This study examined the effects of professional development on teachers' assessment literacy between two groups of teachers: (1) teachers who were involved in ongoing and sustained professional development in designing authentic classroom assessment and rubrics; and (2) teachers who were given only short-term, one-shot professional development workshops in authentic assessment. The participating teachers taught Year 4 and 5 English, science, and mathematics. The findings showed that the assessment literacy of teachers who were involved in ongoing, sustained professional development had increased significantly during the second year of study. These teachers had also gained a better understanding of authentic assessment.

A teacher’s assessment literacy refers to her or his demonstrated understanding of the principles behind selecting and designing tasks, judging student work, and interpreting and using assessment data to support student learning. This study examines the development of the task design aspect of assessment literacy in 12 Chinese language teachers as they participated in a two-year authentic assessment professional development program. By analysing the quality of assessment tasks designed by the teachers over time, we found that, although teachers quickly grasped many aspects of task design, they found it difficult to incorporate certain knowledge manipulation criteria into their assessments. The study provides insights into the contextual and discipline-embedded challenges that face language teachers with regard to assessment.

Adhesive capsulitis is a common cause of shoulder pain and limited movement. The objectives of this review were to assess the effi cacy and safety of corticosteroid injections for adhesive capsulitis and to evaluate the optimum dose and anatomical site of injections. PubMed and CENTRAL databases were searched for randomised trials and a total of ten trials were included. Results revealed that corticosteroid injection is superior to placebo and physiotherapy in the short-term (up to 12 weeks). There was no difference in outcomes between corticosteroid injection and oral nonsteroidal anti-infl ammatory drugs at 24 weeks. Dosages of intra-articular triamcinolone 20 mg and 40 mg showed identical outcomes, while subacromial and glenohumeral corticosteroid injections had similar effi cacy. The use of corticosteroid injections is also generally safe, with infrequent and minor side effects. Physicians may consider corticosteroid injection to treat adhesive capsulitis, especially in the early stages when pain is the predominant presentation.

This simulation study investigated the empirical Type I error rates of using the maximum likelihood estimation method and Pearson covariance matrix for multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) of full and strong measurement invariance hypotheses with mixed item format data that are ordinal in nature. The results indicate that mixed item formats and sample size combinations do not result in inflated empirical Type I error rates for rejecting the true measurement invariance hypotheses. Therefore, although the common methods are in a sense sub-optimal, they don't lead to researchers claiming that measures are functioning differently across groups -i.e., a lack of measurement invariance.

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