Digitally Assessing Text Comprehension in Grades 3-4: Test Development and Validation

A prerequisite for child reading support at school is adequate assessment. Embedding (repeated) assessment into daily teaching routine is often challenging for teachers in terms of time and organization. The use of digital tools can help teachers in the assessment process (in preparation, evaluation, documentation, etc.). A digital assessment tool (Graz Reading Comprehension test: GraLeV), focusing on assessing reading comprehension skills in Grades 3 and 4 is currently being developed in Austria. This reading assessment covers reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and text level. Text level is assessed via two subtests (Subtest I: presentation of nonsense-stories and corresponding questions, and Subtest II: maze selection). The other levels consist of one subtest each. This paper focusses on the subtests at text level. More specifically, the paper reports the results of two studies. Study 1 describes the development phases and the first piloting of these two subtests (data collection: 10/2019-12/2019). Testing 273 students with preliminary versions of the subtests (Subtest I: 30 items, Subtest II: 60 items) produced information on (a) item difficulty, (b) item discriminatory power, and (c) time limits for future speed testing. Items not meeting the required quality criteria were excluded. The final version of Subtest I consists of 16 questions referring to eight different, short, nonsense-texts. Its testing time (without instructions) is three minutes. The final version of the Subtest II consists of 2 texts each with 15 maze selections (30 items) and testing time is 100 seconds. The internal consistency is found to be good for Subtest I (α=.87) and Subtest II (α=.78 to .80). Study 2 reports on testing for validity and retest-reliability (data collection: 09/2020-11/2020). Student scores in another reading comprehension test, together with teacher assessments of reading comprehension, were used to assess congruent validity. Divergent validity was assessed using teacher assessments of mathematical and socio-emotional skills. As expected, the correlations with the congruent measures were higher than those with the divergent measures. A subsample was tested twice with the GraLeV. Retest-reliability was acceptable for Subtest II. However, the scores obtained at time 2 were higher compared to those at time 1 in both subtests. This is probably the result of increased student familiarity with the digital device and the digital test environment at time 2. The results are discussed in the light of teachers’ needs for standardized digital assessments in order to facilitate the tailoring of student reading support.

The effects of Covid-19 on student transition from school to university in STEM subjects

Covid‑19 restrictions affected most of the post‑16 learning experience of the students who will begin university courses in STEM in the UK in autumn 2021. Ongoing disruption to learning culminated in the cancellation of normal A-level examinations which were replaced with teacher assessments. Informal discussion with secondary school teaching colleagues reveals some possible consequences for the students’ transition to degree level study in STEM subjects. The main suggestion is that, despite the resilience that students have shown both academically and socially, there have been significant omissions from the normally studied curriculum that may affect their progress on degree courses in STEM including: lack of experimental practice and skills, lack of specific subject knowledge and lack of experience of assessment.

Learning Grammar of a Foreign Language (English) Using Multimedia Technologies

Exploring ways of learning foreign language grammar using video content in secondary education is relevant because most research focuses on other educational levels and rarely takes into account student and teacher assessments. In addition, the vast majority of studies deal with the theoretical aspects of foreign language grammar learning at school. Accordingly, there is a need for empirical studies that focus more on secondary education and the nature of teachers and students' perceptions of such issues. This determined the relevance of the article. The aim of the study is to establish the effectiveness of the use of audiovisual materials as a tool for learning a foreign language. As a result, was determined the assessment of teachers and students' feasibility of introducing video content in the process of learning grammar of a foreign (English) language. The main methods in the study were methods of experiment and interviewing; also, the method of questioning was used. The main hypothesis is that the introduction of video content as teaching material for learning foreign languages is an effective method of teaching, positively evaluated by all participants in the educational process. The results of the study show that the introduction of films as teaching material in the educational process contributes to the teacher's willingness to use video content for their lessons, the understanding of all participants in the educational process of the benefits of using audio-visual materials is improved; the performance increases. Increasing the level of methodological skill and awareness gained through personal experience encourages improvement of the learning process, awareness of the need to use the completely rich arsenal of modern methods and forms of language teaching. In the future perspective is the study that the use of audio-visual content as didactic material is not only a means of learning a language, but also a factor in improving critical thinking skills, a sense of social justice, awareness of art, in particular, history of the culture.

Learning Grammar of a Foreign Language (English) using Multimedia Technologies

Exploring ways of learning foreign language grammar using video content in secondary education is relevant because most research focuses on other educational levels and rarely takes into account student and teacher assessments. In addition, the vast majority of studies deal with the theoretical aspects of foreign language grammar learning at school. Accordingly, there is a need for empirical studies that focus more on secondary education and the nature of teachers and students' perceptions of such issues. This determined the relevance of the article. The aim of the study is to establish the effectiveness of the use of audiovisual materials as a tool for learning a foreign language. As a result, was determined the assessment of teachers and students' feasibility of introducing video content in the process of learning grammar of a foreign (English) language. The main methods in the study were methods of experiment and interviewing; also, the method of questioning was used. The main hypothesis is that the introduction of video content as teaching material for learning foreign languages is an effective method of teaching, positively evaluated by all participants in the educational process. The results of the study show that the introduction of films as teaching material in the educational process contributes to the teacher's willingness to use video content for their lessons, the understanding of all participants in the educational process of the benefits of using audio-visual materials is improved; the performance increases. Increasing the level of methodological skill and awareness gained through personal experience encourages improvement of the learning process, awareness of the need to use the completely rich arsenal of modern methods and forms of language teaching. In the future perspective is the study that the use of audio-visual content as didactic material is not only a means of learning a language, but also a factor in improving critical thinking skills, a sense of social justice, awareness of art, in particular, history of the culture.

Penyuluhan google classroom dan google meet kepada guru sdn wonoayu dalam kegiatan kkn back to village

The COVID-19 pandemic that has spread across all countries requires humans to avoid crowds, affecting students' learning activities in primary schools. SDN Wonoayu is located in the Pilangkenceng sub-district, Madiun district, carrying out online learning activities for the semester 2019/2020 using the Whatsapp group. The teachers of SDN Wonoayu had difficulty in recapitulating their assignments. Also, some parents faced the same, particularly their challenges in utilizing Whatsapp for their child's learning media and their business media. Students were less able to understand because of independent learning. It required direct interaction to study the material or practice memorization. This program was expected to assist in uploading material, implementing assignment collection, and assisting teacher assessments of students during learning at home using Google Classroom. The Google Form's features were used as a medium for quizzes so that the grades automatically could be easily recapitulated by teachers. Using Google Meet could help learning media for both students and teachers to interact virtually to review material or memorization practices. The work program was carried out with the following steps: introduction (observation and problem identification), looking for literature and information that would be used as additional learning media, counsellingLearning Media learning media to teachers according to health protocols, applying learning media to students, and mentoring teachers. In summary, this KKN program could meet success indicators of> 70% based on questionnaire data given to Islamic Education Teachers, PJOK Teachers, and Grade 4 Student Samples.

Lento or presto? Subnational government capacities and the pace of implementation of contentious policies

Mexico’s implementation of mandatory teacher assessments in 2013 was part of a group of federal reforms aimed at enhancing the quality of state-run education. The reforms elicited strong opposition from key stakeholders. Building on the idea that policy capacities are the set of capabilities necessary to perform policy functions, we examine the effect of subnational government capacities on the pace of implementation of the mandatory teacher assessment in Mexico, a country with one of the most powerful teachers’ unions in the world. After conducting statistical analyses based on panel data encompassing information on subnational government capacities from 2015 to 2017, we find that while subnational governments’ human resources and fiscal capacities are associated with higher proportions of evaluated teachers, repressive capacities do not seem relevant for this purpose. Our research offers valuable lessons for policy makers in terms of recognizing adequate resource allocation and predicting the speed of policy implementation, even in contexts of significant opposition.

Teacher’s Assessment of Gender Differences in School Performance, Social Skills, and Externalizing Behavior From Fourth Through Seventh Grade

Gender differences in teacher ratings of academic performance, social skills, and externalizing behavior were examined from fourth through seventh grade in a group of 1,023 students from 65 primary schools. Cohen’s d and t tests and were used to report the magnitude of gender differences, and structural equation modeling was used to evaluate cross-domain influences in latent cascade models. Girls received significantly more positive teacher ratings than boys, but the differences leveled more out in the social and behavioral domain than in the academic. Teacher assessments of academic performance predicted future social skills to a larger extent than vice versa for both genders.