新时代高校教学秘书管理服务工作的变与不变

教学秘书职能的发挥保证了高等学校教学管理服务工作的正常运转,因此其是高等学校教学系统的重要组成部分。高校教学秘书主要从事管理服务工作,随着我国高等教育进入新时代,此项工作要面对一些新的变化,但是其基本的职能保持不变。对于管理服务工作的变与不变,高校教学秘书要加强学习,做好传承与创新。     

The Measurement Structure,Stability and Mediating Effects of Achievement Goals in Math with Middle-School Student Data

This study examined the measurement structure, cross-year stability of achievement goals, and mediating effects of achievement goals between self-efficacy and math grades in a national sample of Taiwan middle school students. The measurement model with factorial structure showed good fit to the data. In the panel data (N?=?343), four achievement goals showed strong measurement invariance, suggesting factor loadings and intercepts of the items remained invariant across a year. Though mean scores of the four latent achievement goals held quite stable, the rank order of students across two time-points changed more profoundly in the two avoidance goals than in the approached goals. In the cross-sectional data (N?=?748), we found approach-based goals were positive mediators between self-efficacy and math grades while avoidance-based goals were negative mediators. This result could be relevant for middle-school students in learning mathematics. Some instructional implications are provided.     

The Student–Teacher Relationship Scale revisited: Testing factorial structure,measurement invariance and validity criteria in German-speaking samples

The Student–Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) is widely used for research in kindergarten and school. The increasing number of applications inside and outside of the U.S. stresses the need to investigate STRS properties, accordingly. The present study used the STRS in German-speaking countries, examining whether (a) the original factor structure is appropriate for a German version, (b) whether applications of a German STRS are invariant across contexts (kindergarten, first and second grade) as well as gender, and (c) whether construct and criterion validity are met. The original STRS was translated into German and filled out by 368 kindergarten and 503 elementary school teachers in Germany and Austria. Observations in kindergartens, student reports in schools, and teacher reports of students’ characteristics served as validity criteria. Results of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) did not confirm the original STRS factor structure. Subsequent exploratory factor analyses on training samples resulted in significant item reductions, followed by further CFAs on validation samples. The bootstrapped results yielded an adjusted three-factor model with subscales indicating satisfying alphas and invariance across context and gender. Construct and criterion validity were met for all subscales of the German STRS based on various criteria from both, observations and reports.     

Measurement Invariance of Socioeconomic Status Across Migrational Background

Socioeconomic status (SES) is often used as control variable when relations between academic outcomes and students' migrational background are investigated. When measuring SES, indicators used must have the same meaning across groups. This study aims to examine the measurement invariance of SES, using data from TIMSS, 2003. The study shows that a latent SES variable has the same meaning across sub-populations with Swedish and non-Swedish background. However, the assumption of scalar invariance was rejected, which is essential for estimation of differences in latent means between groups. Comparisons between models assuming different degrees of scalar invariance indicated that models allowing partial scalar invariance should not be used when comparing latent variable means across groups of students with different migrational backgrounds.     

Revisiting the dimensionality of subjective task value: Towards clarification of competing perspectives

Expectancy-value researchers have described the components of subjective task value in multiple ways, leading to multiple competing structural representations of subjective task value data. The purpose of this study was to examine these competing multidimensional factor structures by comparing correlated factor, hierarchical, and bifactor representations of both confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) models across three theoretical conceptualizations of subjective task value. Results indicate that, in an undergraduate life science learning context (n = 334), the best representation for subjective task value data was a bifactor ESEM model that allowed for the disentangling of general and specific variance of general subjective task value, specific value beliefs, and specific costs. Full measurement invariance of the retained structure across continuing generation and first-generation students was found, and no differential item functioning was found across gender. General subjective task value and specific opportunity cost significantly and positively predicted achievement and specific utility value significantly and negatively predicted achievement, providing support for the criterion-related validity of the general and specific factors for predicting achievement outcomes.     

规范场论中引进协变导数的物理实质

一般认为粒子与场的相互作用是通过引进规范场实现的。其实，对自由粒子做局域规范变换，粒子就已被自动置于场的相互作用之中了。当使自由粒子整体规范变换向局域规范变换过渡时，场的相互作用发生了从“无”到“有”的变化，规范不变性遭到了破坏。通过协变导数引进规范场，虽然体现了粒子与场的作用，但那是让粒子恢复“自由状态”的抵消作用。     

It Matters: Reference Indicator Selection in Measurement Invariance Tests

Conventional approaches for selecting a reference indicator (RI) could lead to misleading results in testing for measurement invariance (MI). Several newer quantitative methods have been available for more rigorous RI selection. However, it is still unknown how well these methods perform in terms of correctly identifying a truly invariant item to be an RI. Thus, Study 1 was designed to address this issue in various conditions using simulated data. As a follow-up, Study 2 further investigated the advantages/disadvantages of using RI-based approaches for MI testing in comparison with non-RI-based approaches. Altogether, the two studies provided a solid examination on how RI matters in MI tests. In addition, a large sample of real-world data was used to empirically compare the uses of the RI selection methods as well as the RI-based and non-RI-based approaches for MI testing. In the end, we offered a discussion on all these methods, followed by suggestions and recommendations for applied researchers.     

Getting Better All the Time? An Illustrative Investigation of Multilevel Longitudinal Measurement Invariance Based on School Climate Surveys

School climate surveys are central to school improvement and principal evaluation policies. The quality of school climate has been linked both to student achievement and to teacher retention. Oftentimes, policymakers and practitioners are concerned with monitoring change in school climate quality in each academic year. Such applications assume longitudinal factorial invariance—it is presupposed that the surveys are measuring the same things in the same metric at each time point. While there is considerable research examining the validity of inferences based on survey‐derived climate indicators, this research is almost exclusively based on cross‐sectional data. There is little literature describing procedures for gathering evidence of factorial invariance of school climate indicators. This study proposes to adapt existing methods for evaluating factorial invariance in longitudinal designs into multilevel frameworks, and in doing so, articulates a novel method for evaluating longitudinal measurement invariance in school climate research. This technique is illustrated on a widely used school climate survey.     

Self-concept in reading: Factor structure,cross-cultural invariance and relationships with reading achievement in an international context (PIRLS 2011)

Using data from 48 countries, this study investigated the factorial structure and tested the cross-cultural invariance of the PIRLS 2011 reading self-concept scale and its relationships with reading achievement. The study showed that a two-factorial structure of the self-concept scale in reading had the best fit with the data. Configural invariance and metric invariance were achieved, scalar invariance was not. The two dimensions ‘Perception of competence’ and ‘Perception of difficulty’ showed robust within-country correlations with reading achievement, especially the second one. At the country level, the ‘Perception of competence’ was negatively related with reading, illustrating the attitudes-achievement paradox: countries in which students on average reported a more positive self-concept performed lower. On the contrary, for the ‘Perception of difficulty’, the sign of the correlation remained the same at the within-country and at the country level.     

Multilevel Factorial Invariance in n-Level Structural Equation Modeling (nSEM)

We present a multigroup multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model and a procedure for testing multilevel factorial invariance in n-level structural equation modeling (nSEM). Multigroup multilevel CFA introduces a complexity when the group membership at the lower level intersects the clustered structure, because the observations in different groups but in the same cluster are not independent of one another. nSEM provides a framework in which the multigroup multilevel data structure is represented with the dependency between groups at the lower level properly taken into account. The procedure for testing multilevel factorial invariance is illustrated with an empirical example using an R package xxm2.