Toward the Development of Expert Assessment Systems

Artificially intelligent (AI) computer programs are emerging in several disciplines including education. This paper provides an overview of one type of AI program called, "expert systems." The potential application of expert systems to the diagnosis and assessment of special-needs chlidren is examined and existing prototype systems are reviewed. The future of this technology is discussed in relation to emerging development tools designed for the creation of expert systems by the lay public.     

A Trust-Based Home Intervention for Special-Needs Adopted Children: A Case Study

Research on the effects of abuse, neglect, and other traumas in early childhood has consistently demonstrated severe deficits that can be prevalent across the life span. Costs associated with addressing such deficits in special-needs children can strain families and are an immense financial burden to society. Trust-Based Relational Intervention® is an intervention modality that targets the attachment system as part of a dynamic system of development. Presented is a summary of the costs of addressing the sequelae of childhood abuse and neglect, a brief overview of Trust-Based Relational Intervention, and a case study demonstrating the efficacy of this intervention with an adopted special-needs child in a home-based setting.     

Autonomy, competence, and social relatedness in task interest within project-based education

To prepare students for instructive collaboration, it is necessary to have insight into students' psychological needs and interest development. The framework of self-determination theory was used to conduct a field experiment involving 114 students in vocational education. These students followed a practical business course which required they work in small learning groups. During the course, students were asked to complete the Quality of Working in Groups Instrument, an online measure of how strong autonomy, competence, social relatedness, and task interest are fulfilled. SEM showed that students' psychological needs were jointly and uniquely related to task interest over time. The significance of this on-line test for the assessment of interest within project-based education is discussed.     

Changes in Pronominal Usage in a Classroom Situation

Changes in pronominal usage of students were investigated in a classroom situation where attention to usage was heightened by instructor use of 'she' as the generic singular, and by instructor assessment of reactions to the practice. Two classes (N = 74) constituted the experimental group. Analyses of pronominal usage in the written work of students (compared to a control group, N=20) and questionnaires to obtain student reaction to instructor usage and student views on language usage were the principal measures used. Results indicated a change in use of pronouns with more specific use of "he," a reduction of use of "he" as the generic singular, and use of "she" as a generic. Results indicate that pronominal usage is susceptible to change.     

What Is Called Self in Educational Research and Practice?

Without a contextualized definition of self, a growing body of educational research in Asian countries attempts to measure students’ sense of self, such as self-esteem. The research is usually based on theories and measurements that characterize students as conscious and independent selves in an individualist society. This sharply contrasts with the interdependent and unconscious sense of self in a collectivist society. To avoid a misleading assessment of self, researchers and policy makers need to know how students develop a self-construal in a sociocultural context. Therefore, this review of the cultural differences aims to provide a multifaceted definition of self.     

The what,how much,and when of study strategies: comparing intended versus actual study behaviour

The study behaviours of students can be assessed from several perspectives, such as what study strategies are used, the total number of hours of study, and the distribution of studying over time. Here, we present the results of a survey study that considered each of these perspectives by asking students to report the what, how much, and when of their study behaviours over the course of a semester. As important, to better understand students’ use of study strategies, we also had students report at the beginning of the semester how they intended to study and their beliefs about the effectiveness of a variety of common strategies. Our results indicate that during the semester, students rely on relatively ineffective strategies and mass their studying the day or two before an exam. However, students intended to begin studying earlier and to use a mix of effective and ineffective study habits. Despite their use of some ineffective strategies, they did have a relatively accurate assessment of which strategies were less versus more effective. Taken together, our results suggest that students have some excellent intentions but may falter because massing study the evening before an exam limits their use of more effective study strategies.     

Sexual objectification in education: how do teachers perceive and evaluate students?

Sexual objectification can be defined as an imprecise cognitive process which produces inaccurate evaluations according to gender. Moreover, sexual objectification restricts evaluation to a single aspect of people: appearance (Langton in Future Philos 285–303, 2004; Langton in Sexual solipsism: philosophical essays on pornography and objectification, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009). So far, no studies have assessed the impact of sexual objectification on teachers’ perceptions and evaluations of students. The present study was aimed at investigating the impact of gender and sexual objectification in the domain of education. Specifically, we examined whether gender and objectification changed how teachers perceived and evaluated students. The sample comprised 164 female teachers ages 32–70 years (mean 48.3 ± 7.5) from randomly selected middle schools in Sardinia, Italy. Statistical analysis revealed that teachers ascribed more behaviours that precluded learning to students who were sexually objectified than students who were not sexually objectified. This effect was not dependent on students’ gender. Teachers should acknowledge the important role of sexual objectification in student assessment and be informed of best practices to reduce the negative outcomes of sexual objectification and self-objectification in adolescents.     

Failing safely: Increasing theology and religious studies students’ resilience and academic confidence via risk‐taking in formative assessment

Students increasingly appear anxious, risk‐averse, and worried about getting things “wrong.” They may appear to lack intellectual curiosity, and be unwilling to engage in independent study. This essay explores how teaching and assessment in theology and religious studies might help students learn to take intellectual risks, and increase their resilience. One approach is to encourage students to experiment and “fail safely,” to increase their confidence that they understand what is expected of them, and to help them begin to understand learning as more broadly formational, not always directed toward a grade. I suggest three strategies: more formative assessment; a stronger narrative about the purpose of formative assessment; and an appeal to values, virtue, and the cultivation of character. Via these approaches, students might be encouraged to understand assessment in less utilitarian terms and increase their resilience for a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, prepared both critically and dispositionally to thrive and contribute positively to society.     

The Student Guided Functional Assessment Interview: An Analysis of Student and Teacher Agreement

Functional assessment strategies are used to guide the treatment of problem behavior with individuals who have severe disabilities. Also, researchers have extended functional assessment applications to individuals with emotional and behavioral disabilities. One such extension is the use of students as informants in the functional assessment process. The present study assessed an interview tool designed to elicit information directly from students regarding their problem behaviors. We examined agreement between students and their teachers. Results showed high agreement on the causes and functions of problem behavior with mixed agreement on support plan recommendations.     

Where’s the GPS? navigating treatment with co-existing problems. A reflective journey amongst graduate practitioners

This paper examines reflective portfolios of graduate students studying co-existing problems (CEP) within an alcohol and drug studies programme in New Zealand. The methodology employs Todd’s principles of treating co-existing disorders (culture, management, engagement, assessment, integrated care, well-being and management). The metaphor, a GPS, is employed in the title to describe how Todd’s principles are used as a GPS to help navigate the murky waters of working with this specialised client population. The principles, allocated as themes within the portfolios, highlight how these principles are reflected upon within their workplace. Culture and engagement principles were the most endorsed themes within the portfolios. The reflective portfolios also allowed us to reflect upon the ongoing process of curriculum development for this specialised client population.     

What counts as response and intervention in RTI? A sociocultural analysis

Response to Intervention (RTI) is being used in districts and states around the United States (U.S.) as a means to enhance learning opportunities and address the needs of struggling learners. Increasing attention to RTI in the research community and the recent creation of a large national technical assistance center reflect its growing visibility. Because equity issues for ethnic and linguistically diverse students are purportedly addressed in RTI models, we conduct a sociocultural analysis of its building blocks, namely the definitions and assumptions embedded in the notions of "response" and "intervention". We used interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical insights about the cultural nature of learning and development to inform our analysis. We discuss how the assumptions of RTI might unintentionally create blind spots for researchers and practitioners about how to design, conduct, and assess learning environments, particularly for diverse students. We conclude with reflections about future directions in this research area.     

Beyond nomothetic classification of behavioural difficulties: Using Valued Outcomes Analysis to deal with the behaviour problems that occur in the classroom

The number of students who are labeled as having some form of behavioural disorder which requires specialized assistance in the regular school setting is growing. Current approaches to working with these students are often based on the standardized application of treatments designed to modify general symptoms rather than specific behaviours. It is noted that this approach to behaviour-change is limited because it does not seek to understand the reasons why particular behaviours are being used by students in particular settings. This paper will present an idiographic framework as an alternative approach to creating meaningful and long-term changes in the behavioural difficulties which occur in the school setting. This approach is based on developing a clear understanding of the purpose and usefulness of difficult student behaviour by investigating how that behaviour assists the student in gaining access to valued outcomes. Of particular significance to this assessment and intervention framework is the inclusion of the student's perceptions about the difficult behaviour and its impact on self, the environment and others. It is argued that effective changes in behaviour can only occur when the student's specific difficulties are understood and the student is taught specific skills to overcome these in the school setting.     

Teaching Today's Students how to Examine Ethical Issues and Be More Actively Involved in the Learning Process

In response to the difficulty of teaching an increasingly large number of students who are ill prepared for the sort of abstract thinking and well-structured essay writing that are essential to the field of Philosophy, I have discovered a five-step method for teaching students in my Philosophy and Social Ethics course how to examine any ethical issue and write well-structured essays discussing the issue. Just as important, students are now required to take more responsibility for the learning process which, I believe, is an appropriate goal for a course in Ethics.     

Using the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual in the training of the competent assessor

The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM; PDM Task Force, 2006) was published in 2006 and very soon after that date, the assessment faculty at the Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology considered its incorporation into the assessment curriculum. Personality assessment has been a major emphasis of the doctoral program since its inception in 1970. Although faculty had a high level of satisfaction with students' training in using individual techniques, they saw skills lying at the interface of assessment and psychodiagnosis (integration of test data, providing a diagnosis synopsis, formulation of treatment recommendations, and delivery of feedback) as less fully honed. Essentially, all of these activities were tied to the overarching task of case formulation. This finding is unsurprising in that the areas in need of support are at a higher level of complexity and sophistication than the areas the students had more thoroughly mastered. This article discusses how the PDM has been a valuable tool in improving the Widener assessment curriculum and how it could be a potent instrument in other doctoral programs as well. It also considers what kind of curricular adjustments enable the PDM to be used to best advantage.     

Model-Based Approaches for Teaching and Practicing Personality Assessment

Psychological assessment is a complex professional skill. Competence in assessment requires an extensive knowledge of personality, neuropsychology, social behavior, and psychopathology, a background in psychometrics, familiarity with a range of multimethod tools, cognitive flexibility, skepticism, and interpersonal sensitivity. This complexity makes assessment a challenge to teach and learn, particularly as the investment of resources and time in assessment has waned in psychological training programs over the last few decades. In this article, we describe 3 conceptual models that can assist teaching and learning psychological assessments. The transtheoretical model of personality provides a personality systems-based framework for understanding how multimethod assessment data relate to major personality systems and can be combined to describe and explain complex human behavior. The quantitative psychopathology—personality trait model is an empirical model based on the hierarchical organization of individual differences. Application of this model can help students understand diagnostic comorbidity and symptom heterogeneity, focus on more meaningful high-order domains, and identify the most effective assessment tools for addressing a given question. The interpersonal situation model is rooted in interpersonal theory and can help students connect test data to here-and-now interactions with patients. We conclude by demonstrating the utility of these models using a case example.     

Using HLM to Explore the Effects of Perceptions of Learning Environments and Assessments on Students’ Test Performance

The study examines the role that perceptions or impressions of learning environments and assessments play in students’ performance on a large-scale standardized test. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to test aspects of the Learning Errors and Formative Feedback model to determine how much variation in students’ performance was explained by students’ and school principals’ perceptions of learning environments and assessments. Results from sequential HLM testing indicated that students’ but not principals’ perceptions explained a significant, although modest, amount of the total variation in students’ test performance. These results suggest that when students perceive learning environments to be safe and valuable, and positive assessment activities to be taking place, they tend to perform better on standardized tests than when they perceive learning environments and assessment activities otherwise. These findings provide a rationale for investigating the variables that can help improve students’ perceptions in order to enhance their test performance.     

Information Related to Prenatal Genetic Counseling: Interpretation by Adolescents, Effects on Risk Perception and Ethical Implications

Being raised in the genomic era may not only increase knowledge of available genetic testing but may also have an impact on how genetic information is perceived. However, little is known about how current adolescents react to the language commonly used by health care professionals providing prenatal counseling. In addition, as risk communication is related to numbers and figures, having different educational backgrounds may be associated with variability in risk perceptions. In order to investigate these issues, a previously developed questionnaire studying different ways of being told about hypothetical anomalies in a baby and corresponding risks (Abramsky and Fletcher Prenatal Diagnosis 22(13):1188-1194, 2002) was administered to high-school students in Sweden. A total of 344 questionnaires were completed by students belonging to a natural science or a social science program. The data show that teenage participants found technical jargon and words such as rare and abnormal more worrying than the presented comparison terms. Negative framing effects and perception differences related to numeric risk formats were also present. Additionally, participants' gender and educational program did not seem to have an effect on risk assessment. In addition to reporting the questionnaire results, we discuss the ethical implications of the data based on the norm of non-directiveness and make some recommendations for practice. In general, genetic counselors should be aware that the language used within clinical services can be influential on this group of upcoming counselees.     

Personality,coping, and school well-being: an investigation of high school students

With a growing interest in well-being as an outcome of schooling, there is an increased need for research on how to enable it in students’ academic lives. This study examined personality and coping strategies as predictors of students’ well-being outcomes at school using structural equation modelling. Students (N?=?328) completed measures of personality and coping strategies, and then approximately 6 months later reported on their satisfaction with school and subjective well-being. Results indicated that, along with personality and sociodemographics, productive coping strategies were associated with school satisfaction and subjective well-being 6 months later. The findings suggest that coping strategies used by adolescents to deal with the stresses of school have important consequences. Interventions to increase school students’ use of productive coping strategies may have meaningful impacts on their well-being.