Emotional Bias in Classroom Observations: Within-Rater Positive Emotion Predicts Favorable Assessments of Classroom Quality

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Floman ◽  
Carolin Hagelskamp ◽  
Marc A. Brackett ◽  
Susan E. Rivers
Keyword(s):  
Professional Training ◽  
Positive Emotion ◽  
School Funding ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Classroom Quality ◽  
Classroom Observations ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Certification Testing ◽  
Research In Education ◽  
Emotional Bias

Classroom observations increasingly inform high-stakes decisions and research in education, including the allocation of school funding and the evaluation of school-based interventions. However, trends in rater scoring tendencies over time may undermine the reliability of classroom observations. Accordingly, the present investigations, grounded in social psychology research on emotion and judgment, propose that state emotion may constitute a source of psychological bias in raters’ classroom observations. In two studies, employing independent sets of raters and approximately 5,000 videotaped fifth- and sixth-grade classroom interactions, within-rater state positive emotion was associated with favorable ratings of classroom quality using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Despite various protections enacted to secure reliable and valid observations in the face of rater trends—including professional training, certification testing, and routine calibration meetings—emotional bias still emerged. Study limitations and implications for classroom observation methodology are considered.

scholarly journals Comparing 6th Grade Science Classrooms: Inner-City versus Suburb

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nida Syed
Keyword(s):  
Inner City ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
School Funding ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
School Students ◽  
Science Classrooms ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Learning Development

Do teachers in the inner-city have different expectations of their students than teachers in the suburbs? Ethnographic studies of the classroom such as one by Wilcox in 1982 suggest they do. Wilcox describes education as "primarily a process of cultural transmission". In other words, schools in a particular setting or neighborhood aim to instill in their students the cultural norms and behaviors accepted and expected in that setting. This project is an ethnographic study of two sixth grade science classrooms; one in an urban inner-city Detroit, Michigan neighborhood and one in the neighboring suburb of Dearborn. The study examines the way the two classrooms are run by the teachers and their teaching styles by comparing the types of assignments that are given to students and the implications they have on the students’ learning development. Other factors such as a comparison of school funding per pupil and the effect it has on the availability of resources necessary for learning in each classroom were also examined. We found that the Dearborn school students learned how to work individually and in groups whereas the Detroit school students learned only how to work in groups. We also found that Dearborn students were encouraged to read out loud to the class individually whereas Detroit students were often read to by the teacher.

Competency-Based Education and Assessment

2019 ◽  
pp. 112-132
Author(s):  
Melissa Wallace
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Hybrid Model ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Certification Exams ◽  
Competency Based Education ◽  
Competency Based

In an attempt to analyze the reliability and validity of the most frequently used oral certification exams for court interpreters in the United States, this chapter examines the basic test model used for state-level certification through the lens of concepts in testing theory. Having identified several limitations to the currently used performance-based model, a hybrid model which includes competency-based education and assessment is proposed. By building on best practices in competency-based education, the alternative credentialing paradigm proposed here would represent an innovation in the context of court interpreter certification in the United States, requiring the transfer of assessment criteria usually used in traditional educational contexts into the realm of professional training. The proposed hybrid model would necessitate a shift from one high-stakes exam to assessment of a series of compartmentalized competency clusters that would account for soft skills and dispositional traits not currently assessed.

Introduction

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hochschild ◽  
Nathan Scovronick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
American Dream ◽  
School Funding ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
The Individual

THE AMERICAN DREAM IS A POWERFUL CONCEPT. It encourages each person who lives in the United States to pursue success, and it creates the framework within which everyone can do it. It holds each person responsible for achieving his or her own dreams, while generating shared values and behaviors needed to persuade Americans that they have a real chance to achieve them. It holds out a vision of both individual success and the collective good of all. From the perspective of the individual, the ideology is as compelling as it is simple. “I am an American, so I have the freedom and opportunity to make whatever I want of my life. I can succeed by working hard and using my talents; if I fail, it will be my own fault. Success is honorable, and failure is not. In order to make sure that my children and grandchildren have the same freedom and opportunities that I do, I have a responsibility to be a good citizen— to respect those whose vision of success is different from my own, to help make sure that everyone has an equal chance to succeed, to participate in the democratic process, and to teach my children to be proud of this country.” Not all residents of the United States believe all of those things, of course, and some believe none of them. Nevertheless, this American dream is surprisingly close to what most Americans have believed through most of recent American history. Public schools are where it is all supposed to start—they are the central institutions for bringing both parts of the dream into practice. Americans expect schools not only to help students reach their potential as individuals but also to make them good citizens who will maintain the nation’s values and institutions, help them flourish, and pass them on to the next generation. The American public widely endorses both of these broad goals, values public education, and supports it with an extraordinary level of resources. Despite this consensus Americans disagree intensely about the education policies that will best help us achieve this dual goal. In recent years disputes over educational issues have involved all the branches and levels of government and have affected millions of students. The controversies—over matters like school funding, vouchers, bilingual education, high-stakes testing, desegregation, and creationism—seem, at first glance, to be separate problems.

scholarly journals Alexitimia como predictor directo y mediado por la depresión en la violencia de pareja / Response to Special Educational Needs and Teaching Efforts in Elementary School

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Moral de la Rubia ◽  
Sandra Ramos-Basurto
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Parental Support ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Educational Needs ◽  
Disabled Persons ◽  
Special Educational Needs ◽  
Primary School Teachers ◽  
Attentional Disorders ◽  
Curricular Modifications

<p>La investigación de la violencia de pareja se ha centrado tradicionalmente en la mujer como víctima y el hombre como agresor; no obstante, la violencia frecuentemente es recíproca. La alexitimia constituye un potencial factor de riesgo de violencia de pareja por sus características de un vínculo inseguro, un estilo pasivo de afrontamiento, un déficit de empatía y dificultades de control emocional. Además, la alexitimia se encuentra relacionada con la depresión. El artículo estudia la relación de la alexitimia con la violencia sufrida y la violencia ejercida (frecuencia y daño) en hombres y mujeres con una pareja heterosexual controlada por la variable depresión. Se aplicaron el Cuestionario de Violencia Sufrida y Ejercida de Pareja (CVSE, Moral de la Rubia &amp; Ramos Basurto, 2015), la Escala de Alexitimia de Toronto de 20 ítems (EAT-20, Bagby, Parker &amp; Taylor, 1994, en su versión mexicana de Moral de la Rubia, 2008a) y el Inventario de Depresión de Beck (2ª ed., IDB-2, Beck, Steer &amp; Brown, 1996, en su Formato Simplificado de Aplicación, IDB-2-FSA; Moral de la Rubia, 2013) a una muestra no probabilística de 240 participantes (120 mujeres y 120 hombres) en Monterrey, México. La alexitimia correlacionó más con la violencia sufrida que con la violencia ejercida, más con el daño que con la frecuencia dentro de la violencia sufrida y más con la frecuencia que con el daño dentro de la violencia ejercida. La mayoría de estas correlaciones permanecieron significativas al parcializar la depresión. En un modelo con buen ajuste en la muestra conjunta (hombres y mujeres), la alexitimia mostró un efecto significativo tanto sobre la violencia sufrida como la ejercida y este efecto fue tanto directo como indirecto con la mediación de la depresión. Concluye que la alexitimia es principalmente un factor de riesgo para sufrir violencia y en menor medida para ejercerla.</p><p> </p><p>Abstract:</p><p><span>According to the Costa Rican Law on Equal Opportunities for Disabled Persons (Igualdad de oportunidades para las personas con discapacidad, Ley N.º 7600), teachers must receive and attend individuals with Special Educational Needs (SEN) inside their regular classrooms applying different curricular modifications. Thus, knowing the amount and types of SEN attended by teachers, and the areas in which they need to improve their teaching skills, will allow considerable improvement for the quality and efficiency of the teachers’ professional training processes for SEN attention. To gather this information, interviews were carried out with fifteen first to sixth grade primary school teachers in a private elementary school in Moravia, Costa Rica. Results make evident that the main SEN attended were attentional disorders and emotional problems. The main limitations facing teachers are lack of time and poor parental support. The areas in which teachers indicated they need training were related to curricular modifications and specific methodologies for SEN. This research is useful for teacher training and Educational Psychology.</span></p>

Test validation in interpreter certification performance testing

Interpreting ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Han ◽  
Helen Slatyer
Keyword(s):  
Professional Competence ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Performance Testing ◽  
Test Validation ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Certification Tests ◽  
Certification Testing ◽  
Validation Research

Over the past decade, interpreter certification performance testing has gained momentum. Certification tests often involve high stakes, since they can play an important role in regulating access to professional practice and serve to provide a measure of professional competence for end users. The decision to award certification is based on inferences from candidates’ test scores about their knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as their interpreting performance in a given target domain. To justify the appropriateness of score-based inferences and actions, test developers need to provide evidence that the test is valid and reliable through a process of test validation. However, there is little evidence that test qualities are systematically evaluated in interpreter certification testing. In an attempt to address this problem, this paper proposes a theoretical argument-based validation framework for interpreter certification performance tests so as to guide testers in carrying out systematic validation research. Before presenting the framework, validity theory is reviewed, and an examination of the argument-based approach to validation is provided. A validity argument for interpreter tests is then proposed, with hypothesized validity evidence. Examples of evidence are drawn from relevant empirical work, where available. Gaps in the available evidence are highlighted and suggestions for research are made.

scholarly journals La atención de las necesidades educativas especiales y la labor docente en la escuela primaria / Response to Special Educational Needs and Teaching Efforts in Elementary School

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Mayela Dabdub-Moreira ◽  
Alejandra Pineda-Cordero
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Costa Rica ◽  
Parental Support ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Educational Needs ◽  
Disabled Persons ◽  
Special Educational Needs ◽  
Attentional Disorders ◽  
Curricular Modifications

<p>De acuerdo con la Ley de Igualdad de Oportunidades para las Personas con Discapacidad en Costa Rica (Ley N.º 7600), los maestros deben recibir y atender individuos con necesidades educativas especiales (NEE) dentro de sus clases regulares y saber cómo aplicar las diferentes adecuaciones curriculares. Por lo tanto, conocer la cantidad y el tipo de NEE que atienden los educadores y las áreas en las que estos expresan requerir facultarse, permite mejorar considerablemente la calidad y<br />la eficiencia de las actualizaciones profesionales que se brindan a los docentes y la atención asertiva de las NEE. Para recolectar esta información, se realizó una entrevista a quince maestros de primero a sexto grado en una escuela privada en Moravia, Costa Rica. Los resultados visibilizan que las principales necesidades educativas que ellos intentan solventar son los trastornos de atención y los problemas emocionales. Las principales limitaciones que enfrentan los educadores para atender las NEE son falta de tiempo y poco apoyo de las familias. Las áreas en las que indicaron requerir capacitación son relacionadas con la aplicación eficaz de adecuaciones curriculares y las metodologías<br />específicas para las NEE. La investigación presenta utilidad tanto para la docencia como para la Psicopedagogía.</p><p> </p><p>Abstract: </p><p>According to the Costa Rican Law on Equal Opportunities for Disabled Persons (Igualdad de oportunidades para las personas con discapacidad, Ley N.º 7600), teachers must receive and attend individuals with Special Educational Needs (SEN) inside their regular classrooms applying different curricular modifications. Thus, knowing the amount and types of SEN attended by teachers, and the areas in which they need to improve their teaching skills, will allow considerable improvement for the quality and efficiency of the teachers’ professional training processes for SEN attention. To gather this information, interviews were carried out with fifteen first to sixth grade primary school teachers in a private elementary school in Moravia, Costa Rica. Results make evident that the main SEN attended were attentional disorders and emotional problems. The main limitations facing teachers are lack of time and poor parental support. The areas in which teachers indicated they need training were related to curricular modifications and specific methodologies for SEN. This research is useful for teacher training and Educational Psychology.</p>

scholarly journals Variability in Preschool CLASS Scores and Children’s School Readiness

AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842110389
Author(s):  
Jennifer K. Finders ◽  
Adassa Budrevich ◽  
Robert J. Duncan ◽  
David J. Purpura ◽  
James Elicker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
School Readiness ◽  
Emotional Support ◽  
Instructional Support ◽  
Classroom Quality ◽  
Observational Period ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Classroom Organization ◽  
Low Incomes ◽  
Classroom Assessment Scoring System ◽  
Preschool Class

The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) is a widely administered measure of classroom quality that assesses teacher-child interactions in the domains of Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support. We use data from an evaluation of state-funded prekindergarten provided to 684 children from families with low incomes (Mage = 57.56 months, 48% female) to examine the extent to which CLASS scores vary over the course of an observational period within a single day and investigate whether this variability is related to children’s school readiness at the end of the preschool year, holding constant two additional measures of quality. Teacher-child interactions in all three domains were moderately stable. Mean Classroom Organization was positively related to math, and variability in Classroom Organization was negatively related to literacy. Mean Instructional Support was negatively associated with language. Findings have implications for programs that utilize the CLASS to make high-stakes decision and inform professional development.

Mitigating Bias and Improving Professional Decision-Making through Persuasive Training Games

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Hao Lee ◽  
Norah E. Dunbar ◽  
Claude H. Miller ◽  
Elena Bessarabova ◽  
Matthew Jensen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Deception Detection ◽  
Intelligence Analysis ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Persuasive Games ◽  
Training Professionals ◽  
Decision Making Biases

Making accurate, unbiased decisions is critical in high-stakes professions such as law enforcement, intelligence analysis, and medicine, since the decisions can have severe consequences. In this chapter, we discuss what makes persuasive games effective for training professionals to recognize their cognitive biases, improve their knowledge about decision-making biases, and learn ways of mitigating bias. We describe our experience designing three games for professional training in cognitive biases and deception detection. This chapter focuses on the combination of decisionmaking, education, and game theories that drives our design. This is then followed by a discussion of our experiments and measurements for testing the effectiveness of our designs.

Effective Reading Instruction for Gifted Readers

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donalyn Miller
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Reading Programs ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
High Achieving Students ◽  
Heterogeneously Grouped

Assigned as a sixth grade Language Arts teacher in both a homogenously grouped class of gifted students and a heterogeneously grouped class of gifted and high-achieving students, I have struggled to design a program of reading instruction that provides substantially different learning opportunities than what might be offered to gifted readers in a traditional, mixed-ability classroom. A cursory review of published curriculum for gifted readers yields little useful information due to the dated nature of the materials offered. It seems that limited progress has been made in the design or study of reading programs for the gifted since the early 1990's. In our current high-stakes testing world, the needs of gifted readers are rarely considered worthy of reading research efforts, and yet, these students deserve instruction that meets their unique demands.

Literacy Lessons: The Convergence of Expectations, Practices, and Classroom Culture

2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen M. Fairbanks ◽  
Mary A. Broughton
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Literacy Learning ◽  
Classroom Culture ◽  
Classroom Observations ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Teacher Interview ◽  
Learning Centered ◽  
Mandated Testing

This paper examines the experiences that construct classroom culture in one sixth-grade language arts classroom and adolescent girls' negotiation and responses to their experience as class members. Over the course of the year, data were collected through classroom observations, monthly videotapes of class, interviews with the girls as they viewed their participation in class, and a teacher interview. Emergent themes based on analysis of observations and interviews with the girls included the girls' perceptions of their language arts experiences, their sense of themselves as students, being good, and boredom and disengagement. Findings revealed a classroom culture based primarily on procedures in which the purposes of literacy learning centered on the skills required for state-mandated testing. The girls' responses to this classroom culture suggested that they were adopting an orientation to literacy similar to their teacher's, even as they expressed a desire for a more personally meaningful curriculum. They were often bored and developed ways to manage their disengagement to avoid trouble with the teacher. Implications for ongoing research are discussed.

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