Doing Action Research: The Experience of Teachers in Seychelles

Action research is regarded as a dynamic strategy to galvanise teachers to determine what works best for them and their pupils. Teachers’ experience in action research has been investigated in some developing countries without involving any of the small island states in the Indian Ocean. Hence, this study explored the experience of teachers from Seychelles regarding action research focusing on their understanding of the nature, meaning, and purpose of action research; the benefits they gained from doing action research; the difficulties and the challenges they encountered while conducting action research, including their background characteristics. Its aim was to identify their successes, concerns, and issues. Participants were 33 primary school teachers enrolled in the two-year Advanced Diploma programme at the Seychelles Institute of Education during the 2019/2020 academic year. One of their assessment tasks required them to identify a difficulty that their pupils encounter and conduct action research on it with a view to finding a solution. Data collected using a self-reporting questionnaire designed by the investigators was analysed using both descriptive and interpretive techniques. Results indicated that the participants had a mixed experience of successes, concerns, and issues.

First-Year Students' Self-Perceived Effects of Music on Two Tasks

This chapter presents results from a study with first-year university students completing online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the study is to further understand how the same genre of music might impact the completion of two very different assessment tasks. Students in the study participated in two different virtual “study halls” in order to study for their semester final assessments. While further research is needed, results do highlight the need for students to be aware of which type of music to listen to while studying and specifically what kind of cognitive task they are completing.

Inclusive Formative Assessment for Diverse Pre-Service Foundation Phase Literacy Teachers

Many classrooms in South Africa are very diverse in terms of culture, gender, language, and intellectual ability. Thus, educators need to be inclusive in the way they plan for teaching and learning. This chapter attempts to show how teacher educators at one institution of higher education in South Africa implemented inclusive formative assessments in their initial teacher education programme. Traditional assessment practices like examinations, tests, and essays, which dominate many classrooms, have proven to be unable to capture the range and nature of the diverse learning outcomes sought from courses. In this study, students were given different assessment tasks to demonstrate their knowledge of the handwriting skills and pedagogy. Findings of the study show that teacher educators managed to accommodate all the students through their use of inclusive assessments. Teacher educators observed improvement in student's self-esteem, motivation, and engagement.

Scoring Spoken Second Language Assessment

Achieving scores that adequately reflect the test-takers’ proficiency level, as evidenced in spoken assessment tasks, has been the subject of a large body of research in second language assessment. In this chapter, the author outlines the work that has been undertaken in relation to the scoring of spoken assessments by human raters and automated scoring. The chapter focuses on research on rater effects, rater training and feedback, rater characteristics, interlocutor/interviewer effects, rating scales, and score resolution techniques. The section on automated scoring discusses research on the underlying construct and what limits this puts on the types of tasks that can be used in the assessment. The chapter concludes by setting out some future directions for the scoring of spoken responses.

Assessing the Oral Language Skills of Bi-/Multilinguals

Bilingual/multilingual children who speak two (or more) languages demonstrate variability in their semantic and morphosyntactic knowledge of each of their languages. This impacts their performance on language assessment tasks that tap into knowledge of semantics and morphosyntax. As a result, children from bilingual/multilingual backgrounds tend to be misdiagnosed more often than their monolingual peers. In this chapter, the authors review how best practices in the development of assessments can be applied to bilingual/multilingual language learners. They provide examples of the development and use of language history questionnaires and of assessments of semantics and morphosyntax for bilingual/multilingual populations. The chapter focuses in large part on the development and use of these measures for the US Spanish-English speaking population because the approach has been used for a very large group of children and can inform the development of assessments in other language pairs.

Experiences of using Unicam for asynchronous video assessment of the Irish language

Video is used widely in language education as a learning tool and a production tool for students to demonstrate oral competence. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Irish language lecturers at Dublin City University (DCU) set asynchronous video assessment tasks for students on teacher education programmes. Tasks were completed using the web-based Unicam platform, which streamlines video creation and submission, allowing students to focus on their task and not technical affairs. Students’ and the teaching team’s Unicam experiences were evaluated through anonymous surveys drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. Both parties were neutral to slightly positive in their attitudes towards the Unicam tool.

Enhancing students’ employability skills and experiential learning through integration of Xero software

Introducing XERO Accounting software into a core accounting unit can have many benefits for students, including improving their professional skills and enhancing their employability. However, it is important that students gain knowledge and skills in all aspects of the software as well as understanding the accounting processes that underlie the software’s operations. This paper presents an overview of implementation of Xero software, in a core accounting course, at a regional university in Australia. Student numbers ranged from 24-63 across the semesters studied. We highlight and discuss the processes adopted to appropriately scaffold students’ learning and assessment. We assess the effectiveness of the intervention by observing student engagement with specially developed videos and measuring student results in associated assessment tasks over three offerings of the course. The provision of a suite of learning opportunities, (training and use of excel and Xero accounting software) translated to improved student outcomes on the technologyrelated assessment items. Few students who viewed the learning videos contacted the course teaching team for further assistance, suggesting the videos were an effective resource that provided enhanced learning opportunities for students. These findings provide advice and information regarding the issues associated with integrating accounting software for other teaching teams or institutions considering similar applications in their courses or programs.

Speaking Assessments by Japanese English Teachers Pre and Post Implementation of CEFR in the Midst of a Global Pandemic

Amid a global pandemic, while schools in many parts of the world were closed to adhere to quarantine orders, schools in Japan resumed face-to-face classes after only a month of closure with strict adherence to COVID-19 guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOP). This study examined how speaking assessments were administered face-to-face for Grade 5 and 6 elementary school students prior to and after introducing the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and amid a global pandemic between April to October 2020. The paper also reports the challenges and strategies employed in carrying out the speaking assessments following the CEFR while adhering to the SOP. The study employed a qualitative research method that utilised semi-structured interviews to elicit information from four teachers who taught in eight schools within Niigata City, Japan. Findings suggest that prior to the implementation of CEFR, not all teachers carried out speaking assessments. However, the implementation of CEFR emphasised the need to teach speaking and carry out speaking assessments. The CEFR also served as guidance for the teachers in preparing the assessment scoring rubrics. The results also showed that the speaking assessments were implemented individually instead of in groups before the pandemic and the presence of the masks, which increased the student’s anxiety and affected their performance. However, the teachers employed various strategies to overcome the challenges by modifying the assessment tasks and utilising web conferencing technology.