The Technical Quality of Performance Assessments: Standard Errors of Percents of Pupils Reaching Standards

How accurate is the reported percent of students’reaching standards at the school level? How are standard errors for these statistics computed? How do estimates vary with choice of generalizability model?     

OSTMED.DR®, an Osteopathic Medicine Digital Library

The OSTMED.DR® database provides access to both citation and full-text osteopathic literature, including the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. Currently, it is a free database searchable using basic and advanced search features.     

The deployment,training and teacher relationships of teaching assistants supporting pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) in mainstream secondary schools

Growing numbers of pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are attending mainstream schools, and increasing numbers of additional staff are being deployed to support them. Recent research has cast doubt on the effectiveness of this support, by highlighting issues relating to deployment and training, and to relationships with class teachers. This study, conducted by Wendy Symes, who is a Research Associate at the University of Manchester, and Neil Humphrey, who is Professor of Education in the same university, interviewed 15 teaching assistants supporting pupils with ASD in four mainstream secondary schools in the north‐west of England to explore these issues. Analysis yielded several key findings. The majority of teaching assistants worked with just one pupil at a time and worked in a variety of lessons. Their role primarily involved helping pupils to stay focused and follow instructions. Many teaching assistants had no experience of ASD prior to starting their job. The amount of training received varied, but all felt that generic training about ASD was not helpful. A lack of time for joint planning with teachers was raised as a key concern. These findings are discussed in relation to the growing literature on inclusive education for pupils with ASD.     

Restorative Practice in New Zealand Schools: Social development through relational justice

This article proposes that restorative justice practices (RJPs), as used in New Zealand schools, are better understood as an instrument of social development than a behaviour management practice. Concerns about the achievement of Māori students are relocated, from an individualised psychological and pedagogical problem to an interdisciplinary context of historical and social development. Social constructionist theory is suggested as a lens through which RJPs in schools may be seen as the intentional production of respectful social relationships, rather than as behaviour management. A restorative process has the productive capacity to restore healthy relational functioning, both for those who have been offended against and those who have offended. It is argued that the primary function of restorative justice in schools is not about resolving specific conflicts, but rather, about the production and maintenance of respectful relationship, which is the antithesis of colonised relationship. Such a position reflects accountability on a communal, rather than individualised basis, and accords with recent moves in the United Nations Development Programme to look at Human Development as building agentive capacity.     

Being and becoming a university teacher

This study examined how one academic framed the enablements and constraints to her project of being and becoming an academic. Complexity facilitated reflection in that it provided a visual representation of data, which was used to generate a concept map, which represented as equal all the component parts of her landscape. Five spaces with emancipatory potential to assist the academic in her professional development emerged, namely: communities of practice, academic freedom, position statements, development opportunities and a supportive environment. Rather than suggesting any generalisability in the findings, the authors argue that the significance of this study is theoretical and methodological. Complexity theory has the potential to help academic development practitioners understand the landscapes in which their academics operate, and guide appropriate development opportunities.     

Effects of Applying Different Time Limits to a Proposed GRE Writing Test

In order to determine the role of time limits on both test performance and test validity, we asked approximately 300 volunteers–prospective graduate students–to each write two essays–one in a 40-minute time period and the other in 60 minutes. Analyses revealed that, on average, test performance was significantly better when examinees were given 60 minutes instead of 40. However, there was no interaction between test-taking style (fast vs. slow) and time limits. 'That is', examinees who described themselves as slow writers/test takers did not benefit any more (or any less) from generous time limits than did their quicker counterparts. In addition, there was no detectable effect of different time limits on the meaning of essay scores, as suggested by their relationship to several nontest indicators of writing ability.     

Linking Community,Industry and Tertiary Education Community‐based Student Units in Social Work Education

Professional social work education in Australia requires students to undertake supervised and assessed field practice in addition to theoretical classroom‐based education. Field education placements take place in a wide range of social and community service organisations ‐ often partly funded by these organisations. However, in a climate of economic restraint and cutback, the social and community services sector increasingly looks to education for resources for field education. One solution is the development of student units, especially designed to offer practice‐based experience for students. This paper is motivated by the high value Phillip Institute of Technology places on student units in field education. It addresses the question, “What are student units?”, presents a tentative categorisation of types of social work student units and concludes with a possible framework for evaluation.