Francis Galton,measurement, psychometrics and social progress

This paper looks at Galton’s work from the perspective of its influence on subsequent developments in assessment and especially psychometric latent variable models. It describes how Galton’s views on scientific validity and assumptions about data analysis came to be incorporated into later perspectives.     

Methods in School Effectiveness Research∗

This paper discusses the methodological requirements for valid inferences from school effectiveness research studies. The requirements include long term longitudinal data and proper statistical modelling of hierarchical data structures. The paper outlines the appropriate multilevel statistical models and shows how these can model the complexities of school, class and student level data.

     

The Influence of Secondary and Junior Schools on Sixteen Year Examination Performance: A Cross‐classified Multilevel Analysis∗

This paper presents a model for the explanation of examination (GCSE) performance at the age of 16 years in terms of both secondary and junior school attended together with prior achievement measures and certain background factors. Using a cohort of 758 students in 48 junior schools and 116 secondary schools it compares the variation in performance due to secondary schools with that due to junior schools in a multilevel cross‐classified analysis. It shows that the variation among junior schools is substantially larger than that among secondary schools. It also demonstrates that those junior schools with high average achievement scores for the students when they leave junior school also tend to have high average scores for their students at the age of 16. The implications of these findings, if replicated, are profound. They imply that current attempts to measure the ‘effectiveness’ of secondary schools using achievement measured at the start of secondary schooling may be fruitless and they point to the need for school effectiveness research to become involved in very long term studies of schooling, rather than being restricted to a single phase.

     

A Multi‐Level Analysis of School Improvement: Changes in Schools' Performance over Time

The improvement of schools takes place over extended periods of time. Consequently longitudinal studies which track successive cohorts of pupils through their schooling are required if estimates of the extent of improvement are to be established. To date, hardly any studies have collected the necessary data. Those studies which have had appropriate data have tended to emphasise the extent of stability of schools' effectiveness over time rather than the extent of any changes. A shift in conceptual framework is called for if improvements in schools' effectiveness are to be the central focus of concern.

The study is based on three successive cohorts of pupils passing through some 30 English secondary schools. It uses examination results as the outcome measure and includes a prior attainment measure amongst the variables used to control for differences between schools' intakes. A multi‐level strategy for conceptualising and modelling data on schools' changes in performance over time is offered.

In common with earlier studies the research shows that there is a good deal of stability in schools' effectiveness from year‐to‐year; only a small proportion of the schools in the study (between a fifth and a quarter) were improving or deteriorating in terms of their effectiveness. A particularly striking finding of the research was that whilst several schools improved in effectiveness only one initially ‘ineffective’ school did so consistently. The implications of the study for future research on school improvement are discussed.     

The broadcaster's responsibility for advertising

Far too often, one comes upon people who are unwilling or unable to tear down the artificial walls between “academic research” and “practical broadcasting.” Naturally, many of the most fruitful researchers recognize the advantages of tying their work to the “real world,” and many of the most efficient broadcasters rely strongly upon rigorous research rather than “seat of the pants” intuition. In the following article yet another link between research and broadcasting is demonstrated: the use of research, conducted by or on behalf of a station, to provide a wealth of newsworthy stories for the broadcaster. Whereas most journal articles emphasize the substantive results of a research, here they serve primarily as examples, with emphasis on reporting and the application of research techniques in the newsroom.

Dr. McCombs is an associate professor of journalism in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Waters is assistant news manager of station WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina.     

The Future of Statistics Within the Curriculum

This article sets out a vision for the general nature of the statistics curriculum in the medium to long term.     

Child maltreatment and marijuana problems in young adults: Examining the role of motives and emotion dysregulation

It is well established that childhood maltreatment is an important predictor of marijuana use, but few studies have examined the mechanisms underlying this relationship. The current study examines marijuana motives as mediators of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and marijuana use in a sample of young adults. In addition, pathways from childhood maltreatment to emotion dysregulation, coping motives, and marijuana use were explored. Participants were 125 young adults (ages 19–25, 66.9% female) recruited through online community advertising. All participants completed questionnaires assessing childhood maltreatment, emotion dysregulation, marijuana motives, past year and past three-month marijuana use, and marijuana problems. Correlational analyses revealed bivariate relationships between childhood maltreatment, emotion dysregulation, marijuana motives and marijuana problems (rs = .24–.50). Mediation analyses revealed that coping motives mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and marijuana problems, and emotion dysregulation was associated with marijuana problems both directly and indirectly via coping motives. The present findings highlight emotion dysregulation and coping motives as important underlying mechanisms in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and marijuana problems.     

Educational Performance Indicators and LEA League Tables

Abstract

A common procedure for using examination results as performance indicators is based upon residuals from regression analysis. These analyses are typically applied to aggregated data: this paper demonstrates that such procedures give unstable results. It is suggested that aggregate‐level analyses are uninformative and that useful comparisons cannot be obtained without employing multilevel analyses using student‐level data.     

Introduction to Copyright

Copyright and You

Introduction to Copyright