Are there any winners in high-stakes mathematics testing? A qualitative case study exploring student, parent and teacher attitudes towards NAPLAN numeracy tests in years 3 and 5

Through the annual implementaion of National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), testing of mathematical standards across Australia invokes questions about the impact that high-stakes testing has for the teaching and learning of mathematics. According to recent studies on high-stakes testing, the role of the teacher is instrumental in children\u27s achievement results. The purpose of this case study is to explore perspectives about NAPLAN from key participants at one Western Australian Primary School, namely: students, teachers, and parents. The paper will report on the extent to which instructional pedagogy at one school has been affected by the implementation of NAPLAN testing and subsequent publication of results. Consistent with a phenomenological perspective, the qualitative data for this investigation were collected through semi-structured interviews and field notes. These data offered particular insights into how key participants viewed the impact of NAPLAN testing has had on the instructional pedagogy in Year 3 and Year 5 classrooms

It\u27s okay, I\u27m a...teacher. Is professional status important to teachers?

Teacher accountability and the debate around teacher quality are issues of international importance. As society places increasing demands on the teaching profession, and regulatory bodies around the globe raise the ‘standards’ for teachers to adhere to, the professional status of teachers is drawn into focus. This paper reports research findings of an investigation into the perspectives of professional status of teachers, held by pre-service teachers about to embark on their teaching career. This was a comparative study whereby data were collected from an Australian university and an American university to explore professional status as an international issue. This quantitative study utilised a Likert scale to gather responses from participants. Data were analysed and findings from both universities indicated that professional status was a significant concern for pre-service teachers. Pre-service teachers felt that whilst they may have entered their teaching degree as a vocation, they hoped to receive status, as a professional, within society

Two-Loop Vertices in Quantum Field Theory: Infrared and Collinear Divergent Configurations

A comprehensive study is performed of two-loop Feynman diagrams with three external legs which, due to the exchange of massless gauge-bosons, give raise to infrared and collinear divergencies. Their relevance in assembling realistic computations of next-to-next-to-leading corrections to physical observables is emphasised. A classification of infrared singular configurations, based on solutions of Landau equations, is introduced. Algorithms for the numerical evaluation of the residues of the infrared poles and of the infrared finite parts of diagrams are introduced and discussed within the scheme of dimensional regularization. Integral representations of Feynman diagrams which form a generalization of Nielsen - Goncharov polylogarithms are introduced and their numerical evaluation discussed. Numerical results are shown for all different families of multi-scale, two-loop, three-point infrared divergent diagrams and successful comparisons with analytical results, whenever available, are performed. Part of these results has already been included in a recent evaluation of electroweak pseudo-observables at the two-loop level.Comment: 62 pages, 15 figures, 16 table

SCOPE: Safer care for older persons (in residential) environments: A study protocol

BACKGROUND: The current profile of residents living in Canadian nursing homes includes elder persons with complex physical and social needs. High resident acuity can result in increased staff workload and decreased quality of work life. AIMS: Safer Care for Older Persons [in residential] Environments is a two year (2010 to 2012) proof-of-principle pilot study conducted in seven nursing homes in western Canada. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the feasibility of engaging front line staff to use quality improvement methods to integrate best practices into resident care. The goals of the study are to improve the quality of work life for staff, in particular healthcare aides, and to improve residents' quality of life. METHODS/DESIGN: The study has parallel research and quality improvement intervention arms. It includes an education and support intervention for direct caregivers to improve the safety and quality of their care delivery. We hypothesize that this intervention will improve not only the care provided to residents but also the quality of work life for healthcare aides. The study employs tools adapted from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Breakthrough Series: Collaborative Model and Canada's Safer Healthcare Now! improvement campaign. Local improvement teams in each nursing home (1 to 2 per facility) are led by healthcare aides (non-regulated caregivers) and focus on the management of specific areas of resident care. Critical elements of the program include local measurement, virtual and face-to-face learning sessions involving change management, quality improvement methods and clinical expertise, ongoing virtual and in person support, and networking. DISCUSSION: There are two sustainability challenges in this study: ongoing staff and leadership engagement, and organizational infrastructure. Addressing these challenges will require strategic planning with input from key stakeholders for sustaining quality improvement initiatives in the long-term care sector

Who am I in the eyes of the world? A comparative study of Pre-Service Teachers\u27 perceptions of Early Childhood Educators\u27 professional status in their community. Australian and American perspectives

This research provides an insight into the perceptions held by pre-service teachers on the professional status of early childhood educators in their community. As a comparative study, it presents results from both Australian and American perspectives. It is the first research of its kind in studying pre-service teachers’ perceptions of ECEC teacher’s status in relation to the Australian context or in comparing perspectives from Australia and the USA. The paper illuminates on two main points. It presents findings on multiple level pre-service teachers’ perceptions of early childhood educators’ professional status in their community and also examines how the perceptions gathered from pre-service teachers in Australia compare to those from America, opening the field for cultural and policial analysis and discourse. This study’s significance is deepened within the Australian political landscape as it comes at a time when the Early Childhood Education and Care sector has implemented a new quality framework which prioritises teaching qualifications. The comparative aspect of the study thereby provides rich opportunity for cross cultural analysis in relation to how Early Childhood Educators are viewed within their own broader educational community membership

A protocol for advanced psychometric assessment of surveys

Background and Purpose. In this paper, we present a protocol for advanced psychometric assessments of surveys based on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. We use the Alberta Context Tool (ACT) as an exemplar survey to which this protocol can be applied. Methods. Data mapping, acceptability, reliability, and validity are addressed. Acceptability is assessed with missing data frequencies and the time required to complete the survey. Reliability is assessed with internal consistency coefficients and information functions. A unitary approach to validity consisting of accumulating evidence based on instrument content, response processes, internal structure, and relations to other variables is taken. We also address assessing performance of survey data when aggregated to higher levels (e.g., nursing unit). Discussion. In this paper we present a protocol for advanced psychometric assessment of survey data using the Alberta Context Tool (ACT) as an exemplar survey; application of the protocol to the ACT survey is underway. Psychometric assessment of any survey is essential to obtaining reliable and valid research findings. This protocol can be adapted for use with any nursing survey.<br /

An investigation into the impact of high-stakes testing, through the naplan assessment, on the teaching and learning of mathematics in one primary school

In 2008, the implementation of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) commenced in all schools across Australia. This assessment of mathematical and literacy standards across Australia raised questions about the impact which high-stakes testing has on teaching and learning. This research specifically focused on the effect NAPLAN has had on the teaching and learning of mathematics. The study explored perspectives about NAPLAN from key participants; students, teachers and parents at one Western Australian Primary School. These perspectives included the potential anxiety experienced by students and how this affected their performance in NAPLAN. According to recent research on high-stakes testing, the role of the teacher is instrumental in children’s achievement results. As such, this study also investigated the extent to which instructional pedagogy at one school had been altered by the implementation of NAPLAN and the subsequent publication of results. Moreover, this study investigated the effect NAPLAN had on parents’ understanding of the national testing program and how NAPLAN had affected their relationship with the school. Consistent with a phenomenological perspective, the qualitative data for this investigation were collected through semi-structured interviews and field notes. Moreover, collected data offer insight into how the implementation of NAPLAN has affected stakeholders’ attitudes towards the teaching and learning of mathematics

Video Frame Differentiation for Streamed Multimedia over Heavilty Loaded IEEE 802.11e WLAN using TXOP

In this paper we perform an experimental investigation of using video frame differentiation in conjunction with the TXOP facility to enhance the transmission of parallel multimedia streaming sessions in IEEE 802.11e. The delay constraints associated with the audio and video streams that comprise a multimedia session pose the greatest challenge since real-time multimedia is particularly sensitive to delay as the packets require a strict bounded end-to-end delay. Video streaming applications are considered to be bursty. This burstiness is due to the frame rate of vide., the intrinsic hierarchical structure of the constituent video frame types. The TXOP facility is particularly suited to efficiently deal with this burstiness since it can be used to reserve bandwidth for the duration of the packet burst associated with a packetised video frame. Through experimental investigation, we show that there is a significant performance improvement for video streaming applications under heavily loaded conditions by differentiating between the constituent video frame types. The results shoe that video frame differentiation reduces the mean loss rate by 12% and increases the mean PSNR by 13.1 dB

A Comparison of Therapeutic Regimens in the Treatment of Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism is a chronic medical condition that results in the inadequate production of thyroid hormones. Thyroid hormones are essential for the metabolism of almost every organ in the body. The prominent symptoms of hypothyroidism include lack of energy, weight gain, constipation, and intolerance to cold temperatures. Medical therapies aim to replenish thyroid hormones enough to meet the body\u27s metabolic demands. Unfortunately, many individuals experience persistent symptoms despite stable thyroid hormone levels. Current treatment options for hypothyroidism include Levothyroxine, Liothyronine, and Desiccated Thyroid Extract (DTE). Levothyroxine contains synthetic T4 and is the current gold-standard medical therapy in hypothyroid patients. Liothyronine, synthetic T3, can be added to Levothyroxine to improve symptomatology. DTE is a natural form of T3 and T4 and the historical first-line medical treatment. Combination therapy with Liothyronine or DTE is an option for symptomatic euthyroid patients on Levothyroxine monotherapy. Unfortunately, most primary care providers do not feel comfortable managing alternative regimens. This article’s focus is to review hypothyroidism treatment modalities while discussing their efficacy and reviewing current practice guidelines

Spherical Fibonacci point sets for illumination integrals

Article first published online: 24 JUL 2013Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods exhibit a faster convergence rate than that of classic Monte Carlo methods. This feature has made QMC prevalent in image synthesis, where it is frequently used for approximating the value of spherical integrals (e.g. illumination integral). The common approach for generating QMC sampling patterns for spherical integration is to resort to unit square low-discrepancy sequences and map them to the hemisphere. However such an approach is suboptimal as these sequences do not account for the spherical topology and their discrepancy properties on the unit square are impaired by the spherical projection. In this paper we present a strategy for producing high-quality QMC sampling patterns for spherical integration by resorting to spherical Fibonacci point sets. We show that these patterns, when applied to illumination integrals, are very simple to generate and consistently outperform existing approaches, both in terms of root mean square error (RMSE) and image quality. Furthermore, only a single pattern is required to produce an image, thanks to a scrambling scheme performed directly in the spherical domain.FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project PEst-OE/EEI/UI0752/2011