Background: Bipolar disorders represent a serious mental health problem, but clinicians often fail to detect bipolar diagnoses. The validation of brief and accurate self-report questionnaires may aid in the detection of bipolar disorder, leading to more appropriate treatment and faster recovery. Many such measures exist, but few have been thoroughly tested in undergraduates. Methods: Three self-report questionnaires used to detect bipolar disorder (the Hypomanic Personality Scale[HPS], Mood Disorder Questionnaire [MDQ], and General Behavior Inventory ? 15 item version[GBI-15]) were administered to undergraduate psychology students during the first week of the semester. Participants who were selected based on high and low scores on the self-report screeners completed the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV, an instrument for diagnosing mental disorders. Participants also completed a battery of self-report measures for constructs previously found to be related to bipolar disorder. Results: Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves, sensitivity and specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were used to investigate usefulness of the three screeners in predicting SCID diagnoses of bipolar spectrum disorders. The three screeners did not demonstrate very good sensitivity or area under the curve for detecting a bipolar spectrum diagnosis, and they generally demonstrated low to moderate predictive values. Of the three, the GBI-15 performed the most adequately in this sample (positive predictive value of approximately .33). All three screeners demonstrated adequate negative predictive values (between .88 and .92). Discussion: The GBI-15 has some unique features that may help explain its outperformance of the other screeners in undergraduates, but suggestions are provided for the development of better screening tools.

Yes / We describe a study conducted during 2009-12 into innovative assessment practice, evaluating an assessed coursework task on a final year Medical Genetics module for Biomedical Science undergraduates. An authentic e-assessment coursework task was developed, integrating objectively marked online questions with an online DNA sequence analysis tool (BLAST), routinely used by NHS and research professionals. The aim was to combine the assessment of understanding of complex module learning outcomes with real-world authentic skills highly valued in the work place. This approach challenges the oft-heard accusation that online computer-marked tests can lack validity and authenticity in higher education. The study demonstrates the content and construct validity of this form of e-assessment, showing that careful question design, allied with integration with the real life BLAST tool, enables instructors to assess complex higher order understanding, and requires students to demonstrate skills relevant for the work place. A study of three years of test results and measures of internal consistency data also show the reliability of this assessment. In addition, the results of surveys of student opinion, and positive feedback from student module feedback questionnaires suggest that it is effective in terms of face validity.

No / This three year study investigates how undergraduate students engage with topic-based formative feedback on e-assessments consisting of multiple choice and extended matching questions. After submitting the assessment, the student does not receive directive feedback on individual questions, but instead they are shown diagnostic facilitative feedback on the different subject topic areas covered in the test. The study looks into student engagement with this type of topic-based feedback: engagement is measured in terms of time commitment, number of questions answered, and the distribution of timing of the student effort. Through quantitative analysis of three years of student data, the paper explores whether there is evidence of different engagement patterns between the stronger and weaker students, as measured by performance on the subsequent summative module examination. The paper concludes that there is evidence that the more successful students did engage with the formative assessments significantly more than the mid-ranking students, and the least successful students engaged least of all. Qualitative questionnaire data also indicate positive student attitudes towards this kind of feedback and suggest that the feedback is mostly used to evaluate the revision process.

This study is influenced by phenomenological approaches, and is an inquiry into secondary mathematics teachers’ lived experiences with ephemeral assessment opportunities such as observations of, and conversations with, students. This phenomenon is explored through the use of reflective journals, semi-structured interviews, and focus group interviews. Two layers of analysis were used to better understand the phenomenon. The first layer focuses on emergent themes of what and how teachers think and do in the moment. The emergent themes were interrelated and categorized into eliciting, interpreting, and acting. The second layer focuses on the emergent factors that contribute to what and how teachers think and do during the ephemeral assessment process. The emergent factors were interrelated and categorized into teacher, student, relationships, and contexts. Through the two layers, the complexity of the ephemeral assessment process has been developed.

Published Article / The implementation of the outcomes-based education and training (OBET) and learner-centred approaches specifically in the health technology programmes at the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) exposed facilitators to new challenges in teaching and assessment. The current assessment environment in these programmes was established, using two questionnaires aimed at facilitators and students. The results of the study showed a trend towards innovation in assessment and the establishment of an assessment culture when compared with specific characteristics in literature on meaningful and scholarly assessment practices.

The overarching question for this study is: to what extent are teachers using summative assessment data in a formative way? A survey research design study was implemented to address this question. A web-based survey was administered to elementary, middle, and high school teachers in a large, suburban school division in central Virginia. The survey data were used to determine the frequency with which teachers administered specific types of summative assessments, analyzed student summative assessment data, made changes in their instructional practice as a result of their analysis, and the level of teachers’ assessment literacy. The results of this study suggest teachers are administering a variety of summative assessments, with varying frequencies, throughout the year and analyzing data on a regular basis. Teachers’ formative use of summative assessment data is most often demonstrated through analysis using central tendency statistics. Disaggregating data by content standards or student subgroups is not as frequently attempted. Regardless of the methods of data analysis, an overwhelming majority of teachers reported using assessment data results to evaluate their instructional practice and make changes to enhance student learning. The assessment literacy level of teachers did not appear to have any influence on the extent to which they use summative assessments in a formative way. However, assessment literacy scores did differ across teacher characteristics. High school teachers had a higher assessment literacy score than elementary school teachers, and teachers with graduate degrees scored higher than those with a bachelor’s degree. Experience mattered as well; more experienced teachers had a higher assessment literacy score than beginning teachers. Finally, science and mathematics teachers had a higher assessment literacy score than elementary teachers. The findings of this study give building administrators and staff development leaders insight into current instructional practices of teachers. Additionally, a general measure of assessment literacy establishes a baseline from which educational leaders can develop future training to raise the assessment literacy of teachers

Based on evidence of the success of data informed interventions in the literature, we undertook a qualitative case study investigation of how two public primary schools used the results of the two external assessments, the Gauteng Provincial Assessment (GPA) and the Annual National Assessment (ANA) in 2008, to improve teaching and learning. At the time of the study the Department of Basic Education (DBE) has not yet guided the schools officially how to use the results and the district participating in the study used innovative measures to assist the schools. During semi-structured interviews, the district coordinator and principal, head of department and Grade 3 Literacy and Numeracy teachers at each of the two schools helped us understand how they interacted with the results. Several reasons were given why neither of the two schools used the GPA results. The ANA results were more useful for the classroom and the district and both schools considered them in part for planning their intervention strategies for the following year. Both exercises were new to the schools and at the time of the study the DBE had not yet provided teachers with guidance on how to use the test results to improve teaching and learning. As a result the two schools studied made very little use of the ANA scores, while the GPA results were found by the teachers to be of no assistance. Instead both schools relied on their internal assessment practices. The DBE have started to address the lack of guidance on how to use the results in 2011.

This study examines the relationship between the use of formative assessment in the middle school classroom and select causal factors. For the purpose of this study, the definition of formative assessments is that proposed by Heritage, Kim, Vendliski, and Herman as, “A systematic process to continuously gather evidence and provide feedback about learning while instruction is under way” (2009, p. 1). Factors affecting the use of formative assessments explored in this study include leadership behaviors, professional development, the influence of instructional coaches, and aspects of teacher demographics. Through a mixed-method design, utilizing both a quantitative and qualitative approach, data were collected and analyzed. The quantitative data showed no any significant relationship between formative assessment and the independent variables of leadership behavior, professional development, and the influence of instructional coaches. The data showed that in the area of teacher demographics, there did exist a significant relationship between the grade level taught and the use of formative assessments, suggesting that teachers in the highest grade level (grade 8) had the highest frequency of use. Data collected through the qualitative research revealed that the school in which more frequent professional development training was provided by the school’s instructional coach in the area of formative assessment strategies, the frequency of their use was more prevalent. The findings suggest that the influence of the instructional coach is a factor in teachers’ use of formative assessment. Results from this study add to the body of evidence relating to use of formative assessment. As a result of the findings, the position of instructional coach and how they impact student achievement is recommended for further study.

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This project was designed to extend the principles of natural categorization to the classification of landscapes for visual quality assessment. In the first study, 20 lay people named and outlined distinct geographic units on USGS topographic maps. Six of the units identified were selected for further study on the basis of ratings of overall environmental quality, familiarity, and naturalness. Consensual names and boundaries of the units were determined. In the second study, the same 20 subjects rated 15 scenes from each of the 6 units for representativeness (typicality) and visual quality. The ratings of representativeness and visual quality were highly reliable, with coefficients ranging from.98 to.84. The correlations between representativeness and visual quality were variable. The correlations were positive for the two high environmental quality units (r =.78 and r =.83, p<.05). Representativeness and visual quality were positively related for one of the two moderate quality environments (r =.53, p<.05). In the two low quality environments, the correlations were non-significant, but for one of these units there was a negative trend (r = -.45), and this relationship was significantly different from the other five correlations. Overall, these results suggest that the principles of natural categorization are active in the conceptual analysis of environments, judgements of representativeness and visual quality are reliable, and judgements of representativeness and visual quality are not the same. Judgements of representativeness can be used in resource decision making to provide reliable information about what is characteristic of an environment and to determine how development proposals relate to the existing character of an area. In addition, the principles of natural categorization are used in connectionist models to explain how humans identify objects and develop concepts. The principles of natural categorization are active in environmental perception, but it remains to be seen whether the connectionist approach can provide adequate models of environmental perception. This research provides a method which can be used to study how environmental perception relates to natural categorization.