Resistance to Confounding Style and Content in Scoring Constructed-Response Items

An assumption that is fundamental to the scoring of student-constructed responses (e.g., essays) is the ability of raters to focus on the response characteristics of interest rather than on other features. A common example, and the focus of this study, is the ability of raters to score a response based on the content achievement it demonstrates independent of the quality with which it is expressed. Previously scored responses from a large-scale assessment in which trained scorers rated exclusively constructed-response formats were altered to enhance or degrade the quality of the writing, and scores that resulted from the altered responses were compared with the original scores. Statistically significant differences in favor of the better-writing condition were found in all six content areas. However, the effect sizes were very small in mathematics, reading, science, and social studies items. They were relatively large for items in writing and language usage (mechanics). It was concluded from the last two content areas that the manipulation was successful and from the first four that trained scorers are reasonably well able to differentiate writing quality from other achievement constructs in rating student responses.     

Toward an Expanded Concept of Rhetorical Delivery: The Uses of Reports in Public Policy Debates

Preparing students for civic engagement requires new knowledge about the uses of documents for advocacy and social change. Substantial social change results from repeated rather than from single rhetorical acts. Reconsideration of the rhetorical canon of delivery suggests expanding the concept beyond its present connection to publication (visual design, medium) to a rhetorical situation comprehensively defined. Delivery may take place over time and embrace a web of activities including field work, updates, and interconnections with other publications.     

How environmental knowledge measures up at a Big Ten university

The reported research examines the level of environmental knowledge of Michigan State University students relative to the results of a biannual national study of the environmental knowledge of the general population of the United States. While the university students were found to possess higher levels of environmental knowledge than the general public, the students' overall environmental knowledge, on average, was deficient with only 66% of them receiving a passing grade. The findings suggest a positive correlation between academic level, field of study and environmental knowledge.     

Cross‐border Higher Education Collaboration in Europe: lessons for the ‘two Irelands’?

This article examines three examples of cross-border higher education collaboration in Europe in order to throw light on one European region where such collaboration is only in its early stages of development. The main region examined is the Öresund region covering the Skåne area of Southern Sweden centred on Malmo and the Zealand region of Denmark which incorporates the Copenhagen region. Additionally, and more briefly, the Upper Rhine collaboration of the EUCOR universities and the ALMA collaboration (Netherlands, Germany and Belgium) are considered. Lessons from these examples are then used to assist in the assessment of existing collaboration between higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the possibilities for further collaboration.     

Predicting ground reaction forces in running using micro-sensors and neural networks

Measurement of ground reaction force (GRF) in running provides a direct indication of the loads to which the body is subjected at each foot-ground contact, and can provide an objective explanation for performance outcomes. Traditionally, the collection of three orthogonal component GRF data in running requires an athlete to complete a series of return loops along a laboratory based runway, within which a force platform is embedded, in order to collect data from a discrete footfall. The major disadvantages associated with this GRF data collection methodology include the inability to assess multiple consecutive foot contacts and the fact that measurements are typically confined to the laboratory. The objective of this research was to investigate the potential for wearable instrumentation to be employed, in conjunction with artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple linear regression (MLR) models, for the estimation of GRF in middle distance running. A modular wearable data acquisition system was developed to acquire in-shoe force (ISF) data. Matched data sets from wearable instrumentation (source data) and force plate (target data) records were collected from elite middle-distance runners under controlled laboratory conditions for the purposes of ANN and MLR model development (MD) and model validation (MV). In terms of statistical measures of prediction accuracy the MLR model was found to provide a superior level of accuracy for the prediction of the vertical and medio-lateral components of GRF and alternatively, the ANN model provided the most accurate predictions of the anterior-posterior component of GRF. The prediction accuracy of each component of GRF was found to be governed by the inherent signal variability, in which case the vertical and anterior-posterior components were more reliable and subsequently predicted significantly more accurately than the medio-lateral component. The emerging capability for obtaining continuous GRF records from wearable instrumentation has the potential to permit unprecedented quantification of training stress and competition demands in running.