Hak Ping Tam

The contribution of family structure and differentiation to identity development in females

We examined the relationship between Minuchins structural family model, adolescent separation-individuation, and identity development. One hundred sixty-four female undergraduate students completed the Structural Family Interaction Scale Revised (SFIS-R), the Parental Relationship Inventory (PRI), and the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS) scale. Exploratory Factor Analysis of the SFIS-R and PRI scales indicated that two factors, Proximity-Differentiation and Generational Hierarchy-Differentiation, accounted for 90% of the variance. Canonical correlation analysis with the two factor scores and age included in the predictor variables, and the four measures of ego identity included in the dependent variables, yielded two significant roots. The results supported Minuchins model.

Intergenerational Systems Theory and Identity Development in Young Adult Women.

One hundred sixty-four undergraduate women completed the Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaire, the Parental Relationship Inventory, and the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status in order to determine how intergenerational family systems theory is related to identity development in females. The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that the family and parent-child variables explained 32% of the variance for the achieved, 45% for the foreclosed, 46% for the moratorium, and 55% for the diffused identity statuses. Intergenerational Intimacy, Autonomy Versus Fusion, Intergenerational Intimidation, and Intergenerational Individuation contributed unique variance to the various identity statuses.

Automated essay scoring using set of literary sememes

Automatic essay scoring system is a very important research tool for many educational studies. Many researches indicate that AES systems should be able to analyze semantic characteristics of an essay and include more such features to score essays. This paper makes an assumption: some concepts that can be regarded as literary concepts would only be utilized by skillful writers. However, it is a difficult task to extract literal concepts due to small size of training corpora. This work uses a semantic network tool to overcome the problem. The concepts in essays can be transformed into sememes using the tool and literary concepts are also transformed into literary sememes. This work introduces a method which makes use of the literary sememes in an essay to score the essay. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed method for Chinese essays is comparable to those as achieved by several current English AES systems.

Trends in Science Education Research in Taiwan: A Content Analysis of the Chinese Journal of Science Education from 1993 to 2012

This chapter describes a content analysis that served three purposes. First, it investigated science education research trends in Taiwan as represented by publications from 1993 to 2012 in the Chinese Journal of Science Education (CJSE), an official journal of the Chinese Association for Science Education in Taiwan. This was done by breaking down the 20-year interval into four periods. Second, the results were compared with those in international journals. Finally, we analyzed trends in authorship as well as in the tendency to publish in CJSE compared to the international journals. We analyzed 394 articles published in the first 20 years of CJSE (1993–2012). The results showed that CJSE published a very high percentage of empirical studies (96 %) over the past 20 years. The most common research area involved learning (26.4 %), including 15.0 % of concept learning and 11.4 % of process skills, followed by teacher education (12.9 %), and teaching strategies (12.9 %) . Studies investigating goals, policy, curriculum (2.3%), informal learning (1.8%) or textbook and text analysis (1/0%) were equality absent. In addition, CJSE published several relatively balanced quantitative and qualitative studies. Twenty-six percent of the articles were pure quantitative data while 22.6% were qualitative reports. Moreover, there was a high percentage (25.3%) of articles, which include both quantitative and qualitative data. We also found that about 74.6 % of the studies used students as their participants, while 28.4 % had samples composed of teachers (including pre- and in-service teachers). Finally, the results revealed that science education researchers in Taiwan tended to publish in either CJSE or international journals. Very few Taiwanese researchers published in both. Implications for the future of science education research in Taiwan are discussed in this chapter.

Sampling and Data Collection Procedures for the National Science Concept Learning Study

The National Science Concept Learning Study represented one of the largest and the most extensive surveys of its kind undertaken in Taiwan in recent years. A total of 36,093 students from the sixth, eighth, ninth, and eleventh grades participated in the main study. This paper provides the background information about the sampling and booklet design behind this project. It also provides detailed information on how the survey was actually administered and how the data quality control process was undertaken. This information can facilitate an overall view of the results based on the data related to the main survey.

Decision Making in the Mathematics Curricula among the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

As in many other places, the mathematics curricula in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan underwent reform at the turn of the millennium, addressing the various political, social, and educational needs of these regions. These reforms were not smooth and resulted in many heated debates and, recently, attempts have made to adjust the mathematics curricula in response to these debates. The initiation of change, strong reactions, and adjustments by the policy makers can be better understood by looking into the decision-making system and process of curriculum development in these three educational systems. In this chapter, we shall look at decision making in the mathematics curriculum among the three educational systems from three different perspectives: how curriculum decisions are made in these regions; what issues they aim to tackle; and why the implementation of curriculum changes has been problematic.

Using User-Defined Fit Statistic to Analyze Two-Tier Items in Mathematics

The two-tier item is a relatively new item format and is gradually gaining popularity in some areas of educational research. In science education, a typical two-tier item is made up of two portions. The purpose of the first portion is to assess whether students could identify the correct concept with respect to the information stated in the item stem, while the second examines the reason they supplied to justify the option they chose in the first portion. Since the data thus collected are related in a certain way, they pose challenges regarding how analysis should be done to capture the relationship that exists between the two tiers. This chapter attempts to analyze such data by using a user-defined fit statistic within the Rasch approach. The kind of information that can be gathered will be illustrated by way of analyzing a data set in mathematics.

Classical Test Theory

Classical Test Theory (CTT), also known as the true score theory, refers to the analysis of test results based on test scores. The statistics produced under CTT include measures of item difficulty, item discrimination, measurement error and test reliability. The term “Classical” is used in contrast to “Modern” test theory which usually refers to item response theory (IRT). The fact that CTT was developed before IRT does not mean that CTT is outdated or replaced by IRT. Both CTT and IRT provide useful statistics to help us analyse test data. Generally, CTT and IRT provide complementary results. For many item analyses, CTT may be sufficient to provide the information we need. There are, however, theoretical differences between CTT and IRT, and many researchers prefer IRT because of enhanced measurement properties under IRT. IRT also provides a framework that facilitates test equating, computer adaptive testing and test score interpretation. While this book devotes a large part to IRT, we stress that CTT is an important part of the methodologies for educational and psychological measurement. In particular, the exposition of the concept of reliability in CTT sets the basis for evaluating measuring instruments. A good understanding of CTT lays the foundations for measurement principles. There are other approaches to measurement such as generalizability theory and structural equation modelling, but these are not the focus of attention in this book.

Developing Assessment for Learning in a Large-Scale Programme

Most assessment results from large-scale exercises are used for administrative purposes, such as policy-making and accountability. However, valuable information can actually be relayed back to classroom teachers in a way that can be utilized for subsequent instructional purposes. This chapter introduces an online assessment reform programme that was administered by the Education Office of Yilan County in Taiwan. Serious effort was invested into the design of a report system on assessment results that can reveal to teachers the learning status of their students with respect to key concepts in fourth grade mathematics. Furthermore, the released information is intended to guide teachers in their future preparation for instruction on related topics, and to help students to identify areas they need to work on. Several issues are then discussed in relation to the development of large-scale assessment projects that incorporate an assessment for learning aspect. The chapter concludes by offering some suggestions for future improvement of the project.

An Ideal Measurement

When one undertakes the measurement of a latent trait, what are the desirable properties one would like to have for the measures?