Integrating Assessment for Learning into the Teaching and Learning of Secondary School Biology in Tanzania

The paper is about a study that investigated how the integration of assessment for learning enhances learning achievement among secondary school biology students in Tanzania. A quasi-experimental design involving pre-test and post-test of non-equivalent control and experimental groups was used to ascertain how the integration of assessment for learning into teaching and learning processes enhances students’ learning achievement. Two boarding secondary schools located in the suburbs of Dar Es Salaam were selected. Students in the two schools had maintained equivalent performances in national examinations in previous years. The results showed that the students taught using teaching and learning processes integrating assessment for learning outperformed those taught using conventional approaches. The integration of assessment for learning is likely to have contributed to the higher learning achievement in the experimental group. The study contributes to our understanding of how teachers in resource-constrained classrooms can integrate assessment for learning techniques into their day-to-day lessons, thereby harnessing the power of assessment to enhance learning and raise standards.

Assessments in Psychotherapy with Suicidal Patients: The Precedence of Alliance Work

In this article the aim was to explore how therapists handle suicide risk assessment in connection with patient’s experience of alliance in psychotherapy. In a naturalistic, longitudinal study, 19 suicidal patients were interviewed three times: just before they started in therapy (T1), during the early phase (T2), and again after one year (T3). 17 therapists were interviewed separately at T2 and T3. The interviews explored the personal experiences of both patients and therapists, including their handling of suicidality and the quality of their relationships. An interpretative-phenomenological approach was used to analyze the research interviews case by case, as seen from the perspective of both therapist and patient in each dyad. Because of their duties within the Norwegian Healthcare System, all therapists are obliged to follow the National Guidelines in suicide risk assessment. The results indicate that there are two pitfalls for therapists: to avoid the topic of suicidality and using the suicide risk assessment in a rigid way. Both pitfalls have disturbing effects on the working alliance between therapist and patient. Most of the therapists were able to integrate personalized assessment procedures in the running dialogue. Our argument here is that in order to integrate assessment with therapeutic work, it is important for the therapist to establish ethical responsibility with patient. A modern philosophical perspective on ethics of closeness is discussed.

Rethinking Educational Assessment from the Perspective of Design Thinking

Because human processes are subtle, complex, and contextualized, computational representations of those processes face highly significant unmet design challenges. Design Thinking (DT) offers a potential new paradigm of creativity and innovation in education capable of effecting meaningful culture change. DT is nonlinear but encompasses elements of empathy, problem definition, ideation, prototyping, and tests that may freely move as needed from and to each other. DT's empathic focus on end users' needs suggests educational measurement's information infrastructures will have to coherently integrate assessment and instruction across multiple levels of complexity in communication. Applying DT reveals the need to attend to previously undeveloped technical issues in communication. Especially important are developmental, horizontal, and vertical forms of coherence, and denotative, metalinguistic, and metacommunicative levels of complexity. New solutions emerge when classrooms are reconceived as meta-design ecosystem niches of creativity and innovation structured from the bottom up by flows of self-organizing information. Recently identified correspondences between educational measurement and metrology support efforts aimed at developing multilevel common languages for the communication of learning outcomes. Prototype reports illustrate how emergent measured constructs can be brought into language in ways that integrate developmental, horizontal, and vertical coherence across levels of complexity. Coherent information infrastructures of these kinds are capable of adapting to new circumstances as populations of persons and items change, doing so without compromising the continuity of comparisons or the uniqueness of locally situated knowledge and practices.

THE EXPRESSION OF LEARNING ORIENTED ASSESSMENT CULTURE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ABOUT ASSESSMENT

This article presents the results of a thematic analysis conducted after informal interviews with 10 teachers and a head teacher of one secondary school in the city of Vilnius about their classroom assessment practices. Part of a larger critical ethnographic research exploring the change of school culture when introducing assessment innovation, this analysis reveals common classroom assessment practices, teachers’ beliefs about the role of assessment, and the anxiety the school community shares around standardized testing and examinations. Literature suggests that both formative and summative assessment practices have great potential for improving students’ learning. Teachers are encouraged to integrate assessment into their teaching in order to identify where their pupils are in their learning and the steps they need to take for improvement and progress (Gardner, Hayward, Harlen Stobart, 2008). However convincing the arguments in favour of change are, the external school evaluation data shows that the real change in the way teachers assess students’ progress is very slow and hardly noticed. The concept of learning oriented assessment culture (Birenbaum, 2014) could provide more understanding about the nature of good classroom assessment and necessary conditions that help to sustain school efforts in improving assessment practices.

Pre-service Teachers’ Decision-Making and Classroom Assessment Practices

Classroom assessment practices play a pivotal role in ensuring effective learning and teaching. One of the most desired attributes of teachers is the ability to gather and analyze assessment data to make trustworthy decisions leading to supporting student learning. However, this ability is often underdeveloped for a variety of reasons, including reports that teachers are overwhelmed by the complex process of data analysis and decision-making and that often there is insufficient attention to authentic assessment practices which focus on assessment for learning (AfL) in initial teacher education (ITE), so teachers are uncertain how to integrate assessment into teaching and make trustworthy assessment decisions to develop student learning. This paper reports on the results of a study of the process of pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) decision-making in assessment practices in Myanmar with real students and in real classroom conditions through the lens of teacher agency. Using a design-based research methodology, a needs-based professional development program for PSTs’ assessment literacy was developed and delivered in one university. Following the program, thirty PSTs in the intervention group were encouraged to implement selected assessment strategies during their practicum. Semi-structured individual interviews were undertaken with the intervention group before and after their practicum in schools. This data was analyzed together with data collected during their practicum, including lesson plans, observation checklists and audiotapes of lessons. The analysis showed that PSTs’ decision-making in the classroom was largely influenced by their beliefs of and values in using assessment strategies but, importantly, constrained by their supervising teachers. The PSTs who understood the principles of AfL and wanted to implement on-going assessment experienced tension with supervising teachers who wanted to retain high control of the practicum. As a result, most PSTs could not use assessment strategies effectively to inform their decisions about learning and teaching activities. Those PSTs who were allowed greater autonomy during their practicum and understood AfL assessment strategies had greater freedom to experiment, which allowed them multiple opportunities to apply the result of any assessment activity to improve both their own teaching and students’ learning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the kind of support PSTs need to develop their assessment decision-making knowledge and skills during their practicum.

Perceived Use of Assessment by Beginning and Experienced SHS Mathematics Teachers in Two Districts in the Central Region of Ghana

The role of assessment in the teaching and learning of Mathematics cannot be underestimated. Therefore, efficacious teaching and learning of Mathematics must be driven by effective use of assessment. This study, therefore, sought to investigate the Use of assessment (practices) of Beginning and Experienced SHS Mathematics teachers in two selected districts in the central region of Ghana. In this study, Assessment Practices means what SHS teachers use assessment to do in the teaching and learning of Mathematics under the auspices of a school. A sample of 160 SHS Mathematics teachers was used in this study. These were made up of 92 Beginning and 68 Experienced SHS Mathematics teachers. The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to the 92 Beginning and 68 Experienced SHS Mathematics teachers in the two districts in the Central Region of Ghana. The design used in this study was a cross-sectional survey. Data collected from the respondents were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations. An independent sample t-test was used to test whether there exists a significant difference in the assessment practices of the Beginning and Experienced SHS Mathematics teachers. It was found out that the majority (87 out of 92) of the Beginning Senior High School Mathematics teachers do not either frequently or always integrate assessment in the teaching and learning of Mathematics. It was also found out that the majority (60 out of 68) of the Experienced Senior High School Mathematics teachers also do not either frequently or always integrate assessment in the teaching and learning of Mathematics. They rather see classroom assessment as an additional activity that mainly comes at the end of the teaching-learning process. The study also revealed a significant difference in the assessment practices of Beginning SHS Mathematics teachers and that the Experienced SHS Mathematics teachers in the two districts. Based on the findings, it was recommended among other things that In-service training should be organized for both the Experienced SHS Mathematics teachers and the Beginning SHS Mathematics teachers to help them bridge the gap that exists between their practices.

Prevalence of erectile dysfunction and its associated factors among patients with diabetes in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives We aimed to estimate the pooled prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) among patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) in Ethiopia and to identify its associated factors. Methods We performed a systematic search of scientific databases (PubMed, ScienceDirect); the grey literature was also searched (Google, Google Scholar). Data were extracted from primary studies using a data extraction format and exported for statistical analysis. I2 tests were used to assess the heterogeneity of studies. Owing to heterogeneity among the included studies, we used a random-effects model to determine pooled estimates of ED. Publication bias was assessed using Egger’s and Begg’s tests. Results The pooled prevalence of ED among patients with DM in Ethiopia was 54.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 28.2–80.5). Older age (OR: 4.42, 95% CI: 2.83–6.00) and duration of DM (OR: 3.2, 95% CI: 1.74–4.66) had statistically significant associations with ED. Conclusion One in two individuals with DM in Ethiopia also had ED. This finding highlights the need to integrate assessment and management of ED into routine medical care in diabetes follow-up visits. Special attention is recommended for patients with older age and a longer duration of DM.

Approaches to aggressive B-cell lymphomas in less fit patients

Treating unfit patients with aggressive B-cell lymphoma poses the dilemma of balancing potential cure while minimizing toxicity because of frailty and comorbidities. Age greater than 80 years and common comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease and poorly controlled diabetes mellitus often preclude the use of full-dose anthracyclines and steroids, the backbones of standard regimens for aggressive B-cell lymphomas. Assessing patient fitness remains subjective, with no consensus on best practice or how to integrate assessment tools into decision making. Incorporation of prephase steroids for all unfit patients may markedly improve performance status with consideration of standard dose therapy, especially in patients less than age 80. Although randomized studies are lacking, current data suggest patients age ≥ 80 years are considered unfit a priori and should receive dose-reduced anthracycline regimens or anthracycline-free regimens. Severe toxicity is highest after the first cycle of chemotherapy. Dose reductions for cycle 1 in unfit patients with plans to escalate as tolerated is often an effective strategy. Unfit patients often benefit from comanagement with gerontologists, cardio-oncologists, and endocrinologists depending on age and the nature of comorbidities. Palliative therapy for patients with newly diagnosed aggressive B-cell lymphoma results in median survivals of less than 3 months, and in general, should only be considered in patients with untreatable comorbidities such as advanced dementia or refractory metastatic solid tumors. Incorporating new, potentially less toxic agents such as novel antibodies, antibody–drug conjugates, and bispecific antibodies into first-line therapy is an exciting future direction with potential for substantial benefit in less fit patients.

Family caregiver needs assessment in a gynecologic oncology practice: An ASCO quality training program project.

178 Background: Family caregiver (CG) demands in gynecologic oncology (gynonc) put CGs at risk for anxiety, depression, and inability to care for loved ones. Resources exist to support patients, but systematic support for CGs is lacking. Fifty percent of CGs in our clinic report 9 or more distressing unmet needs. Thus, an ASCO Quality Training Program (QTP) project aimed to assess and intervene on the needs of 75% of gynonc family CGs (identified in a concurrent QTP project). Methods: An interprofessional team reviewed baseline data, defined the problem and project aim, created process maps, and identified root causes of poor CG documentation. With stakeholder buy-in we implemented eight successive PDSA cycles over 6 months to address root causes. Biweekly team meetings were throughout the PDSA cycles. Outcomes were percent of CGs with 1) needs assessed, and 2) intervention received. Results: Root causes of poor CG assessment included 1) no protocol to assess/respond to CG needs; 2) no designated staff to ‘own’ CG assessment; and 3) lack of understanding of the value of CG support among clinicians. PDSA 1 (pre- launch) included: develop CG assessment/intervention protocol; create CG tracking database; pursue EHR capabilities. PDSA cycle 2-3 prioritized information provision about resources (52-73% of CGs) over individualized assessment (20-23% of CGs) due to the large number of CGs identified. Subsequent PDSAs sought to increase assessment effectiveness by focusing assessment/intervention on CGs of newly diagnosed and high risk patients. While there was variability in outcomes across cycles (Table), by PDSA cycle 8, staff had assessed and intervened on 58% and 50% of CGs, respectively. In addition, multiple potential serious CG and patient mental health crises were avoided from team interventions. Conclusions: CG assessment improved from 28% at baseline to >50% post implementation. Further efforts to more fully integrate assessment and tracking into EHR to reduce the burden of CG tracking over time is underway. [Table: see text]