Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Osh Certifications: Behind The Exams, Cheryl (Cheri) L. Marcham, Treasa M. Turnbeaugh, Nicola J. Wright

Publications

• The process for developing and scoring a certification exam is complicated and uses a scientific and mathematical psychometric process to achieve defendable outcomes.

• However, how much of the process is well understood by either the general public, employers or even safety and health professionals?

• The information presented is intended to help the safety and health professional understand why and how a properly developed and administered certification exam shows the mark of excellence in the field of safety and health.

Quality Function Deployment And Proactive Quality Techniques Applied To University Lectures To Improve Student Feedback, Kenneth Witcher, Elena Navarro, Beverly Wood, Ian Mcandrew

Publications

Lecturing and instruction to students at university has traditionally been based on qualifications, experience and position of academics within ones department or college. The higher the level and more advanced the subject then the most experienced lecturers are traditionally selected for that task. Visiting lecturers are never asked to teach basic mathematics or science, they are to share their experience and enlighten the students from a vast knowledge and history. This paper reviews and discusses Kano’s model with Quality Function Deployment related to customer satisfaction and compares if the traditional approach is in keeping with university practice. Furthermore, it argues …

Alternative Methods Of Estimating The Degree Of Uncertainty In Student Ratings Of Teaching, Ala'a Mohammad Alsarhan

Theses and Dissertations

This study used simulated results to evaluate four alternative methods of computing confidence intervals for class means in the context of student evaluations of teaching in a university setting. Because of the skewed and bounded nature of the ratings, the goal was to identify a procedure for constructing confidence intervals that would be asymmetric and not dependent upon normal curve theory. The four methods included (a) a logit transformation, (b) a resampling procedure, (c) a nonparametric, bias corrected accelerated Bootstrapping procedure, and (d) a Bayesian bootstrap procedure. The methods were compared against four criteria including (a) coverage probability, (b) coverage …

A Case Study Of Hanban’S Chinese Language Teaching Program At Western Kentucky University: Developmental History And Preliminary Outcomes, Sheng-Huei Yu

Dissertations

This case study provides a historical overview of foreign language development (especially Chinese) in the United States and the growing number of Confucius Institutes (CIs) established in the U.S through Hanban, China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. This case study specifically captures the growth of the Western Kentucky University (WKU) CI from its inception in 2010. According to Hanban’s annual assessment reporting guidelines, since the conception of CIs sheer quantity of teachers and students has always been the primary focus. Therefore, the growth in the numbers of Hanban Chinese teachers and number of students enrolled in …

You Can’T Always Get What You Want: Using “Broken Lotteries” To Check The Validity Of Charter School Evaluations Using Matching Designs, Leesa M. Foreman, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We consider situations in which public charter school lotteries are neither universally conducted nor consistently documented. Such lotteries produce “broken” Randomized Control Trials, but provide opportunities to assess the internal validity of quasi-experimental research designs. Here, we present the results of a statewide charter school evaluation using a broad-based student matching evaluation design, and run two additional analyses using the charter application wait-lists as robustness checks. Our additional models, which address concerns of self-selection by using only charter applicants as matched comparison students, yield similar effect estimates and thus provide support for the use of matching designs in charter school …

Multi-Choice Questions And Their Problems When Used For Assessment Of Aircraft Engineers Education, Ian R. Mcandrew, Ken L. Witcher, Elena Navarro, Peter Foreman

Publications

Licensed aircraft engineers under the European Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, undertake academic training to complement their practical and type specific studies. These exams are mainly Multi-Choice Questions, MCQ, and four 20-minute essays. The MCQ exams are as few as 16 questions to a maximum of 140 questions. A score of 75% is needed to pass each exam, and each question has three possible answers. This authors of this paper reviews the theory and design of the MCQ and asks if the assumptions are valid and that it achieves the academic level assumed for engineers who will be maintaining some of …

Functional Behavioral Assessments And Behavioral Intervention Plans: Review Of The Law And Recent Cases, Cynthia A. Dieterich, Nicole D. Snyder, Christine J. Villani

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Investigating Students’ Basic Needs And Motivation In College Chemistry Courses With The Lens Of Self-Determination Theory, Yujuan Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

More graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathmetics (STEM) fields are needed to keep our nation’s preeminance in the global fields of technology and science. However, fewer than 40% of students who intend to major in STEM fields when entering college complete a STEM degree. Therefore, it is important to explore factors to improve student persistence in STEM fields at the college level as well as to understand the interrelationship between student motivation, academic achievement, and persistence. Motivation is strongly associated with student achievement and persistence; meanwhile, academic achievement can also affect persistence. Self-determination theory (SDT) represents a framework of …

New Design Principles For Mobile History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Presentations and other scholarship

This study draws on design-based research on an ARIS–based mobile augmented reality game for teaching early 20th century history. New design principles derived from the study include the use of supra-reveals, and bias mirroring. Supra-reveals are a kind of foreshadowing event in order to ground historical happenings in the wider enduring historical understanding. Bias mirroring refers to a nonplayer character echoing back a player’s biased behavior, in order to open the player to listening to alternative perspectives. Supra-reveals engendered discussion of historical themes early in the game experience. The results showed that use of a cluster of NPC bias mirroring …

The School Curriculum: About Time, Geoff N. Masters Ao

Teacher columnist – Geoff Masters

'Too often in our schools, the time-bound curriculum does not deliver learning experiences matched to individuals’ present levels of achievement and learning needs,' Professor Geoff Masters AO writes in his latest Teacher column.

The School Curriculum: About Time, Geoff N. Masters, Ray Adams

Teacher columnist – Geoff Masters

When it comes to the school curriculum, it’s about time we asked a question about time.

An essential feature of the school curriculum is the specification of what teachers are to teach and students are to learn at particular times in the schooling process. In other words, the curriculum spells out not only what teachers are to teach and students are to learn, but also whenthis is to occur.

When it comes to the school curriculum, it’s about time we asked a question about time.

An essential feature of the school curriculum is the specification of what teachers are …

Narrating Neoliberalism: Alternative Education Teachers’ Conceptions Of Their Changing Roles, Noah Asher Golden

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The signifier ‘alternative’ in education has largely shifted from progressive or humanizing pedagogies to deficit framings requiring alternate graduation criteria. This development is part of broader neoliberal educational reform efforts that disrupt longstanding conceptions of teachers’ roles. This study serves to investigate long-term teachers’ understandings of their shifting roles in one secondary-level alternative education program in New York City. Specifically, this narrative analysis study explores participating teachers’ meanings around agency and their ability to form the relationships that they argue are central to meaningful pedagogies. Findings demonstrate a sense of loss regarding teacher agency and relationships, and a belief that …

Calculus Reform: Increasing Stem Retention And Post-Requisite Course Success While Closing The Retention Gap For Women And Underrepresented Minority Students, Doug Bullock, Janet Callahan, Jocelyn B. S. Cullers

Mathematics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Boise State University (BSU) implemented an across-the-board reform of calculus instruction during the 2014 calendar year. The details of the reform, described elsewhere (Bullock, 2015), (Bullock 2016), involve both pedagogical and curricular reform. Gains from the project have included a jump in Calculus I pass rate, greater student engagement, greater instructor satisfaction, a shift toward active learning pedagogies, and the emergence of a strong collaborative teaching community. This paper examines the effects of the reform on student retention. Since the curricular reform involved pruning some content and altering course outcomes, which could conceivably have negative downstream impacts, we report on …

Preliminary Findings Using Growth Mindset And Belonging Interventions In A Freshman Engineering Class, Jinny Rhee, Camille Johnson, Clifton Oyamot

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

Engineering is typically plagued with lower graduation rates and larger achievement gaps compared to other majors; the projected demand for its future graduates lends to the urgency in reversing these trends. Holding a growth mindset, or a belief that intelligence is mutable, and a feeling of belongingness are keys to persisting in and graduating from college. In prior research, improvements in retention and graduation rates have been found following minor interventions, particularly among some underrepresented populations of students. The current study explored whether similar interventions could be effective in increasing retention and graduation rates among underrepresented populations of engineering and …

Flipping Stem Classrooms Collaboratively Across Campuses In California, Laura Sullivan-Green, Ravisha Mathur, Andrew Feinstein

Office of the Provost Scholarship

San José State University, in partnership with California State University-Los Angeles and Cal Poly Pomona, was awarded a prestigious 2015 First in the World grant, sponsored by the Department of Education. The multi-campus effort is focused on bringing the flipped classroom model to seven STEM gateway courses over three years that have high failure rates through collaborative efforts from faculty on the three partner campuses. SJSU, CSULA, and CPP are all designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Minority-Serving Institutions, though their demographics are very different. High impact practices like the flipped classroom approach have been shown to increase URM student success and …

Infographic: School Teaching As A Highly Regarded Profession, Jo Earp

Teacher infographics

Since 1976, a Roy Morgan annual survey has asked Australians to rate 30 professions for ethics and honesty. This year, the rating for school teachers hit an all-time high. Find out more in today's infographic.

Central Virginia Ews: Identifying Middle And High School Indicators Of On-Time Graduation With An Early Warning System, Ryan D. Yarzebinski

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between different variables and whether a student attained an on-time graduation outcome. A retrospective cohort study was conducted within a single school division in central Virginia serving a population of 8,338 students. The organizational structure of the school division was unique as it is comprised of two combined schools and two high schools fed by a separate middle school.

The study utilized logistic regression and ROC analysis to identify the variables most predictive of graduation for use in an EWS. The model was designed to be predictive in nature and …

The Plight Of The Gifted Student: A Call To Action, Krista M. Shilvock

Empowering Research for Educators

With so many needs in today’s public education classroom, we cannot forget the needs of those who excel in the classroom, too. Gifted students face severe neglect in class due to the appearance of their competence and maturity. However, we quickly face losing the contributions of a major group of students as this neglect causes them to lose interest in their own education. As teachers, we must challenge ourselves to help gifted students reach their potential just as we attempt to do for all subgroups of students. A poll of 22 gifted students confirms these frustrations and needs of students. …

Immigrant Parental Involvement In Student Academics, Charles Tebben

Empowering Research for Educators

Abstract

This study is meant to focus discussions about the importance of the involvement of immigrant parents in respect to student academics. In this study I intend to make evident a relationship between parental involvement and student academics, after which I will draw in a conclusion of the resources utilized by my community at the elementary and middle schools. I’m conducting my research study starting at elementary school and running through middle school. I’m eliminating the high school period because of their unique parental involvement complexities which share little constraints and outcomes with the lower levels. To build my study, …

Growth Mindset In The Classroom, Luther L. Kiger

Empowering Research for Educators

This article discusses how Mindset can effect a students educational and social life.

The Language Of Learning In Family And Consumer Sciences: English Language Learners In Career Technical Education, Kali S. Lenhoff

Empowering Research for Educators

Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) content and English as a Second Language (ESL) strategies can be organically incorporated to create a successful education for an English Language Learner (ELL). The first objective of this research project is to discover how prepared Family and Consumer Sciences teachers feel to work with English Language Learners in the classroom. The second objective is to identify practical and effective methods and strategies that are useful for Family and Consumer Sciences teachers instructing English Language Learners. The rationale for this project is that by identifying the challenges faced by English Language Learners in education, teachers …

Emphasis On Test Scores In Education, Lindsay Olson

Empowering Research for Educators

This article discusses how too much emphasis on standardized testing can affect student learning as well as teaching in the classroom. It includes a personal interview with a high school teacher as well as an article from the Washington Post regarding a study that was completed involving testing students.

The Empirical Selection Of Anchor Items Using A Multistage Approach, Brandon Craig

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if using a multistage approach for the empirical selection of anchor items would lead to more accurate DIF detection rates than the anchor selection methods proposed by Kopf, Zeileis, & Strobl (2015b). A simulation study was conducted in which the sample size, percentage of DIF, and balance of DIF were manipulated. The outcomes of interest were true positive rates, false positive rates, familywise false positive rates, anchor contamination rates, and familywise anchor contamination rates. Results showed the proposed multistage methods produced lower anchor contamination rates than the non-multistage methods under some conditions, …

Using Multimodal Modules To Address Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge Gap In Learning To Teach English Language Learners, Guofang Li, Denisse M. Hinojosa, Lindsay Wexler, Yue Bian, Jose Manuel Matinez

TAPESTRY

Researchers have argued that teacher education programs fail to prepare effective teachers for the increasing English language learner (ELL). In response to the under preparedness of pre-service teachers (PSTs) for ELLs, the authors designed a six-module online lab course for a group of 22 TESOL minor PSTs. The content of the modules included knowledge of ELLs and their parents, the socio-political context of teaching ELLs, and strategies of teaching knowledge and content to ELLs. PSTs reported they benefited from the learning opportunities these modules provided, including: familiarizing them with the challenges ELLs faced, the importance of and ideas for involving …

“That’S Why I Say Stay In School”: Black Mothers’ Parental Involvement, Cultural Wealth, And Exclusion In Their Son’S Schooling, Quaylan Allen, Kimberly A. White-Smith

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines parental involvement practices, the cultural wealth, and school experiences of poor and working-class mothers of Black boys. Drawing upon data from an ethnographic study, we examine qualitative interviews with four Black mothers. Using critical race theory and cultural wealth frameworks, we explore the mothers’ approaches to supporting their sons’ education. We also describe how the mothers and their sons experienced exclusion from the school, and how this exclusion limited the mothers’ involvement. We highlight their agency in making use of particular forms of cultural wealth in responding to the school’s failure of their sons.

Informal Order, Needs Analysis, And The Eap Curriculum, Faisal S. Al-Maamari

The Qualitative Report

The academic curriculum is developed through a systematic process whereby content is created through the alignment of needs to stakeholder or target group. This qualitative research study features a small-scale, English for academic purpose (EAP) needs analysis (NA) of three credit-bearing EAP programs and the corresponding departmental programs conducted at a Language Center at a higher education institution in Oman. Based on interview, observational and documentary data, the analysis showed divergences in academic literacy (writing and reading) between the EAP and content programs. Principally, the findings pointed to the presence and operation of a group of informal orders and the …

Music Education For Students With Disabilities: A Guide For Teachers, Parents, And Students, Kaitlin A. Merck, Ryan M. Johnson

The Corinthian

The purpose of this paper is to provide some ideas, resources, and support for accommodating students with disabilities in music classes, including performing ensembles. First, we provide an overview of special education in America with a particular emphasis on music education. Next, we describe current inclusion practices that are used within the music classroom. Finally, we provide information for three groups of people involved in the music education of learners with special needs: learners, parents, and music teachers. It is hoped that this resource will be useful in making it possible to include students of all types in American music …

Design And Assessment Of Deep And Active Learning In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Education, Juhong Christie Liu Ph.D., Elizabeth Johnson Ph.D., Jin Joy Mao Ph.D.

Libraries

This presentation draws academic significance from a focused literature review and initial data for learning design in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. The presenters will discuss strategies of fostering deep, active learning, alignment with assessment, and development of assessment instruments and methods. The presenters will share the design and development of an assessment kit to measure learning outcomes that matter in the 21st century STEM education. Through shared evidence and interactive reflection, the audience will take away up-to-date design strategies for deep and active learning as well as assessment in STEM education. The project is sponsored by National …

Using Feedback To Critically Evaluate And Develop As Teachers, Eliza J. Mandel

Sandanona

This lecture discusses the importance of being critical of one’s own teaching and using feedback in the classroom, and teaching context as a whole, to assess one's teaching. Participants will explore some techniques of asking for feedback in ways to ensure the most relevant and useful feedback.

Exploring Digital Concept Maps & Infographics To Engage And Assess Students, Karen Moroz, Trish Harvey

Innovate! Teaching with Technology Conference

This session introduces digital concept maps and infographics that engage students and allow for formative assessment of understanding. Formative assessment is a research-based effective teaching and learning strategy, documented to increase student achievement and to help inform teachers' instruction. Throughout this session several digital tools that help students create concept maps and infographics will be modeled; all allow both students and teachers to formatively assess student understanding and determine next steps in learning. Free, online tools that do not require an account will be emphasized. BYOD session.

Multiple Audiences.