EVALUATING AND PREDICTING SURVEY EFFICIENCY USING GENERALIZABILITY THEORY

A long-term science performance monitoring program began in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1980 with the first in an initial series of annual national sample surveys of the science performances of II-, 13- and 15-year-old pupils. The assessment framework underlying this program is process-oriented, consisting of a number of subcategories of science activity, some of which are assessed in practical mode. Pupils are randomly selected for testing according to a complex sampling scheme. Questions are also selected randomly to represent the various subcategories.
From the start of this program, it was intended to appeal to generalizability theory for a suitable estimation paradigm, and in this paper some preliminary applications of G-theory are described. The results of these applications would suggest that computerized question-banking, domain-sampling of questions, and G-theory together provide a useful new technology for this kind of performance monitoring exercise. The issue of interpretability might still remain a problem, however, unless the question domains can be clearly defined, and can be reflected in the question pools with consistency over time.     

The State and the South African University System under Apartheid

This paper is offered as a contribution to the larger task of providing a comprehensive study of South Africa's universities during the era of apartheid (1948-1990). Because of the centrality of the state to apartheid, the focus adopted is that of the role of the state in university affairs. The inadequacies of state theory in general are acknowledged, but, it is argued nonetheless, that the state warrants special consideration, provided the limits of this type of approach are firmly grasped. It is also suggested that the state's actual relations with the racially fragmented university system are best conceptualised in terms of Neave's notion of 'boundaries' which implies flux. Indeed, the interactions between the state and universities in South Africa were more volatile than is generally portrayed in the literature and were especially so during the 1980s as the state struggled unsuccessfully to overcome the popular challenge to White domination in general and to apartheid university education in particular.     

The State University at Ghent,Belgium, Educates Engineers in Rwanda

Close established ties bemeen Belgium and Rwanda are also reflected in the setting up of civil and electromechanical engineering programmes in Rwanda, by the State University at Ghent, Belgium. The start-up and general organisation of engineering education, the experiences with four such education programmes and their extension into a practical post-university level education for solving urgent tangible problems of the country, are discussed.     

Study Programmes for Engineers from Developing Countries at the Norwegian Institute of Technology

The study and fellowship programmes for graduates from the developing countries ar the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH), are based on co-operation with NORAD (The Norwegian Agency for Intonational Development). This paper describes and gives the background for rhese continuing education programmes. Our general experience with the programmes is discussed together with some responses to them.