scholarly journals Large-Scale Assessments, Personalized Learning, and Creativity: Paradoxes and Possibilities

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald A. Beghetto

Purpose: This article, based on an invited talk, aims to explore the relationship among large-scale assessments, creativity and personalized learning. Design/Approach/Methods: Starting with the working definition of large-scale assessments, creativity, and personalized learning, this article identified the paradox of combining these three components together. As a consequence, a logic mode of large-scale assessment and creativity expressions is illustrated, along with an exploration of new possibilities. Findings: Smarter design of large-scale assessments is needed. Firstly, we need to assess creative learning at the individual level, so complex tasks with high uncertainty should be presented to students. Secondly, additional process and experiential data while students are working on problems need to be captured. Thirdly, the human-artificial intelligence (AI) augmented scoring should be explored, developed, and refined. Originality/Value: This article addresses the drawbacks of current large-scale assessments and explores possibilities for combining assessment with creativity and personalized learning. A logic model illustrating variations necessary for creative learning and considerations and cautions for designing large-scale assessments are also provided.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-14
Author(s):  
Eric Ng ◽  
Caroline Wai

Increasingly, dietitians have found ourselves working with racialized clients, communities, and colleagues across the health and food systems in Canada. We are often asked to treat the adverse health outcomes of Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities resulting from these oppressions at the individual level. However, it is the role of dietitians to engage in efforts to "reduce health inequities and protect human rights; promote fairness and equitable treatment" (College of Dietitians of Ontario, 2019). An anti-oppression approach is required for dietitians to understand how their power and privilege shape the dietitian-client relationship. The purpose of this commentary is to propose a shift from cultural competence or diversity and inclusion in dietetics to an explicit intention of anti-oppressive dietetic practice. We begin our exploration from the Canadian context. We draw from our background working in health equity in public health, and our experiences facilitating equity training using anti-oppression approaches with dietetic learners and other public health practitioners. In creating a working definition of anti-oppressive dietetic practice, we conducted a scan of anti-oppression statements by health and social services organizations in Ontario, Canada, and literature from critical dietetics. A literature search revealed anti-oppressive practice frameworks in nursing and social work. However, this language is lacking in mainstream dietetic practice, with anti-oppression only discussed within the literature on critical dietetics and social justice. We propose that "dietitians can engage in anti-oppressive practice by providing food and nutrition care/planning/service to clients while simultaneously seeking to transform health and social systems towards social justice."


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 190-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Schipolowski ◽  
Ulrich Schroeders ◽  
Oliver Wilhelm

Especially in survey research and large-scale assessment there is a growing interest in short scales for the cost-efficient measurement of psychological constructs. However, only relatively few standardized short forms are available for the measurement of cognitive abilities. In this article we point out pitfalls and challenges typically encountered in the construction of cognitive short forms. First we discuss item selection strategies, the analysis of binary response data, the problem of floor and ceiling effects, and issues related to measurement precision and validity. We subsequently illustrate these challenges and how to deal with them based on an empirical example, the development of short forms for the measurement of crystallized intelligence. Scale shortening had only small effects on associations with covariates. Even for an ultra-short six-item scale, a unidimensional measurement model showed excellent fit and yielded acceptable reliability. However, measurement precision on the individual level was very low and the short forms were more likely to produce skewed score distributions in ability-restricted subpopulations. We conclude that short scales may serve as proxies for cognitive abilities in typical research settings, but their use for decisions on the individual level should be discouraged in most cases.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (138) ◽  
pp. 20170696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Morozova ◽  
Ted Cohen ◽  
Forrest W. Crawford

Epidemiologists commonly use the risk ratio to summarize the relationship between a binary covariate and outcome, even when outcomes may be dependent. Investigations of transmissible diseases in clusters—households, villages or small groups—often report risk ratios. Epidemiologists have warned that risk ratios may be misleading when outcomes are contagious, but the nature of this error is poorly understood. In this study, we assess the meaning of the risk ratio when outcomes are contagious. We provide a mathematical definition of infectious disease transmission within clusters, based on the canonical stochastic susceptible–infective model. From this characterization, we define the individual-level ratio of instantaneous infection risks as the inferential target, and evaluate the properties of the risk ratio as an approximation of this quantity. We exhibit analytically and by simulation the circumstances under which the risk ratio implies an effect whose direction is opposite that of the true effect of the covariate. In particular, the risk ratio can be greater than one even when the covariate reduces both individual-level susceptibility to infection, and transmissibility once infected. We explain these findings in the epidemiologic language of confounding and Simpson's paradox, underscoring the pitfalls of failing to account for transmission when outcomes are contagious.


2022 ◽  
pp. 250-279
Author(s):  
Ewilly Jie Ying Liew ◽  
Wei Li Peh ◽  
Zhuan Kee Leong

This chapter seeks to examine the influence of public perceptions of trust in people and confidence in institutions on cryptocurrency adoption, taking into account the individual-level demographic factors and the regional-level contextual factors. Data is obtained from three large-scale international surveys and national databases and analyzed using R software. The multivariate results demonstrate that individuals' public perceptions of trust and confidence significantly contribute to cryptocurrency adoption. Lower perceived trust in people and higher perceived confidence in civil service and international regulatory bodies increase cryptocurrency adoption, while perceived confidence in political and financial institutions discourages cryptocurrency adoption. Additionally, the univariate results find significant comparisons of gender and perceived trust differences on the predictors of cryptocurrency adoption. This chapter discusses and provides insights on the social impact and future of cryptocurrency adoption, particularly among the upper- and lower-middle-income countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-13
Author(s):  
Patrick O’Donnell ◽  
Khalifa Elmusharaf

Social exclusion is a concept that has been discussed and debated in many disciplines in recent decades. In 2006 the WHO Social Exclusion Knowledge Network published a report detailing their work explaining the relevance of social exclusion to the domain of health. As part of that work, the authors formulated a complex definition of social exclusion that has proven difficult to adapt or operationalize in healthcare settings. We looked at this WHO work, and at other published evidence, and decided that social exclusion is a concept that is worth measuring at the individual level in healthcare settings. We suggest that the primary healthcare space, in particular, is an ideal setting in which to do that measurement. We have examined existing social exclusion measurement tools, and scrutinised the approaches taken by their authors, and the various domains they measured. We now propose to develop and validate such a tool for use in primary healthcare settings.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Baten ◽  
Andreas Böhm

Abstract The average height of children is an indicator of the quality of nutrition and healthcare. In this study, we assess the effect of unemployment and other factors on this variable. In the Eastern German Land of Brandenburg, a dataset of 253,050 preschool height measurements was compiled and complemented with information on parents’ schooling and employment status. Unemployment might have negative psychological effects, with an impact on parental care. Both a panel analysis of districts and an assessment at the individual level yield the result that increasing unemployment, net out-migration and fertility were in fact reducing height.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Kuo-Tai Cheng ◽  
Yuan-Chieh Chang ◽  
Changyen Lee

This study conceptualizes and empirically investigates how dimensions of public service motivation affect perceived citizenship behaviour in the context of government-owned utilities. This study used a large-scale questionnaire survey from four utility sectors in Taiwan (N = 1,087). The emergent model suggests that compassion (COM) and self-sacrifice (SS) affect the perceived effectiveness of individual-level Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). Commitment to the Public Interest (CPI) and Attraction to Public Policy making (APP) affect perceived effectiveness of OCB at the group and organisational levels, respectively. The results support the expected contribution of OCB, from the individual to the group levels, and from the group level to the organisational level. Public utility managers should strive to improve employee attitudes and motivation towards greater levels of OCB.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Robitzsch ◽  
Oliver Lüdtke

International large-scale assessments (LSAs) such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provide important information about the distribution of student proficiencies across a wide range of countries. The repeated assessments of these content domains offer policymakers important information for evaluating educational reforms and received considerable attention from the media. Furthermore, the analytical strategies employed in LSAs often define methodological standards for applied researchers in the field. Hence, it is vital to critically reflect the conceptual foundations of analytical choices in LSA studies. This article discusses methodological challenges in selecting and specifying the scaling model used to obtain proficiency estimates from the individual student responses in LSA studies. We distinguish design-based inference from model-based inference. It is argued that for the official reporting of LSA results, design-based inference should be preferred because it allows for a clear definition of the target of inference (e.g., country mean achievement) and is less sensitive to specific modeling assumptions. More specifically, we discuss five analytical choices in the specification of the scaling model: (1) Specification of the functional form of item response functions, (2) the treatment of local dependencies and multidimensionality, (3) the consideration of test-taking behavior for estimating student ability, and the role of country differential items functioning (DIF) for (4) cross-country comparisons, and (5) trend estimation. This article's primary goal is to stimulate discussion about recently implemented changes and suggested refinements of the scaling models in LSA studies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Heyd

AbstractIn this study, I examine narratives of belonging through a corpus of digital diasporic discourse. The corpus is based on a Nigerian online discussion forum; its users primarily consist of both local Nigerians and members of the globally dispersed Nigerian diaspora. The study sets out by providing a working definition of narratives of belonging couched in the sociolinguistic tradition of approaching narrative structures. This includes aspects of personal narration, structural features, and reference to concepts that are salient in the construction of belonging. From this preliminary definition, retrieval strategies are developed to identify narratives of belonging in a large-scale dataset through a combination of manual and automated searches. The dataset of narratives is then analyzed, both in terms of structural features such as length and variation in narrative complexity, as well as linguistic properties, such as code-switching and the use of toponyms. Finally, these analyses are used to identify emerging topic strands and recurring themes in these narratives of belonging. It can be argued that such codifications of the diasporic experience are created and reinforced through individuated stories. Narratives of belonging, in other words, systematically contribute to the identity work performed in and by a digital diasporic community.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-43
Author(s):  
Juan Manuel Aguilar Antonio

This research is based on the hypothesis that the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean are lagging behind in the construction of cyber defense capabilities to face the international context of cyber threats, with respect to the member countries of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), both in the organizational plan, as in the individual. To prove this statement, the text is divided into six sections. The first part presents the global environment of cyber threats, the economic losses suffered by governments and companies according to reports from information security firms such as Kaspersky, Microsoft, Verizon and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). The second part presents the internet securitization process, the immersion of cybersecurity in national security studies, and the definition of cyber capabilities and the delimitation of threats to the Nation-State from cyberspace are addressed. The third part shows the trajectory of NATO as an organization in the development of cyber capabilities in the last twenty years. In the fourth part, a set of National Cybersecurity Strategies (ENCS) of NATO countries and allies is analyzed from the individual level, from which their main elements are extracted and their general anatomy is outlined. In the sixth part, an approach to different regional or global cybersecurity environments is presented based on measurements of the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI), of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the National Cyber Security Index (NSCI) of the Estonian E-Governance Academy. The fifth section presents the context of cybersecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to studies made by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Organization of American States (OAS), as well as private cybersecurity firms. In the sixth, two case studies of Mexico, from the 2019-2020, are briefly presented, which represent the lack of maturity of its ENCS and development of cyber capabilities, an aspect that it shares with most of the countries of Latin America and Caribbean. Finally, brief conclusions are presented on the aspects to be strengthened by the region.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document