Factor structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised,Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test,and Peabody Individual Achievement Test in a psychiatric sample

This study analyzed the factor structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) in a psychiatric sample that ranged in age from 6 to 16 years (mean age = 11.1 years; SD = 3.0). The resultant factor structure of this sample was compared with patterns reported on normal and learning-disabled children. The subjects were 329 children under inpatient and outpatient care who had been referred for emotional disturbances. The results were similar to previous factor analytic studies of the WISC-R and PIAT, showing four factors: Verbal Comprehension, Verbal Achievement, Perceptual Organization, and Number Facility. The implications for the interpretation of these tests in a psychiatric sample and the appropriateness of a maximum likelihood technique in analysis of psychometric data are discussed.     

Perspectives on peer-review: eight years of Aropä

Drawing on eight years of observation and correspondence from the Aropä project, we report on the issues important to academics who conduct on-line student peer-review activities, and the features they request to support their own instructional designs. The Aropä project is unusually broad, having so far supported over 100 instructors at 20 institutions across nine countries, almost one thousand activities, and more than 36,000 individual students. As the designers, developers, maintainers and advisors of an evolving and widely used tool, we use our unique position to report on the perspectives and priorities of instructors and students in this important and developing field.     

Measuring Exposure to Media with Antisocial and Prosocial Content: An Extended Version of the Content-based Media Exposure Scale (C-ME2)

The present research developed a measure for exposure to both antisocial and prosocial media content by revising and extending a previous Content-based Media Exposure Scale (C-ME). The validity and reliability of the C-ME2 was tested in two independent samples (N = 678), among young adults (Study 1) and adolescents (Study 2). Results of Confirmatory Factor Analyses showed good fit, in both studies, for both antisocial and prosocial dimensions of media content, and for both males and females. Furthermore, the C-ME2 explains unique variance beyond previous measures of violent and general media exposure. Evidence is presented of reliability, discriminant and predictive validity of the C-ME2, measuring both frequency and exposure to specific content of media. The C-ME2 covers all media platforms, is easy to use in all research designs, and allows for standardization and systematic comparisons across studies.     

A folkloristic approach to understanding teachers as storytellers

This article presents a folkloristic analysis of two history teachers' performances of lectures in an eleventh-grade American history course. Folklore is defined as the situated performance of a traditionalized text (in this case, from the course textbook) in which the performer (the teacher) takes responsibility for communicating a version of the text to the audience (the students) that is meaningful to them in their current situation. Using performance analysis grounded in folkloristic theory, it is shown that the history lecture is a complex genre combining such simple genres as anecdote and personal experience story. In so doing, a folkloristic approach to the study of teachers as storytellers is explained.     

Peer-review in practice: eight years of Aropä

Articles discussing and analysing student peer-review activities proliferate the educational literature, typically describing one or more class exercises where students provide feedback on each other’s work. These papers usually focus on a peer-review activity designed as a scholarly study, and make conclusions about its success or otherwise. There is not one standard model for ‘peer-review’, and information on the many different assessment designs used is distributed over an increasing number of publications and websites. This paper provides a meta-review of peer-review activities as they are implemented in practice, using configuration data from over a thousand assignments conducted using an online peer-review system during an eight-year period. We present data on the wide variety of assignment designs and the parameters that comprise them, their rubrics, and comparisons between subject areas. Information on the norms and range of all decisions to be made will encourage instructors (both new to and experienced in conducting peer-review activities) to reflect on and justify the choices they make.     

A comparison of peer and tutor feedback

We report on a study comparing peer feedback with feedback written by tutors on a large, undergraduate software engineering programming class. Feedback generated by peers is generally held to be of lower quality to feedback from experienced tutors, and this study sought to explore the extent and nature of this difference. We looked at how seriously peers undertook the reviewing task, differences in the level of detail in feedback comments and differences with respect to tone (whether comments were positive, negative or neutral, offered advice or addressed the author personally). Peer feedback was also compared by academic standing, and by gender. We found that, while tutors wrote longer comments than peers and gave more specific feedback, in other important respects (such as offering advice) the differences were not significant.     

Retaining Young Student Parents: A Growing Challenge

Student parents face significant barriers to academic success. Joan Demeules and Beth Hamer describe St. Catherine University's Steps to Success program that provides proactive support for these vulnerable students in order to head off problems before they become insurmountable.     

An ontology of RPL: improving non-traditional learners' access to the recognition of prior learning through a philosophy of recognition

This article considers the underachievement of RPL in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) system, in terms of its apparent failure to reach and achieve outcomes for marginalised groups. It notes a range of analyses that are currently used to address this concern and draws on doctoral research in progress to highlight ontological questions that are brought to the process by RPL candidates. Axel Honneth's theory of recognition is then introduced as a means to shed light on these issues. Viewing RPL through the lens of a philosophy of recognition and the concept of ontological security the article asks questions about the nature and effects of the assessor–candidate relationship, inviting consideration of this relationship as an intersubjective exchange within a wider, more fundamental ‘struggle for recognition’. It is argued that a more ontological perspective could provide a framework for increasing access to and successful completion of RPL by non-traditional learners.