This report provides advice to policymakers and school leaders on the use of assessment centres as part of a teacher selection approach. It discusses the relationship between assessment centre scores prior to joining teaching, and teacher effectiveness over a six-year period. It draws from various stages of a wider research project, the overall…

The purpose of this article is to provide a basic review of a hiring simulation fair, and to describe strategies for successfully implementing a similar organized event in a college/university teacher education program in order to better prepare students for the interview process.

This brief describes (1) what parents look for when they choose a school and (2) how these preferences affect the sorting of students into schools under different school-choice policies. The findings are based on lists of preferred schools submitted by over 20,000 applicants to a citywide lottery for more than 100 traditional and charter public…

Creating experiential learning opportunities that engage students, meet marketing curricula objectives, and fit the application in a traditional semester course is extremely challenging. This paper describes a role-playing simulation offered concurrently to the professional selling and sales management classes in which the selling students act as…

Elwin, Juslin, Olsson, and Enkvist (2007) and Henriksson, Elwin, and Juslin (2010) offered the constructivist coding hypothesis to describe how people code the outcomes of their decisions when availability of feedback is conditional on the decision. They provided empirical evidence only for the 0.5 base rate condition. This commentary argues that…

In species that reproduce sexually, an individual's fitness depends on its ability to secure a mate (or mates). Although both males and females are selected to maximize their reproductive output, the mating strategies of the two sexes can differ dramatically. We present a classroom simulation that allows undergraduates to actively experience how…

Classroom simulations can make a significant contribution to learning outcomes in political science courses, provided that they are firmly linked to course content and learning objectives. This article offers a step-by-step decision framework for instructors seeking to use simulations as a core component of their courses, including selection of an…

Research on shared information bias has shown that group members involved in a decision-making task tend to undervalue information that a single member shares with the group, especially when that information conflicts with their prior conclusions. The group activity in this article is intended to heighten awareness of this shared information bias…

More stakeholders are turning to technology to advance the professional learning required to support new standards and evaluation systems. Yet how technology is used will determine its potential to influence educator practice and results for students. This brief outlines how technology can enhance professional learning, offers examples of how…

A two-course sequence in electromagnetics (EM) was developed in order to address a perceived lack of student learning and engagement observed in a traditional, lecture-based EM course. The two-course sequence is named VECTOR: Vitalizing Electromagnetic Concepts To Obtain Relevance. This paper reports on the first course of the sequence. VECTOR…

Showed how Taylor approximation can be used to generate a linear approximation to a logistic item characteristic curve and a linear ability estimator. Demonstrated how, for a specific simulation, this could result in the special case of a Robbins-Monro item selection procedure for adaptive testing. (SLD)

Presents empirically based item selection guidelines for moving the cut score on equated tests consisting of "n" dichotomous items calibrated assuming the Rasch model. Derivations of lemmas that underlie the guidelines are provided as well as a simulated example. (SLD)

Proposes a new multistage adaptive-testing procedure that factors the discrimination parameter (alpha) into the item-selection process. Simulation studies indicate that the new strategy results in tests that are well-balanced, with respect to item exposure, and efficient. (SLD)

Each year more than 300 applicants vie for 18 slots at the Central Institute of Restoration, the program responsible for the restoration of many of Italy's greatest works of art, and the training of experts in the repair of objects of artistic and/or cultural significance. Successful candidates must demonstrate knowledge of art history, chemistry,…

The author describes use of a personnel assessment center, a process that identifies managerial potential for purposes of selection, placement, promotion, development, or a combination of these factors. Elements of the process (determining skills to be assessed, evaluating skills, job skills exercises, interview exercises, written exercises) are…