Master of Science / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Kay A. Taylor / This historical and qualitative inquiry investigates recent educational reform in Ukraine. On Tuesday, April 22, 2008 more than half a million Ukrainian high-school graduates were ordered to take an external assessment of student achievements. The new assessment model was named the External Independent Knowledge Testing and replaced the traditional forms of high school exit-entrance to higher educational institution exams in Ukraine. These changes in assessment strategies in the Ukrainian educational system illustrate the global trend of replacing diverse forms of national examinations with standardize multiple-choice assessments that can be scored by machines and could be viewed as a new page in the history of educational assessment. Educational assessment has become one of the most significant areas of research in the United States. It is not only a prominent issue in education today but also one of the most controversial issues in contemporary educational science. The debate is concentrated around the question of what purpose educational assessment serves. A growing body of international research suggests that educational assessment is a new mechanism of social and political control aimed to legitimize social inequalities. Thus, the primary goal of this study was to investigate what kind of changes the External Independent Knowledge Testing in Ukraine was expected to bring to Ukrainian society and whether the initial results of the reform were consistent with what was expected. Data was collected by means of interview, survey, and examining Ukrainian publications. The data revealed that the recent changes in traditional practices of assessment in Ukraine were aimed at serving much broader social purposes than those identified by Ukrainian policymakers. Under the guise of improving the quality of Ukrainian education and fighting corruption in higher education, the educational reforms in Ukraine are implementing an undetected new form of social and political preferences through education and testing. Thus, the reform helps new Ukrainian nobilities legitimize their status through the new system of exercising control over Ukrainian education.

This study, which utilized a mixed methods approach, is the first research study in Ukraine which explored the experiences of parents raising deaf or hard of hearing children. The outcome of the study includes a documented analysis and synthesis of the perceptions held by Ukrainian-hearing parents raising young deaf or hard of hearing children regarding the emotional and communicational impact of the diagnosis on their family functioning, their perceptions of existing services and/or programs, and their perceptions of the relationships with professionals. Three hundred and twenty-five families whose young children were enrolled in grade 0/1 in 48 residential schools for children with hearing loss across the country were sampled in a survey of the study and 17 families from among this number volunteered for follow-up interviews. The emotional impact of the diagnosis on the parents and other family members as well as such factors as communication mode, availability and accessibility of professional services, access to information on deafness, and educational choices were explored along with demographic and other characteristics. Parental thoughts and views in this study were consistent with international perspectives of parents that are documented in the literature: the need for informational support, guidelines and communication options for families were seen to be key factors. The responses of the participants of this study confirmed that greater access to educational options, support for overcoming stress and improving emotional well-being, as well as support for families in establishing healthy family interactions and empowering parents were among their most important requirements. Additionally, the findings of this study, stress the importance of focusing on family resources and family appraisal as key factors in the hearing family adaptation process to having children who are deaf or hard of hearing. / Special Education

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