in as well as some clear gaps in provision. Implications for improving the practice of PI in middle schools and for further research are discussed.     

Learning to promote health at an emergency care department: identifying expansive and restrictive conditions

This article reports on the findings of a planned workplace health promotion intervention, and the aim is to identify conditions that facilitated or restricted the learning to promote health at an emergency care department in a Swedish hospital. The study had a longitudinal design, with interviews before and after the intervention and follow-up interviews one year after the intervention. Data were collected through individual interviews with employees and managers, in total 69 interviews. In addition, data were collected from documents. The study provided insight into conditions which were found to act as expansive and restrictive reinforcements for learning to promote health. The conclusion is that the workplace health promotion intervention was shaped by conditions that existed outside the local workplace level which restricted the workplace health promotion. Nevertheless, collective employee-driven activities had the capacity to facilitate learning for change in order to create a health-promoting workplace. The advantage of combining theories of learning and workplace health promotion provided a holistic analytical view of learning to promote health at work and helped to uncover and monitor changed conditions during a planned workplace health promotion intervention.     

Going Charter? A Study of School District Competition in Wisconsin

The question that drives this article is why some school districts decide to open up charter schools and others do not. Several answers are plausible: (a) entrepreneurial initiative, (b) structural explanations, and (c) spatial competition. We use data for the state of Wisconsin derived from extensive case studies of 19 charter schools and quantitative data on Wisconsin school district from state files and the U.S. Department of Education common core databases. We find evidence to support all three explanations for why districts “go charter.” First, in almost every school and district we visited for case studies, at the heart of either the district or the charter school, and often both, there were entrepreneurial administrators, school board members, teachers, or parents. Our evidence was anecdotal but very consistent across 19 case studies. Second, there are two general sets of structural characteristics that were shown to be quantitatively correlated with becoming a charter district. The first set comprised resource characteristics (size, federal revenue, and available seats); the second set comprised indicators of unmet students needs (the percentage of students eligible for free lunch). Finally, we argue and believe we provide significant evidence that competition is also a motivation for going charter. We posit that open enrollment and charter schools are working together to enhance the flows of students from homeschooling, private schools, dropouts, and other public school districts into charter school districts. Thus using several different indicators and models, estimating both which districts become charter districts and the flow and net gain directly from open enrollment, there is no question that charter schools are increasing competition for students in Wisconsin.     

Relation of Kinesthetic Perception to a Selected Motor Skill for Elementary School Children

Abstract

The purposes of this study were (a) to determine whether or not selected measures of kinesthesis, involving arm positioning, were related to measures of accuracy in ball rolling, and (b) to discover whether or not there were any differences between elementary school boys and girls in kinesthetic measures and in ball rolling ability measures. Forty-seven first and second grade boys and girls were tested on four arm positioning measures and two ball rolling measures. The results of the study indicated that: (a) there is no significant relationship between ball rolling and positional measures of kinesthesis; (b) there are no real differences between boys and girls in their ability to accurately repeat positional measures of kinesthesis; and (c) boys are significantly superior to girls in their ability to manipulate accurately large and small balls, as measured by the tests used in this study.     

Influence of ski materials on muscle activity

The purpose of this study was to examine whether differences in construction between the compact ski, the racing ski and the soft ski influence the behavioural and electromuscular responses of the user. Eight qualified male ski instructors performed two 'shuss' trials and three different basic turns. Six muscles (M. biceps femoris, M. gastrocnemius lateralis and medialis, M. rectus femoris, M. vastus lateralis and M. tibialis anterior) were studied, using a conventional but portable electromyographic (EMG) registration with telemetric synchronization, active electrodes and a six-channel portable data recorder. Muscle contractions were continuously registered and visualized in raw EMG form and linear envelopes. The differences between the mean rectified EMG data of dynamic contractions while skiing and the mean rectified EMG data of the maximal voluntary contraction were used in the primary analysis of data, from which the participation levels of the muscles investigated could be calculated for each type of ski. Based on this comparison, differences between the effects on muscle activity of the three types of skis were unimportant. In a second phase, the normalized linear envelopes of all subjects were graphically superimposed and averaged. This was performed for each muscle, for each movement, for each leg and for each ski tested. The EMG data were considered in combination with anthropometric values, with snow characteristics and with the velocity of skiing. This study showed systematic differences between the use of the racing, soft and compact ski. On average the soft ski showed the lowest muscle activity patterns and thus the most economical muscular efforts for all muscles investigated and within all movements.     

Conceptually blindfolded in the optics laboratory. Dilemmas of inductive learning

In modern schooling, student activity and group work are emphasized as important vehicles for learning. Following the perspectives formulated by Piaget and other constructivist thinkers, self-discovery by students of scientific principles is seen as a means for avoiding the pitfalls ascribed to teacher centered lecturing. Teacher explanation in this pedagogical philosophy is often seen as counterproductive to real learning. In the study reported, it is illustrated by means of an example from student group work in a physics laboratory how the understanding of basic principles of optics do not follow from mere observation and physical manipulation of a particular type of educational instrument; the optical bench. It is argued that the optical bench itself is a product of a specific theory of optics and that it embodies principles of understanding the word which are discursive in nature and which are not accessible to learners unless they are provided guidance. In the instance analyzed, students already in some sense had an understanding of the principles illustrated (e.g., that light can only go straight forward, that it cannot go through solid objects, etc.), but they failed to realize the significance of these observations, since they fere not familiar with a theoretical position in which these observations called for an explanation. ‘Seeing’, also in the case of the optics laboratory, relies on the use of cultural tools that provide the observer with relevant contextualizations.