Edward Kifer

Relationships between Academic Achievement and Personality Characteristics: A Quasi-Longitudinal Study

A conceptual model which relates patterns of academic achievement to the personality characteristics of learners was tested by a quasi-longitudinal study. The results of the study provide strong evidence for a model which emphasizes the influence of histories of successful academic achievement on personality characteristics. The findings suggest, additionally, that rewards for academic achievement provided by the home are related to both high achievement and positive personality characteristics. Instructional models such as Mastery Learning and the manipulation of time variables are discussed in terms of their potential for providing students the means both to achieve well and develop positive personality characteristics.

The Identification and Description of Student Growth in Mathematics Achievement

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the identification and description of student growth in mathematics achievement. Achievement tests used in international educational surveys are inevitably compromised because national curricula vary significantly in content, and emphasis. In some systems, notably the United States, there is substantial curriculum variation within the system. An initial focus of the SIMS project was to describe and report the curriculum variation. A book on the curriculum analysis includes the mathematics items. Final selection of items for the international testing was determined by ensuring that for each system, its most important Population A content areas were included, and that over all systems, more items were used for content areas that were important in a majority of school systems. In each school system, a complex sample was drawn, starting with basic stratification of schools according to jurisdictional or geographical categories. The general pattern was to sample schools within stratum with probabilities proportional to size, or estimated size.

Opportunities, Talents and Participation

Publisher Summary This chapter elaborates the opportunities, talents, and participation. IEAs second mathematics study was first a study of mathematics, and issues of curriculum, students achievements, and pedagogy were emphasized. It is found that with increasing demands for technical expertise coming from the broader social arena, greater weight is placed on mathematical skills and talents than on outcomes from exposure to other traditional content areas. Grade eight mathematics and the extent to which different students are given different mathematics courses serve as an indicator of how opportunities are distributed within a school system. It is found that if a system provides the same mathematics for all at the grade eight levels, one can infer that policies are in place which up until that point guarantee equal opportunities. It is found that if mathematics content is differentially distributed within the grade eight curriculums, then one can infer that policies that emphasize merit are dominant.

Concluding Thoughts: What We Know, What It Means

Publisher Summary This chapter examines the mathematics test results. The amount of information in Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) about cognitive achievement is the most substantial ever collected in a comparative study. It is found that not only is the item pool larger, but also the tests were administered on two occasions, and numerous sorts of contexts are available to help interpret them. The descriptions can be about levels of achievement and amounts of learning during a year, both placed in a context of the curriculum and what teachers say was taught, how it was taught, and the structural characteristics of the system. The performance of the Japanese on the cognitive test is, of course, exemplary. Two crucial features of that system, facets in which the system is more comprehensive than are the others, may explain the performance. First, given the SIMS test, the Japanese curriculum includes the most content of the eight systems. Secondly, the Japanese curriculum is comprehensive is that it is experienced by virtually all students.

An approach to the construction of affective evaluation instruments.

This paper describes a method by which researchers can construct affective evaluation instruments. This method emphasizes a set of key questions which can be asked as the researcher begins to define an affective construct, to decide on a measurement procedure, and to develop a framework upon which to base items. A “mapping sentence” is used to combine elements of a construct in ways which suggest types of items that can be generated. The method, which is heuristic, is applied to a construct which presumes to describe personal perceptions of adequacy as a student. The paper is based on the assumption that affective evaluation instruments ought to be constructed first as the result of a priori specifications of a construct and the results then submitted to empirical manipulations.

Understanding Patterns of Student Growth

Publisher Summary This chapter elaborates patterns of student growth. In many systems, the mathematics instruction at the Population A level is undifferentiated and unstreamed; that is, all students take the same mathematics course, and are not grouped by ability or previous mathematics achievement. By looking at the components of the pretest score variance, one can learn about whether things actually happen that way. In some systems, such as Japan, they evidently do, and there is virtually no classroom, or school variance in the pretest scores. A notable exception is the United States, where there is enormous between-classroom, within-school variance at the beginning of the school year, and where, in effect, there are four different mathematics courses being offered, and these can be termed remedial, regular, enriched, and algebra. This classification was developed by examining the teachers reports of streaming, the time allocations to topics, and the textbooks reported to be in use.

Lost in Translation: Ever Changing and Competing Purposes for National Examinations in the Czech Republic.

Lost in translation: Ever changing and competing purposes for national examinations in the Czech Republic In reaction to central control of schooling by the Soviet Union, the Czech Republic countered with what some say was the most decentralized system in Europe. While the political move to democracy was extraordinarily successful, there were numerous governments between 1989 and the present. The combination of the decentralized control of schooling and lack of continuity in the political realm in regard to education lengthened substantially the amount of time it has taken to mount national assessments. Those assessments, 5th and 9th grade and a high school leaving examination, are now on track but not without political and technical barriers.

Teaching experience and teachers' expectations for grades in academic subject areas

Abstract Seventy-nine subjects who had less than 1, 2, to 3, and more than 3 years of teaching experience were given either a favorable, neutral, or unfavorable fictitious psychological report to read, describing a kindergarten child. Subjects then watched a 5-year-old child in a videotaped testing session. Expectancies toward the child were evaluated using report card grades the subjects expected the child to receive at the end of first grade. A multivariate analysis of variance with five subject area grades as the dependent variables revealed significant multivariate main effects for experience and psychological report. Significant univariate interactions in science and social studies, and social and emotional development suggested that teachers with more than 3 years of experience may have reduced susceptibility to biasing influences in psychological reports.