A business Spanish curriculum that presents the full spectrum of general and specialized areas--including management, banking, finance, marketing and advertising--might seem ambitious for a single course. A course that aims to present the full picture would seem to impose an undue burden on memory and retention of the content. By emphasizing…

Allowing students to grade their own homework promises several advantages to both students and instructors. But does such a policy make sense? This paper reports the results of an experiment in which eight separate assignments completed by approximately 80 students were first graded by the students using a grading rubric, and then re-graded by a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of cultural differences, i.e. different contexts and backgrounds, on instructional designers' perspectives of quality in online environments. Using a questionnaire developed based on the Quality Matters rubric, we found designers in Canada focus slightly more on Learner Support strategies…

The study considers the assessment of L2 English learners by trained raters in paired and group oral assessments in comparison to an individual, monologue assessment, to determine 1) the degree to which raters assign pairs/groups shared (the same) scores and the degree to which raters give individual members of pairs/groups higher or lower as…

This conceptual framework proposes a multi-level, multi-dimensional course alignment model to implement a contextualised constructive alignment of rubric design that authentically evidences and assesses learning outcomes. By embedding quality control mechanisms at each level for each dimension, this model facilitates the development of an aligned…

In order to construct and evaluate the validity argument for the Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS), based on Kane's framework, we conducted a systematic review. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ERIC, Web of Science, Scopus, and selected reference lists through February 2013. Working in duplicate, we selected…

Formula scoring (FS) is the use of a don't know option (DKO) with subtraction of points for wrong answers. Its effect on construct validity and reliability of progress test scores, is subject of discussion. Choosing a DKO may not only be affected by knowledge level, but also by risk taking tendency, and may thus introduce construct-irrelevant…

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…

In this reflective piece, we discuss changes made to the practicum at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), a professional graduate school that offers MA degrees in TESOL and TFL. We begin by providing a historical perspective of the practicum as it has evolved in relation to other exit mechanisms. Th en, we provide…

The European Commission considers the development of digital competences a strategic action to spread and to develop a more active digital participation of citizens. The objective is to increase the level of digital competence in the European citizens up to 2015 and to reduce the number of those who don't use new technologies and don't surf the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of the Spelling Sensitivity Score (SSS) beyond percentage correct scoring in analyzing the spellings of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 31 children with SLI and 28 children with typical language in grades 2-4. Spellings of individual words were scored using…

Content analysis of course syllabi can answer a variety of questions about the structure of courses and the campus culture of teaching and learning. The authors report a review of the full population of undergraduate syllabi at one institution during one academic term (n = 1153), including rubric design and training procedures for reviewers. The…

We describe an alternative to the kinds of observation-based lab exercises that are often used to cover animal and plant evolution with respect to transitioning from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. We wrote this activity to address these objectives, but also to model the process of scientific inquiry and to require students to collect and analyze…

Previous cross-cultural research using false-belief tasks has explored whether children's theory of mind develops synchronously across cultures. Success on false-belief tasks is usually interpreted as an important indicator of children's mental state understanding, but inconsistent findings have led to questions regarding the interpretation of…

Four- to 11-year-old children were interviewed about 2 different sorts of memories in the same home visit: recent memories of highly salient and stressful events--namely, injuries serious enough to require hospital emergency room treatment--and their earliest memories. Injury memories were scored for amount of unique information, completeness…