Within‐High‐School Versus Across‐High‐School Scaling of Admissions Assessments: Implications for Validity and Diversity Effects

Previous research has established that SAT scores and high school grade point average (HSGPA) differ in their predictive power and in the size of mean differences across racial/ethnic groups. However, the SAT is scaled nationally across all test takers while HSGPA is scaled locally within a school. In this study, the researchers propose that this difference in how SAT scores and HSGPA are scaled partially explains differences in validity and subgroup differences. Using a large data set consisting of 170,390 students each of whom matriculated at one of 114 separate colleges, the researchers find that awarding SAT scores by ranking SAT within a high school generally results in substantial reduction in the size of subgroup mean differences for this predictor. However, validity for predicting first‐year GPA is also reduced by a small amount. Conversely, placing HSGPA onto a nationally normed metric through the use of multiple regression procedures results in a moderate increase in the size of subgroup mean differences, while also producing a small increase in validity. Taken together, these findings suggest that differences in predictor scaling can partially explain differences in the size of subgroup mean differences between HSGPA and SAT scores and have implications for predictive power.     

The Impact of Tier 2 Mathematics Instruction on Second Graders with Mathematics Difficulties

Although research on Tier 2 interventions for early mathematics is accumulating, such efforts remain far behind those for reading, especially regarding specific features such as the ideal time to begin an intervention. The present study investigated the effectiveness of a Tier 2 intervention using a single subject multiple baseline, across-groups design with two cohorts of second graders. Because the two cohorts of students were given the intervention at different times during the second grade year, the study also documented whether the timing of the intervention affected acquisition and retention of second grade mathematics competencies. Finally, the study tracked student performance up to the first semester of the third grade year to document any sustained effects. The results show that the supplemental intervention was effective for both cohorts, but differences in performance indicate that the timing of the intervention may affect the degree of success. In addition, for some participants, the positive effects of the intervention were sustained into the third grade year.     

Club Identity/Class Identity: Negotiations of Popular Memory by Followers of the Australian Football League

A lot of the fun in contemporary sports talk relies on shared understandings about the culture of competitive sporting teams. The purpose of this paper is to explore how often humorous discourses are negotiated by sport fans as they narrate a sense of their own history and identity as followers of professional sports teams. This analysis draws on research conducted with followers of the Australian Football League (AFL), which included 21 life story interviews. As an oral historian, I was interested in how individuals negotiated popular ideas about Australian football in the ‘composition’ of their memories. This attention to the dynamic between the public and personal is described as a ‘popular memory approach’ to oral history. In this paper I explore the place of class in popular understandings about AFL club cultures. I argue that the role class plays in popular discourse around sporting club cultures is revealed more fully when we examine the ways in which individuals – in this case followers of AFL teams – make sense of it.     

Exploring the International Student Experience: Providing Insight Through a Mixed-Methods Approach

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) has seen a dramatic increase in international student enrollment in the last four years. To serve this rising population effectively, librarians at SIUE created a research study to explore the information needs and academic experiences of international students at SIUE. The study employed a mixed-methods approach including a survey as well as in-depth interviews and photo diaries. The results provide insight into international students’ library use and academic life.     

Similarities,divergence, and incapacity in the Bologna Process reform implementation by the former-socialist countries: the self-defeat of state regulations

This qualitative analysis describes the socialist legacy in the governance of higher education within the former Soviet-led member countries that entered the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) between 2001 and 2010. In joining the EHEA these countries signed on for the Bologna Process (BP), but are not members of the European Union. The analysis is based on EHEA BP Country Reports and a survey of Western academic literature and sources from the former-socialist region. It is argued that ministries of education are little engaged with academic and civic communities, in large part because policymakers underestimate the depth of the cultural and institutional changes that are necessary for educational reforms. Therefore, deep convergence of the new signatory countries to the EHEA via the BP has not occurred. Concurrently, West European measures intended to empower educational communities operate perversely in the post-socialist region, characterised by low civic and state capacities. The over-emphasis on bureaucratic checks and controls negates two important aspirations of Bologna: on the one side, university autonomy, empowerment of faculty, and development of local communities; and on the other side, the free flow of international knowledge. Without an adjustment of policies, the prospects for effective reforms are dimmed.     

Scientific Inquiry Self-Efficacy and Computer Game Self-Efficacy as Predictors and Outcomes of Middle School Boys’ and Girls’ Performance in a Science Assessment in a Virtual Environment

Journal of Science Education and Technology - The primary aim of the study was to examine whether performance on a science assessment in an immersive virtual environment was associated with changes...