Assessing School Readiness: Validity and Bias in Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers' Ratings

As a part of efforts to evaluate and monitor the increasing public investment in early childhood education, teachers are being asked to assess children's school readiness. In this study, preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers rated children's skills in three areas (kindergarten readiness, academic skills, and communication skills), and these ratings were compared with direct assessments of the children's skills. Ratings by both groups of teachers tended to be more highly related to basic skills, such as counting and number naming, than to abilities such as solving applied problems and using expressive and receptive vocabulary. Preschool teachers' ratings had a lower association with children's observed skills and abilities than kindergarten teachers' ratings. Ratings of children attending Head Start were systematically inflated, but this relationship was mediated to a significant extent by the teachers' levels of education. More educated teachers rated children in a manner consistent with the children's directly assessed skills. Implications of these findings for informing future efforts to assess school readiness by using teacher ratings are discussed.     

应用网络技术开展大学英语写作教学的方法和效用

网络环境下运用过程教学法可以切实有效地辅助教师开展相关的语言教学。利用网络技术不但可以节约大量的教学课时,而且能增加学生的学习兴趣和参考度,充分利用网络环境带来的便利,推行过程教学法在大学英语写作教学中的应用,可以更好的提高教学效率,真正促进学生写作应用能力的提高。     

构建新时期高校共青团工作新格局

新时期高校共青团工作应以“三个代表”重要思想为指导,扎实推进校园文化建设,大力开展社会实践活动、青年志愿者行动、助学工程,加强大学生思想政治教育、素质教育,培养一支高水平的团干部队伍,与时俱进,构建新时期高校共青团工作新格局。     

What contemporary work are student ratings actually doing in higher education?

It is conventionally assumed that student ratings perform a significant function in driving improvement in pedagogical practices in higher education. As a result, this form of evaluation has gradually become institutionalised in recent decades as an essential proxy for understanding teaching and course quality in universities across the world. However, with the rise of market-based models in higher education and heightened expectations for accountability mechanisms, the role and functional purpose of ratings-based student evaluation have become increasingly confused. This rising ambiguity has created strong tensions between the seminal drive of student ratings as a tool of quality improvement, and the emerging demands for its use as a transparent accountability measure for the comparative assessment of academic performativity. So are student ratings now largely a tool of quality assurance or performance measurement, or do they remain a legitimate tool for pedagogical improvement? This paper reports on a study that responded to this critical question by considering the contemporary work of student ratings in a major Australian university. The outcomes of this research demonstrate that tension between improvement and accountability motives is causing considerable confusion and discord around the role and value of the student voice. It also reveals that academics are tending to discount the often critical insights of students on the implications of their pedagogical practices as a result of the elevating institutional role of student ratings as a proxy for teaching quality. In considering these outcomes, rising levels of academic dissonance around student ratings would suggest a necessity to consider broadened evaluative strategies that are able to more effectively capture the improvement potential offered by the student voice.     

Peer assessment of class participation: applying peer nomination to overcome rating inflation

Having students actively engaged with each other in discussions has become an increasingly important and common aspect of the classroom environment. This increased emphasis has also meant that instructors need to find ways to effectively and efficiently evaluate class participation. In this paper, we describe the most common method used for these assessments and highlight some of its inherent challenges. We then propose an alternative method based on peer nominations. Two case studies illustrate the advantages of this method; we find that it is both easy for students to complete and provide instructors with valuable diagnostic information with which to provide feedback and assign grades.     

感知组织支持的多维度构思模型研究

摘要：本文首先回顾了感知组织支持维度划分的代表性观点,然后聚焦于支持不同来源,提出了中国员工感知组织支持的多维度构思模型,并在以往研究结论和小规模访谈的基础上编制开发出“中国员工感知组织支持量表”。通过探索感知组织支持的潜在因素结构并对数据与模型的拟合程度进行检验。本文发现：中国员工的感知组织支持由感知组织制度支持、感知组织制度保障、感知主管任务导向型支持、感知主管关系导向型支持、感知同事工作支持和感知同事生活支持共同构成。本文的研究结论对组织支持理论的研究范畴和内容体系进行了拓展和深化。       

CET-4作文评分人评分标准使用情况的研究

本研究采用混合研究法对CET-4作文评分人如何使用评分标准进行分析。26位CET-4作文评分人对30篇CET-4模拟作文评分,并提供3条按重要性排序的评分理由。研究结果显示：（1）虽然存在严厉度的差异,但是26位评分人之间的一致性比较好,且大部分评分人的自身一致性也较好。（2）部分评分人的评分理由呈现了单一化趋势。（3）评分人所给评分理由的71.91%体现了CET-4作文评分标准所规定的5个文本特征,说明大部分评分人对标准的理解和把握还是比较准确的。     

Who is the expert? Construct and criteria validity of student and teacher ratings of instruction

In this article, we examine the construct and criteria validity of student and teacher ratings as indicators of instructional features. As parsimonious measures, student and teacher reports are frequently used to assess aspects of the learning environment. From a methodological perspective, however, both approaches have been questioned. Whereas student ratings are occasionally criticised as being undifferentiated and easily influenced by personal preferences, teacher reports are sometimes considered to be biased by self-serving strategies or teaching ideals. Instead of pitting one method against the other, our study aimed at establishing the specific value of each approach. The analyses draw on data from a German extension to the 2003 PISA assessment, in which 288 mathematics teachers and their students completed questionnaires using identical items to tap various aspects of instruction. Mean student ratings were computed for each class. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed specific conceptual structures for student and teacher ratings, with teachers elaborating on the use of tasks and methods, and students focusing on their teacher’s support in personal and learning matters. Three shared dimensions were also established: occurrence of classroom management problems, degree of cognitive autonomy during lessons, and tempo of interaction. Teacher/student agreement on these dimensions varied across constructs, with considerable agreement on classroom management, low agreement on cognitive autonomy, and no significant agreement on whether or not the interaction tempo was appropriate. Accordingly, correlations with external criteria (student motivation, teacher motivation, mathematical achievement scores, and characteristics of the tasks set in class) also varied across constructs. We conclude that student and teacher ratings are best suited to tapping different aspects of the learning environment, and recommend that care be taken in choosing a data source appropriate for the construct to be measured.

The Language of Schools: Curricular goals and classroom life

The experience of becoming a teacher involves more than learning to use the tools of the trade. Using the example of teaching questioning strategies in a curriculum methods seminar for student teachers, two teacher-educators present questions and dilemmas that arise out of the tension between the use of language as a tool, and the experience of language as an aspect of becoming teachers. Anecdotes from classrooms show how student teachers develop an awareness of the dynamic interplay of these language forms. We suggest that this dynamic interplay can be understood as aesthetic form, an aspect of teaching practice which enables teachers to sustain the pedagogical relation.     

我国公交车载移动电视发展现状及传播策略

面对竞争日趋激烈的媒介生态环境,公交车载移动电视因其独特的传播优势蕴涵着诱人的商业价值和广阔的市场前景。面对发展中的重重困境,公交车载移动电视要想获得经济效益和社会效益的双赢局面,需要进一步明确发展理念、确定产业标准、把握受众需求、实施自主创新,在收视环境和收视效果上开拓创新。