Teachers' assessment literacy has recently captured the attention of scholars across various educational contexts. The literature has it that there is a gap between teachers' assessment practices and national assessment policies. The present study investigated the assessment needs of Iranian EFL teachers in the wake of the new assessment reform, which aims at replacing traditional discrete point testing policies with performance testing. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 EFL head teachers. In addition, documents related to the curriculum reform were also closely examined. Inductive coding of the data showed that to meet the demands of the noted reform, teachers' current perceptions of language assessment need to change. Furthermore, teachers need training in both knowledge and skills of language assessment. More specifically, teachers need training in developing rubrics for use in assessing the productive skills of speaking and writing. They also need to develop literacy in devising higher-order thinking skills in assessing reading and listening comprehension. Finally, as non-native speakers of English, Iranian English teachers need better English aural/oral skills.
Automatic item generation (AIG) is the process of using models to generate items using computer technology. AIG is a scalable content development method because it relies on the item model as the unit of analysis which means that it is more efficient and economical compared to traditional item development. But to use the generated items effectively, they must be managed properly. Managing a bank that could include millions of items results in problems related to identifying, organizing, and securing the content. As a result, the challenges inherent to managing item models and generated items warrant a shift in banking methodology where the management task must be accomplished using content coding at the model level. The purpose of our paper is to describe and illustrate methods that use content coding to organize and secure generated items in a bank.
Our replication study embarked on in the Middle East, used an Arabic translation of the original research tool, the Safety-Oriented Personality Style or Phobicentric Psychopathology Individual Questionnaire (SOPS/PCPIQ) that was employed in the North American study, which could identify adults with more serious chronic anxiety. SOPS/PCP, described as dimensional and neurobiologically-based is the hypothesized construct from which SOPS/PCPIQ is derived. SOPS/PCP, a brand-new formulation, arose serendipitously from clinical observations and followed in the new tradition of attempting to avoid characterizing personality disorder in the categorical and non-theoretical style of the previously influential Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The present study is intended to produce results that confirm that SOPS/PCP may be experienced outside North America. The results supported the hypotheses that the Arabic version of the SOPS/PCPIQ would demonstrate adequate reliability and validity. They further showed that individuals with a history of trauma exposure scored significantly higher than the other subjects. As such, the similar results from this Arabic study to those from Canada and the United States showed that this cross-national study successfully replicated the original North American findings. Discussion addresses the potential role of this study's psychopathology to provide meaningful contribution to the recognition and reduction of global anxiety disorder and help change the current direction of personality disorder research.
With heightened equity pursuits in 21st century schools and the key role of assessment in teachers’ concerns with educational equity, scholars have recently attempted to empirically investigate teachers’ conceptions of fairness in classroom assessment. This study contributes to this growing literature and draws on interview data from 27 experienced high school teachers to further appreciate the factors that propel teachers’ fairness conceptions. The results indicate that the teachers’ conceptions of fairness in classroom assessment were influenced by three themes: (a) individual mechanisms, (b) social mechanisms, and (c) dialectical relationships between individual and social mechanisms. These themes underscored how teachers’ individual philosophies and experiences interacted with their encounters with social conditions of society, schools, and classrooms to influence their conceptions and articulated practices of fairness in classroom assessments. The results contribute to provoke conversations around assessment fairness education during pre- and in-service programs.
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