Teacher Trainees’ Administration and Scoring Errors on the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 551-563
Author(s):  
Adam B. Lockwood ◽  
Karen Sealander ◽  
Thomas J. Gross ◽  
Christopher Lanterman

Achievement tests are used to make high-stakes (e.g., special education placement) decisions, and previous research on norm-referenced assessment suggests that errors are ubiquitous. In our study of 42 teacher trainees, utilizing five of the six core subtests of the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Third Edition (KTEA-3), we found that while most trainees make errors, they do not make a large number per person with the exception of a few error-prone trainees. In addition, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests indicated that reading comprehension was the most prone subtest to administration ( T = 120; p < .001) and clerical ( T = 45; p < .01) errors. However, subtests pairwise comparisons indicated nonsignificant differences between error rates across subtests. Based on these findings, we recommend that training programs focus extra attention on reading comprehension and remediating students who make a disproportionate number of errors. Implications for future research are also noted.

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 430-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris S. Hodkinson ◽  
Arthur E. Poropat

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide for Western educators of international Chinese and Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) students the first integrated review of kiasu, the “fear of missing out”, and its consequences for learning, teaching, and future research. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the economic importance of international Chinese students is provided, followed by consideration of the pedagogical consequences of restricted participation in educational activities by the so-called “silent Chinese student”. Examination of research on international Chinese students and their source cultures established significant gaps and misunderstandings in the generally accepted understandings of CHCs, especially with respect to the actual practices used in Western and Chinese teaching. More importantly, the participation-related implications of kiasu within the context of broader cultural characteristics are described and implications drawn for teaching practices and research. Findings – While many Western university teachers are aware of the “silent Chinese student” phenomenon, few understand its underlying reasons, especially the kiasu mindset and its relationship to other cultural elements. Kiasu actively impedes the interaction of international Chinese students with their teachers and restricts collaboration with peers, thereby limiting educational achievement. Specific tactics for amelioration are reviewed and recommendations are provided, while an agenda for future research is outlined. Practical implications – Western teachers need to normalise and encourage Chinese student participation in class activities using tactics that have been demonstrated to improve outcomes for Chinese students, but that also assist students generally. These include both within-class and electronic interaction tools. Social implications – More culturally sensitive understanding of the impact of cultural differences on teaching effectiveness. While some effective responses to these already exist, further research is needed to expand the skill-set of Western teachers who work with international Chinese students. Originality/value – This paper provides the first systematic integration of the kiasu phenomenon with educational practice and research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-203
Author(s):  
Samantha Gross Toews ◽  
Russell Johnston ◽  
Jennifer A. Kurth ◽  
Andrea L. Ruppar ◽  
Jessica A. McQueston ◽  
...  

Abstract Trends in the supplementary aids and services (SAS) written in individualized education programs (IEPs) for students with significant disabilities (a) in different educational placements, (b) with and without behavior support plans (BSP), and (c) with and without complex communication needs (CCN) are examined using multivariate analysis of variance. Results show no significant differences in SAS for students across separate, resource, and inclusive placements. Students with BSPs had significantly more collaborative and behavior SAS than those without BSPs. Students with CCN had significantly more social-communication SAS than those whose IEPs indicated little to no communication support needs; however, 51.1% of students with CCN had no social-communication SAS. Findings raise concern around the extent to which SAS are considered before placement decisions, the high frequency of paraprofessional support for students with BSPs, and the low frequency of social-communication SAS written for students with CCN. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are provided.


Author(s):  
Lina Kluy ◽  
Eileen Roesler

Industrial human-robot collaboration (HRC) is not yet widely spread but on the rise. This development raises the question about properties collaborative robots (cobots) need, to enable a pleasant and smooth interaction. Therefore, this study investigated the influence of transparency and reliability on perception of and trust towards cobots. A video-enhanced online study with 124 participants was conducted. Transparency was provided through the presentation of differing information, and reliability was manipulated through differing error rates. The results showed a positive effect of transparency on perceived safety and intelligence. Reliability had a positive effect on perceived intelligence, likeability and trust. The effect of reliability on trust was more pronounced for low transparent robots. The results indicate the relevance of carefully selected information to counteract negative effects of failures. Future research should transfer the study design into a real-life experiment with more fine-grained levels of transparency and reliability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (05) ◽  
pp. 9733-9740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuhui Zhou ◽  
Yue Zhang ◽  
Leyang Cui ◽  
Dandan Huang

Contextualized representations trained over large raw text data have given remarkable improvements for NLP tasks including question answering and reading comprehension. There have been works showing that syntactic, semantic and word sense knowledge are contained in such representations, which explains why they benefit such tasks. However, relatively little work has been done investigating commonsense knowledge contained in contextualized representations, which is crucial for human question answering and reading comprehension. We study the commonsense ability of GPT, BERT, XLNet, and RoBERTa by testing them on seven challenging benchmarks, finding that language modeling and its variants are effective objectives for promoting models' commonsense ability while bi-directional context and larger training set are bonuses. We additionally find that current models do poorly on tasks require more necessary inference steps. Finally, we test the robustness of models by making dual test cases, which are correlated so that the correct prediction of one sample should lead to correct prediction of the other. Interestingly, the models show confusion on these test cases, which suggests that they learn commonsense at the surface rather than the deep level. We release a test set, named CATs publicly, for future research.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Valerie Burke ◽  
Laura O’Rourke ◽  
Emer Duffy

BACKGROUND: Vocation is a meaningful area of rehabilitation after Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). There is a discrepancy between the number of individuals with an ABI who feel able to work and those who are employed in Ireland. Research suggests that Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) programs enhance Return to Work (RTW) outcomes after ABI, however existing literature is limited. OBJECTIVE: This study explores the experience of engaging in VR post ABI, and its impact upon work self-efficacy. METHODS: A mixed methods case study design was selected to represent the individuality of ABI presentations. Participants completed a qualitative interview at VR follow up (N = 2) and the Work Self-Efficacy Inventory at pre/post VR. RESULTS: Four overarching themes emerged including Stigma, Adjustment, Support and Readiness. RTW challenges included fatigue, accepting support, adjusting to work and stigma. RTW benefits included routine, pride in work, skills development, and empowerment. Wilcoxon signed rank indicated that work self-efficacy scores mildly improved post VR. CONCLUSIONS: This research may inform VR Programs and offers pragmatic clinical implications based on the data. Future research should consider the role that readiness plays in facilitating RTW. Limitations include sample size, a lack of longitudinal data and control group.


Author(s):  
Paul Caster ◽  
Randal J. Elder ◽  
Diane J. Janvrin

This exploratory study examines automation of the bank confirmation process using longitudinal data set from the largest third-party U.S. confirmation service provider supplemented with informal interviews with practitioners. We find a significant increase in electronic confirmation use in the U.S. and internationally. Errors requiring reconfirmation were less than two percent of all electronic confirmations. Errors made by auditors were almost five times more likely than errors by bank employees. Most auditor errors involved use of an invalid account number, although invalid client contact, invalid request, and invalid company name errors increased recently. Big 4 auditors made significantly more confirmation errors than did auditors at non-Big 4 national firms. Error rates and error types do not vary between confirmations initiated in the U.S. and those initiated internationally. Three themes emerged for future research: authentication of evidence, global differences in technology use, and technology adoption across firms of different sizes.


AERA Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 233285842090169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daibao Guo ◽  
Shuai Zhang ◽  
Katherine Landau Wright ◽  
Erin M. McTigue

Although convergent research demonstrates that well-designed graphics can facilitate readers’ understanding of text, there are select situations where graphics have been shown to have no effect on learners’ overall text comprehension. Therefore, the current meta-analytic study examined 39 experimental studies published between 1985 and 2018 measuring graphics’ effects on readers’ comprehension. We first quantified the overall effect on reading comprehension. Then, we considered interactions with learners’ characteristics, graphic types, and assessment formats. Our analysis revealed that the inclusion of graphics had a moderate overall positive effect (Hedges’s g = 0.39) on students’ reading comprehension, regardless of grade level. Regarding graphic type, we did not find a significant difference among pictures, pictorial diagrams, and flow diagrams. Only when compared to mixed graphics, pictures had a greater effect on comprehension. Additionally, compared with true and false assessments, graphics differentially benefited students’ comprehension on open-ended comprehension assessments and mixed format assessments. Implications for future research are presented.


Assessment ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 107319111989711
Author(s):  
Michelle M. Cumming ◽  
Daniel Poling ◽  
Stephen W. Smith

An inability to successfully regulate anger has been linked to adverse outcomes for students, including psychological problems and special education placement due to significant emotional and behavioral difficulties. Early identification, therefore, is critical to provide timely intervention for students before anger-related problems escalate. The Anger Expression Scale for Children was developed to address some of the limitations of previous measurement tools designed to assess anger expression with children and adolescents. Yet validation is needed with upper elementary school populations—a key identification and prevention period. Thus, we examined the factor structure of the scale with 2,020 fourth and fifth graders. Results revealed support for a modified two-factor model, with a general Anger Expression factor and Anger Control factor. Criterion-related validity analyses indicated that Anger Expression was positively associated with aggression and externalizing problems, whereas Anger Control was related to emotion control and less internalizing behaviors. We discuss implications of findings for both informed school use and future research.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary W. Taylor

A recent Educational Testing Services report (2016) found that international graduate students with a TOEFL score of 80—the minimum average TOEFL score for graduate admission in the United States—usually possess reading subscores of 20, equating to a 12th-grade reading comprehension level. However, one public flagship university’s international graduate student admissions instructions are written at a 17th-grade reading comprehension level, or, a 27-30 band on the reading section of the TOEFL. This study seeks to answer the question, “Do U.S. graduate programs compose admissions materials at unreadable levels compared to these programs’ minimum reading comprehension levels for international graduate student admission?” Findings reveal average public flagship international graduate student admissions materials are written above 15th-grade reading comprehension levels, with select flagships composing these materials at 19th grade reading levels. Implications for practitioners and policymakers, as well as areas of future research, are addressed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-han Ma ◽  
Wen-ying Lin

The present study aimed to investigate the overall and relative contribution of four subcomponents of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension. The four vocabulary subcomponents were vocabulary size, word association knowledge, collocation knowledge, and morphological knowledge. The participants were 124 college students from a university in Taipei, Taiwan. Six instruments were employed: (1) a reading comprehension test, (2) a vocabulary size test, (3) a test on word association knowledge and collocation knowledge, (4) a test of morphological knowledge, (5) motivation attitude scale, and (6) a self-efficacy scale. The results can be summarized as follows. First, after the effects of motivation and self-efficacy have been controlled, the four vocabulary subcomponents altogether contributed significantly (20%) to reading comprehension performance. Moreover, depth of vocabulary knowledge (including word association knowledge, collocation knowledge, and morphological knowledge) provided an additional explained variance (6%) in reading comprehension performance over and above vocabulary size. Finally, among the three subcomponents of depth of vocabulary knowledge, collocation knowledge explained the most proportion of variance (5.6%) in contributing to performance on reading comprehension. Based on these findings, some implications and suggestions for future research were provided.


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