Randall S. Davies

Technology Integration in Schools

It is commonly believed that learning is enhanced through the use of technology and that students need to develop technology skills in order to be productive members of society. For this reason, providing a high quality education includes the expectation that teachers use educational technologies effectively in their classroom and that they teach their students to use technology. In this chapter we have organized our review of technology integration research around a framework based on three areas of focus: (1) increasing access to educational technologies, (2) increasing the use of technology for instructional purposes, and (3) improving the effectiveness of technology use to facilitate learning. Within these categories, we describe findings related to one-to-one computing initiatives, integration of open educational resources, various methods of teacher professional development, ethical issues affecting technology use, emerging approaches to technology integration that emphasize pedagogical perspectives and personalized instruction, technology-enabled assessment practices, and the need for systemic educational change to fully realize technology’s potential for improving learning. From our analysis of the scholarship in this area, we conclude that the primary benefit of current technology use in education has been to increase information access and communication. Students primarily use technology to gather, organize, analyze, and report information, but this has not dramatically improved student performance on standardized tests. These findings lead to the conclusion that future efforts should focus on providing students and teachers with increased access to technology along with training in pedagogically sound best practices, including more advanced approaches for technology-based assessment and adaptive instruction.

Communication Skills to Develop Trusting Relationships on Global Virtual Engineering Capstone Teams

As universities seek to provide cost-effective, cross-cultural experiences using global virtual (GV) teams, the ‘soft’ communication skills typical of all teams, increases in importance for GV teams. Students need to be taught how to navigate through cultural issues and virtual tool issues to build strong trusting relationships with distant team members. Weekly team meetings provide an excellent opportunity to observe key team interactions that facilitate relationship and trust-building among team members. This study observed the weekly team meetings of engineering students attending two US universities and one Asian university as they collaborated as a single GV capstone GV team. In addition local team members were interviewed individually and collectively throughout the project to determine strategies that facilitated team relations and trust. Findings indicate the importance of student choice of virtual communication tools, the refining of communication practices, and specific actions to build trusting relationships. As student developed these attributes, collaboration and success was experienced on this GV team.

Evaluator Training Content and Topic Valuation in University Evaluation Courses

Quality training opportunities for evaluators will always be important to the evaluation profession. While studies have documented the number of university programs providing evaluation training, additional information is needed concerning what content is being taught in current evaluation courses. This article summarizes the findings of a survey administered to university faculty who provide such courses, including (a) topics taught, (b) time spent on topics, and (c) instructors perceptions of topic importance. Study results show considerable diversity in the training of new evaluators. This diversity is often complicated by the range of contexts, purposes, and situations involved.

Using Open Badges to Certify Practicing Evaluators

For several decades members of the American Evaluation Association have discussed and disputed the issue of evaluator certification. Our past inability to agree on a certification solution may have been partially caused by the weaknesses of traditional certification systems, which rely on candidates obtaining a degree and completing a comprehensive exam. In this article we propose a certification system based on digital open badges. The open badge framework uses a top-down design to structure and understand the certification process as micro-certification units. These types of systems are adaptable and clearly communicate the evidence of knowledge, skill, and experience represented by the credential. The potential benefits of using an open badge infrastructure make this an enticing option and viable solution for the AEA to establish policy and practice regarding an efficient, rigorous and credible way to certify evaluators.

Using scaffolded rubrics to improve peer assessment in a MOOC writing course

This study explored the value of using a guided rubric to enable students participating in a massive open online course in writing to produce more reliable assessments of their fellow students’ writing. To test the assumption that training students to assess will improve their ability to provide quality feedback, a multivariate factorial analysis was used to determine differences in assessments made by students who received guidance on using a rating rubric and those who did not. Although results were mixed, on average students who were provided no guidance in scoring writing samples were less likely to successfully differentiate between novice, intermediate, and advanced writing samples than students who received rubric guidance. Rubric guidance was most beneficial for items that were subjective, technically complex, and likely to be unfamiliar to the student. Items addressing relatively simple and objective constructs were less likely to be improved by rubric guidance.

The Use of Randomisation in Educational Research and Evaluation: A Critical Analysis of Underlying Assumptions

Abstract This article considers the underlying assumptions related to the use of random assignment in educational research and evaluation; more specifically, the ability of random assignment to create similar comparison groups for the purpose of determining the effectiveness of educational programmes. In theory, randomly assigning individuals to comparison groups is considered to be the best method available for creating similar groups; however, in educational research designed to identify proven best practices, random assignment of individuals is rarely possible; other methods including random assignment of intact units and nonrandom selection techniques are often used. Using a database simulation, this study explored the degree to which various methods might be effective at creating comparable groups. Given the complex dynamics of the teaching and learning process and the abundance of potentially confounding variables, it seems likely that comparison groups will always be dissimilar to some degree. While random assignment of individuals performed as expected when controlling for a single extraneous factor, the likelihood that comparison groups created in this manner will differ is extremely likely when multiple confounding variable are present. Based on the results of this study, random assignment of intact units is not an acceptable alternative to random assignment of individuals.

Design and Development of a Cross-Cultural Disposition Inventory.

Advances in technology have increased the likelihood that engineers will have to work in a global, culturally diverse setting. Many schools of engineering are currently revising their curricula to help students to develop cultural competence. However, our ability to measure cultural dispositions can be a challenge. The purpose of this project was to develop and test an instrument that measures the various aspects of cultural disposition. The results of the validation process verified that the hypothesised model adequately represented the data. The refined instrument produced a four-factor model for the overall construct. The validation process for the instrument verified the existence of specific subcomponents that form the overall cultural disposition construct. There also seems to be a hierarchical relationship within the subcomponents of cultural disposition. Additional research is needed to explore which aspects of cultural disposition affect an individuals ability to work effectively in a culturally diverse engineering team.

Using transaction-level data to diagnose knowledge gaps and misconceptions

The role of assessment in learning is to evaluate student comprehension and ability. Assessment instruments often function at the task level. What is rarely considered is the process students go through to reach the final solution. This often allows knowledge component gaps and misconceptions to go undetected. This research identified higher levels of knowledge component gaps and misunderstandings when assessing transaction-level knowledge component data than task-level final solution data. Final solution data showed little evidence that students had any misunderstanding or knowledge gaps about the use of absolute references. However, when analyzing these data at the transaction level we found evidence that far more students struggled than the analysis of the final solutions suggested.

Benefits of the Michiana Daily Mathtracks Programme for students living in poverty

This paper summarizes results from a math intervention implemented in a high-poverty urban community. Over 7,300 students from kindergarten to 4th grade in 1 low-socioeconomic-status school district participated in the study. Students from 13 different schools (36 different classroom) participated in the treatment. Comparisons were made to purposely selected control-group schools and all other students in the district. The aim of the intervention was to help early elementary-age students living in poverty learn essential math facts and master basic computational skills as a foundation for improving their math ability. The study used a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design with control and treatment groups. Achievement for both groups was compared to that of the school district as a whole, with analysis disaggregated by poverty status. The results found positive gains in the treatment groups math achievement at every grade level, transcending differences in socioeconomic status.

Scientific reasoning ability does not predict scientific views on evolution among religious individuals

BackgroundAcceptance of evolutionary theory varies widely and is often associated with religious background. Some have suggested there exists an additional relationship between scientific reasoning ability and the acceptance of evolutionary theory. In this study, we used structural equation modeling to test whether scientific reasoning ability predicts religiosity, acceptance of creationist views, or acceptance of evolution. We administered internet-based surveys to 724 individuals nationwide who self-describe as being religious and built a structural-equation model to test predictive abilities.ResultsWe found that while religiosity positively predicts the acceptance of creationist views and negatively predicts the acceptance of evolution, scientific reasoning ability does not predict religiosity, acceptance of creationist views, or acceptance of evolutionary theory.ConclusionsWith a lack of any relationship between scientific reasoning ability and acceptance, an approach to evolution education that focuses on appealing to scientific reasoning may prove fruitless in changing student attitudes toward evolution; alternative teaching approaches regarding evolution are warranted.