This article presents principles and practices of effective assessment, outlining seven key concepts--usefulness, reliability, validity, practicality, washback, authenticity, and transparency--and demonstrating how to apply them in creating an exam blueprint. The article also discusses the importance of providing feedback after a test has been…

Adolescents experience a variety of biological, psychological and social changes. While some adolescents face significant risk, the majority of young people are able to successfully navigate their way through to maintaining resilience, that is, the ability to cope and overcome adversity despite facing challenges. However, exposure to acts of…

This study tested how 53 kindergarteners' expressions of depth of vocabulary knowledge and use in novel contexts were related to in-context and out-of-context test formats for 16 target words. Applying multilevel, multi-categorical Logit to all 1,696 test item responses, the authors found that kindergarteners were more likely to express deep…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to explore the relationships between the independent variables, contextual factors for virtual teams and collaboration technology, and the dependent variable, virtual project outcomes. The problem leading to the need for the study is a lower success rate for virtual projects compared to…

Despite obvious benefits, some challenges exist in the way of sustainable utilization of mobile phone technology for language learning tasks. This paper shows how these challenges can be better addressed in the light of recent advancements in mobile phone technology, like context aware mobile learning, informed with a sound pedagogical basis for…

Lexical categories like noun and verb are foundational to language acquisition, but these categories do not come neatly packaged for the infant language learner. Some have proposed that infants can begin to solve this problem by tracking the frequent nonadjacent word (or morpheme) contexts of these categories. However, nonadjacent relationships…

Although publicly-funded prekindergarten (pre-k) programs have been designed to promote children's school readiness, programs have tended to support early literacy skills to a greater degree than early language skills. Given the importance of both language and literacy skills for children's reading acquisition and academic achievement, the present…

Using data from the "2010 State of Higher Education for LGBT People" (Rankin, Weber, Blumenfeld, & Frazer), this study examines campus climate perceptions for LGBTQ undergraduate students across gender conformity and the extent to which relevant variables influence perceptions of classroom climate. Findings reveal more positive…

Multiculturalism was founded after the genocide of the Holocaust to ensure acts of annihilation toward a people group never again occurred. Fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, diverse faculty and diverse students are still underrepresented in universities. In absentia and expecting more diverse faculty, how can White…

This article examines the relationship between cultural differences and the nonexpert evaluations of architectural design creativity. In study I, Caucasian Americans (N = 126) and East Asians (N = 137), who did not major in architecture and urban design, evaluated the novelty and appropriateness of 5 unusual architectural shapes, selected by 5…

The present investigation seeks to determine whether and under what circumstances can adult bilinguals deploy segmentation strategies characteristic of their two languages, or of their dominant language. To that end, we inquired whether the context language employed during the segmentation experiment (i.e., the language in which participants…

Service-learning environments are complex learning contexts that generate a level of disequilibrium or anxiety that may or may not result in transformative learning. This phenomenological study examined student reflective writings from an Honors service-learning course at a medium-sized mid-western university for evidences of transformative…

Drawing on ecological and dialogical perspectives on language and cognition, this exploratory case study examines how vocabulary learning occurs during a quest-play mediated in English between a Japanese undergraduate student and a native speaker of English. Understanding embodiment as coaction between the player-avatar and player-player relations…

Support, or lack thereof, is often cited as the main reason for teachers to leave the profession early on (Ingersoll, 2003). Feiman-Nemser (2001) identifies five Central Tasks associated with Learning to Teach (CTLT) that could focus the support novice teachers need during their induction years: learning the teaching context (TC), designing…

An Australian scholar in the Arts and Humanities responds to recent US models emphasizing civic-engaged learning as a way to renew the humanities in undergraduate education. Policy contexts and curriculum initiatives of kindred trends in recent Australian undergraduate education in the humanities are contrasted in this essay. The Australian…