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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Icils At A Glance: Highlights From The Full Australian Report – Australian Students’ Readiness For Study, Work And Life In The Digital Age, Lisa De Bortoli, Sarah Buckley, Catherine Underwood, Elizabeth O'Grady, Eveline Gebhardt Dec 2016

Icils At A Glance: Highlights From The Full Australian Report – Australian Students’ Readiness For Study, Work And Life In The Digital Age, Lisa De Bortoli, Sarah Buckley, Catherine Underwood, Elizabeth O'Grady, Eveline Gebhardt

Elizabeth O'Grady

The International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) is the first international comparative study that examines students’ acquisition of computer and information literacy: ‘the ability to use computers to investigate, create and communicate in order to participate effectively at home, at school, in the workplace and in society'. This publication includes highlights from the full Australian report called ICILS 2013: Australian students’ readiness for study, work and life in the digital age which is available for download from http://research.acer.edu.au/ict_literacy/6/


Understanding Student Evaluations : A Black Faculty Perspective., Armon R. Perry, Sherri L. Wallace, Sharon E. Moore, Gwendolyn D. Perry-Burney Nov 2016

Understanding Student Evaluations : A Black Faculty Perspective., Armon R. Perry, Sherri L. Wallace, Sharon E. Moore, Gwendolyn D. Perry-Burney

Sharon E. Moore

Student evaluations of faculty teaching are critical components to the evaluation of faculty performance. These evaluations are used to determine teaching effectiveness and they influence tenure and promotion decisions. Although they are designed as objective assessments of teaching performance, extraneous factors, including the instructors’ race, can affect the composition and educational atmosphere at colleges and universities. In this reflection, we briefly review some literature on the use and utility of student evaluations and present narratives from social work faculty in which students’ evaluation contained perceived racial bias.


Understanding Student Evaluations : A Black Faculty Perspective., Armon R. Perry, Sherri L. Wallace, Sharon E. Moore, Gwendolyn D. Perry-Burney Nov 2016

Understanding Student Evaluations : A Black Faculty Perspective., Armon R. Perry, Sherri L. Wallace, Sharon E. Moore, Gwendolyn D. Perry-Burney

Sherri L. Wallace

Student evaluations of faculty teaching are critical components to the evaluation of faculty performance. These evaluations are used to determine teaching effectiveness and they influence tenure and promotion decisions. Although they are designed as objective assessments of teaching performance, extraneous factors, including the instructors’ race, can affect the composition and educational atmosphere at colleges and universities. In this reflection, we briefly review some literature on the use and utility of student evaluations and present narratives from social work faculty in which students’ evaluation contained perceived racial bias.


National Assessment Program : Civics And Citizenship 2013 Year 6 And Year 10 : Technical Report, Kate O'Malley, Eveline Gebhardt, Renee Chow, Martin Murphy, Wolfram Schulz, Judy Nixon, Julian Fraillon Oct 2016

National Assessment Program : Civics And Citizenship 2013 Year 6 And Year 10 : Technical Report, Kate O'Malley, Eveline Gebhardt, Renee Chow, Martin Murphy, Wolfram Schulz, Judy Nixon, Julian Fraillon

Dr Martin Murphy

In 1999, the State, Territory and Commonwealth Ministers of Education, meeting as the tenth Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), agreed to the National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century. Subsequently, MCEETYA agreed to report on progress toward the achievement of the National Goals on a nationally-comparable basis, via the National Assessment Program (NAP). As part of NAP, a three-yearly cycle of sample assessments in primary science, civics and citizenship and ICT was established. The three previous cycles of NAP – CC were conducted in 2004, 2007 and 2010. As a result of a 2010 …


The School Library Workforce In Australia, Pru Mitchell, Paul R. Weldon Aug 2016

The School Library Workforce In Australia, Pru Mitchell, Paul R. Weldon

Pru Mitchell

A literature review by Lonsdale in 2003 observed that ‘a lack of systematically aggregated national data makes it difficult to gain an accurate picture of national trends in Australia in relation to the staffing of school libraries’ and noted ‘an apparent decline in the numbers of qualified teacher librarians employed in school libraries in public schools in Australia.’ This absence of data was also acknowledged in the 2011 report from the Inquiry of the House of Representatives Education and Employment Committee, which recommended a thorough workforce gap analysis of teacher librarians across Australian schools. New analysis of the Staff in …


The School Library Workforce In Australia, Pru Mitchell, Paul R. Weldon Aug 2016

The School Library Workforce In Australia, Pru Mitchell, Paul R. Weldon

Dr Paul Weldon

A literature review by Lonsdale in 2003 observed that ‘a lack of systematically aggregated national data makes it difficult to gain an accurate picture of national trends in Australia in relation to the staffing of school libraries’ and noted ‘an apparent decline in the numbers of qualified teacher librarians employed in school libraries in public schools in Australia.’ This absence of data was also acknowledged in the 2011 report from the Inquiry of the House of Representatives Education and Employment Committee, which recommended a thorough workforce gap analysis of teacher librarians across Australian schools. New analysis of the Staff in …


Ethical Conundrums In Rural South Africa: Lost In Translation, Eric D. Teman J.D., Ph.D., Veronica M. Richard Ph.D. Jul 2016

Ethical Conundrums In Rural South Africa: Lost In Translation, Eric D. Teman J.D., Ph.D., Veronica M. Richard Ph.D.

Eric D Teman, J.D., Ph.D.

We engage in story-retelling by recounting, reconstructing, and reflecting on our experiences as evaluators in a cross-cultural setting, a South African village. A principal focus on the serendipitous ethical and methodological issues that arose is highlighted. As most ethical dilemmas go, solutions are not clear. Therefore, the authors spend time critically considering the soundness of the decisions that were made, from the lack of diversity of the research team, to the ways we interacted with local citizens, to research design issues. We share our thoughts through a confessional tale via research poetry.


The Learning Analytics Readiness Instrument, Meghan Oster, Steven Lonn, Matthew D. Pistilli, Michael G. Brown Apr 2016

The Learning Analytics Readiness Instrument, Meghan Oster, Steven Lonn, Matthew D. Pistilli, Michael G. Brown

Matthew Pistilli

Little is known about the processes institutions use when discerning their readiness to implement learning analytics. This study aims to address this gap in the literature by using survey data from the beta version of the Learning Analytics Readiness Instrument (LARI) [1]. Twenty-four institutions were surveyed and 560 respondents participated. Five distinct factors were identified from a factor analysis of the results: Culture; Data Management Expertise; Data Analysis Expertise; Communication and Policy Application; and, Training. Data were analyzed using both the role of those completing the survey and the Carnegie classification of the institutions as lenses. Generally, information technology professionals …


What The Staff In Australia’S Schools Surveys Tell Us About Teachers Working In School Libraries, Paul R. Weldon Mar 2016

What The Staff In Australia’S Schools Surveys Tell Us About Teachers Working In School Libraries, Paul R. Weldon

Dr Paul Weldon

This report analyses the 2007, 2010 and 2013 Staff in Australia's Schools (SiAS) survey results to produce profiles of primary and secondary teachers who are working in a library role. It compares the findings about numbers of teachers working in a library role with the overall teacher cohort in terms of location, school sector and socio-economic status of schools. It also profiles teachers working in a library role in terms of their average age, gender, level of tertiary study and basis of work. It makes particular mention of early career teachers in libraries and teachers working out of field in …


Analysis Of The Cdf Early Learning Community Trust Process Phase I, Sherrill W. Hayes Jan 2016

Analysis Of The Cdf Early Learning Community Trust Process Phase I, Sherrill W. Hayes

Sherrill W. Hayes

The purpose of this report was to provide an external review of the participatory decision making process used in Phase I of the “Clarkston Families Decide” CDF Early Learning Community Trust (ELCT) conducted between July 2014 and January 2015. The reviewer’s primary purpose was to provide information about the process used to develop
the project outcomes in Phase I that may be useful in the overall evaluation of the ELCT. The reviewer employed primarily a qualitative research methodology as the data sources were text and visual secondary data from pre-existing documents created during the process. The primary source materials used …


Inter-Rater Variability As Mutual Disagreement: Identifying Raters’ Divergent Points Of View, A. Gingerich, Susan E. Ramlo Dec 2015

Inter-Rater Variability As Mutual Disagreement: Identifying Raters’ Divergent Points Of View, A. Gingerich, Susan E. Ramlo

Susan E Ramlo

Whenever multiple observers provide ratings, even of the same performance,
inter-rater variation is prevalent. The resulting ‘idiosyncratic rater variance’ is considered
to be unusable error of measurement in psychometric models and is a threat to the
defensibility of our assessments. Prior studies of inter-rater variation in clinical assessments
have used open response formats to gather raters’ comments and justifications. This
design choice allows participants to use idiosyncratic response styles that could result in a
distorted representation of the underlying rater cognition and skew subsequent analyses. In
this study we explored rater variability using the structured response format of Q
methodology. …