An Investigation of Position Effects in Large-Scale Writing Assessments

ABSTRACT Candida albicans is the most common human fungal pathogen and causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Nevertheless, the basic principles of C. albicans pathogenesis remain poorly understood. Of central importance to the study of this organism is the ability to generate homozygous knockout mutants and to analyze them in a mammalian model of pathogenesis. C. albicans is diploid, and current strategies for gene deletion typically involve repeated use of the URA3 selectable marker. These procedures are often time-consuming and inefficient. Moreover, URA3 expression levels—which are susceptible to chromosome position effects—can themselves affect virulence, thereby complicating analysis of strains constructed with URA3 as a selectable marker. Here, we describe a set of newly developed reference strains (leu2Δ/leu2Δ, his1Δ/his1Δ; arg4Δ/arg4Δ, his1Δ/his1Δ; and arg4Δ/arg4Δ, leu2Δ/leu2Δ, his1Δ/his1Δ) that exhibit wild-type or nearly wild-type virulence in a mouse model. We also describe new disruption marker cassettes and a fusion PCR protocol that permit rapid and highly efficient generation of homozygous knockout mutations in the new C. albicans strains. We demonstrate these procedures for two well-studied genes, TUP1 and EFG1, as well as a novel gene, RBD1. These tools should permit large-scale genetic analysis of this important human pathogen.

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Generalizability Theory as Evidence of Concerns About Fairness in Large-Scale ESL Writing Assessments

TESOL Journal ◽

10.5054/tj.2011.269751 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 2 (4) ◽

pp. 423-443 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

JINYAN HUANG

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Generalizability Theory ◽

Esl Writing ◽

Writing Assessments

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Serial Position Effects on Native Advertising Effectiveness: Differential Results Across Publisher and Advertiser Metrics

Journal of Marketing ◽

10.1177/0022242918817549 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 83 (2) ◽

pp. 82-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Pengyuan Wang ◽

Guiyang Xiong ◽

Jian Yang

Keyword(s):

Serial Position ◽

Large Scale ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Moderating Effects ◽

Data Set ◽

Position Effects ◽

Serial Position Effects ◽

Advertising Industry ◽

Large Scale Data ◽

Gender And Age

The advertising industry has recently witnessed proliferation in native ads, which are inserted into a web stream (e.g., a list of news articles or social media posts) and look like the surrounding nonsponsored contents. This study is among the first to examine native ads and unveil how their effectiveness changes across serial positions by analyzing a large-scale data set with 120 ads. For each ad, the authors use separate “natural experiment” studies to compare the ad’s performance as its serial position varies. Subsequently, they conduct a meta-analysis to generalize the results across all studies. The results reveal vastly asymmetric effects of native ad serial position on publishers’ metrics (click-based) versus advertisers’ metrics (conversion-based). As serial position lowers (i.e., from rank 1 to a lower rank), there are only modest changes in publishers’ metrics, but drastic reductions in advertisers’. This pattern is unique to native ads and has not been indicated by prior research on ad serial position. Moreover, the authors show the moderating effects of audience gender and age. The findings provide new and timely implications for researchers and marketers.

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A Methodologically Improved Study on Raters’ Personality and Rating Severity in Writing Assessment

SAGE Open ◽

10.1177/21582440211009476 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 215824402110094

Author(s):

Yu Zhu ◽

Andy Shui-Lung Fung ◽

Liuyan Yang

Keyword(s):

Writing Assessment ◽

Large Scale ◽

Measurement Model ◽

Order Effect ◽

Language Program ◽

Writing Assessments ◽

Relevant Variables ◽

Homogeneous Background ◽

The Relationship ◽

Practical Implications

Personality is an inherent rater’s characteristic influencing rating severity, but very few studies examined their relationship and the findings were inconclusive. This study aimed to re-investigate the relationship between raters’ personality and rating severity with more control on relevant variables and more reliable analysis of rating severity. Female novice raters ( n = 28) from a demographically homogeneous background were recruited to rate on two occasions essays written by 111 students in an intermediate-level Chinese as a foreign language program. Raters’ personality traits were measured using the complete version of NEO-PI-R. Many-faceted Rasch measurement model and repeated measurement were applied to yield more robust estimates of rating severity. In addition, rating order effect was carefully controlled. Extroversion was found to be positively correlated with severity, r(26) = .495, p = .010. Furthermore, Extroversion was found to be a valid predictor of severity, t(24) = 2.792, p = .010, R2 = .21, Cohen’s d = .77, Hattie’s r = .37. Practical implications for developing more individualized online rater calibration for large-scale writing assessments were discussed, followed by limitations of the present study.

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