Balancing varied assessment functions to attain systemic validity: Three is the magic number

Accountability-oriented reforms demand immediate and continual gains on achievement test, for all students, and without diminishing other outcomes or undermining instruction. This paper describes a framework for aligning classroom assessment and external testing with the aim of negotiating these seemingly contradictory goals. The framework varies the sensitivity to instruction and the representations of knowledge across approaches to assessment. Cycles of design- based studies successively refine relationships between a curriculum and the frame that each assessment provides. Doing so, we argue, leverages the unique formative and summative balance across assessments in order to scaffold learning and demonstrate the “consequential” validity of our strategy without compromising curricula, instruction, or the “evidential” validity that warrants their continued use.     

Relating Narrative, Inquiry, and Inscriptions: Supporting Consequential Play

In this paper we describe our research using a multi-user virtual environment, Quest Atlantis, to embed fourth grade students in an aquatic habitat simulation. Specifically targeted towards engaging students in a rich inquiry investigation, we layered a socio-scientific narrative and an interactive rule set into a multi-user virtual environment gaming engine to establish a virtual world through which students learned about science inquiry, water quality concepts, and the challenges in balancing scientific and socio-economic factors. Overall, students were clearly engaged, participated in rich scientific discourse, submitted quality work, and learned science content. Further, through participation in this narrative, students developed a rich perceptual, conceptual, and ethical understanding of science. This study suggests that multi-user virtual worlds can be effectively leveraged to support academic content learning.     

An Evaluation of Foreign HR Consulting Company Effectiveness in China

With vast amounts of foreign capital entering China yearly, there is a strong need to build its human capital to Western accepted levels. A plethora of external vendors offering training and consulting interventions to develop this labor force have quickly followed this investment. An evaluation of what these vendors are actually offering based on Donald Kirkpatrick's widely accepted “Four Levels of T&D Evaluation” is put forward. The findings are that while Chinese management does acknowledge the strong knowledge pool these companies can offer, they find that the high ethnocentric delivery of the skills content is an impediment to learning. They are also unhappy with the high costs, over usage of part‐time consultants, and a lingering perception of vendors using “outdated” training and consulting methods. The researcher proposes communication and delivery of a polycentric training mechanism, where stakeholders (local Chinese) directly contribute to what they are learning under a rubric of Chinese cultural and societal norms in order to incorporate more soft measures in the learning evaluation.     

A Survey of Current and Future Perceived Multi‐National Corporation Manufacturing Training Needs in Tianjin,China (T.E.D.A.)

The purpose of this study was to survey current and perceived future employer‐provided training practices among MNC [multi‐national corporations] manufacturing companies in the Tianjin Economic Development Area (T.E.D.A.) of China. The study bifurcated the data into two areas: all firms and only firms with a structured formal training program in place. A face‐to‐face interview was administered to HR personnel and trainers in the “top eighty” manufacturing MNCs in T.E.D.A. as designated by the T.E.D.A. administrative government in March 2000. A total of 56 interviews were obtained for a sampling margin of error of +/‐ 5. Data analysis revealed that overall the workforces in T.E.D.A employed 350 people or less, were largely youthful, and growing slowly. All employees had 11 to 15 years of formal education. A majority of firms conducted training needs assessments, gave skilled workers more training than unskilled, and earmarked 60% of the training budget for outsourcing. The quality perception of outsource training available in T.E.D.A. was mediocre. Management, technical skills, QC [quality control], and sales training accounted for 67% of the current training need. In three years, they were still perceived to be accounting for the same amounts, but among well‐correlated training departments, QC training was expected to decrease 2%, while in firms without a structured training program, sales training was expected to increase 2%. Trainers did not perceive employee turnover as a training problem. ROI [return on investment] perception on training was greater than 6%.