School Response to a Changing Labour Market     

Benjamin Levin  J.A. Riffel 《Interchange》1998,29(2):185-206

The presumed link between schooling and the economy has been a prime force in motivating educational reform proposals in many countries. Educators feel caught between expectations by many that schools will play a key role in labour market success for young people and the reality that their influence on labour market outcomes is relatively weak. Solving the problem is not possible, but neither is ignoring it. Schools face an intractable yet compelling problem.This paper looks at the way in which school districts in a Canadian province understand and try to respond to changes in the labour market and the nature of work. The paper is based on collaborative case studies of five school districts and surveys of school board members and chief superintendents. We conclude that people in school systems are aware in a general way of labour market changes, and see them as having negative implications for students. However the changing job situation seems to be an important but largely unanalyzed issue. There is relatively little discussion of school-work issues in schools and districts. Administrators and school board members rely on informal sources of information rather than gathering data about their own situation. Schools and districts are using various programmatic devices to address labour market needs, such as partnerships, work experience, or co-operative education, but all of these operate within the confines of a traditional model of schooling. None of the districts has a strategy for this issue or has made it a priority.We conclude with some suggestions for measures schools could reasonably take to respond more effectively to the impact of changes in work.  相似文献   

Risky Politics? Associations Between Adolescent Risk Preference and Political Engagement     

Benjamin Oosterhoff  Laura Wray-Lake 《Child development》2020,91(4):e743-e761

This study examined associations among adolescent risk preference and political engagement using nationally representative Monitoring the Future data from high school seniors (N = 109,574; modal age = 18 years) spanning 1976–2014. Greater risk preference was associated with greater past voting, donating to a campaign, writing government officials, boycotting, and protesting. Greater risk preference was also associated with higher future intentions to boycott and protest, but lower intentions to donate to or volunteer for a campaign. In general, associations between risk preference and political engagement became stronger with higher levels of political interest. Results highlight the importance of considering the adaptive role of adolescent risk preference and suggest that political engagement may be a constructive outlet for youth who pursue or are comfortable taking risks.  相似文献   

Digital Module 31: Testing Accommodations for Students with Disabilities     

Benjamin J. Lovett 《Educational Measurement》2023,42(1):112-113

Students with disabilities often take tests under different conditions than their peers do. Testing accommodations, which involve changes to test administration that maintain test content, include extending time limits, presenting written text through auditory means, and taking a test in a private room with fewer distractions. For some students with disabilities, accommodations such as these are necessary for fair assessment; without accommodations, invalid interpretations would be made on the basis of these students’ scores. However, when misapplied, accommodations can also diminish fairness, introduce new sources of construct-irrelevant variance, and also lead to invalid interpretation of test scores. This module provides a psychometric framework for thinking about accommodations, and then explicates an accommodations decision-making framework that includes a variety of considerations. Problems with current accommodations practices are discussed, along with potential solutions and future directions. The module is accompanied by exercises allowing participants to apply their understanding.  相似文献   

Causal Inference and COVID: Contrasting Methods for Evaluating Pandemic Impacts Using State Assessments     

Benjamin R. Shear 《Educational Measurement》2023,42(1):99-109

In the spring of 2021, just 1 year after schools were forced to close for COVID-19, state assessments were administered at great expense to provide data about impacts of the pandemic on student learning and to help target resources where they were most needed. Using state assessment data from Colorado, this article describes the biggest threats to making valid inferences about student learning to study pandemic impacts using state assessment data: measurement artifacts affecting the comparability of scores, secular trends, and changes in the tested population. The article compares three statistical approaches (the Fair Trend, baseline student growth percentiles, and multiple regression with demographic covariates) that can support more valid inferences about student learning during the pandemic and in other scenarios in which the tested population changes over time. All three approaches lead to similar inferences about statewide student performance but can lead to very different inferences about student subgroups. Results show that controlling statistically for prepandemic demographic differences can reverse the conclusions about groups most affected by the pandemic and decisions about prioritizing resources.  相似文献   

“Acquired” Equals Addition? Associating Verbs with Arithmetic Operations Impacts Word Problem Performance     

Joshua Benjamin Jaffe  Troy Gharibani  Donald Joseph Bolger 《Mind, Brain, and Education》2023,17(2):93-97

Successful word problem performance often requires understanding the linguistic relations between characters and objects. However, the keyword method promotes associating specific words with mathematical operations while neglecting the situational context. Research has thoroughly investigated the detrimental effects of individuals associating relational terminology (e.g., “more”) with mathematical operations (e.g., “addition”). The current study expands upon this line of research by examining whether undergraduate students associate verbs with mathematical operations and if verbal associations affect word problem performance. Similar to relational terminology, the participants associated verbs with operations, which significantly impacted performance. The educational implications are discussed.  相似文献