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

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

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

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

An Experimental Investigation of Real-time Video Transmission over IEEE 802.11e WLAN Networks using TXOP

Real-time multimedia streaming applications require a strict bounded end-to-end delay and are considered to be bursty as each video frame is typically transmitted as a burst of packets. In this paper we show how the distribution of video frame sizes can be used to efficiently dimension the IEEE 802.11e TXOP limit parameter to efficiently deal with this burstiness in order to enhance the transmission of real-time video streaming services. Through experimental investigation, we show that by using the mean video frame size to dimension the TXOP limit parameter, the transmission delay for the video frame is reduced by 67% under heavily loaded conditions. Other techniques investigated in this paper include applying the TXOP facility separately to each of the constituent I, P, and B video frame types

User Quality of Experience-aware Multimedia Streaming over Wireless Home Area Network

For multimedia streaming over wireless networks, there is a trade-off between the capacity of the wireless links and the end-user perceived-quality, which can be affected by the compression scheme used, content characteristics and adaptation algorithm (if any). In this paper, this trade-off is investigated for streaming various motion content multimedia over an IEEE 802.11b-based Wireless-Home Area Network using the Quality-Oriented Adaptation Scheme (QOAS). QOAS performance is compared to that of a non-adaptive scheme when using MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoding in terms of average end-user perceived quality, number of streaming sessions concurrently supported, loss rate, delay, jitter and total throughput. Simulation results show that by using QOAS and MPEG-4 encoded streams a much higher number of concurrent streams are supported at an average quality above “good” level on the ITU-T five-point quality scale in comparison with other situations. In this case all the other streaming performance parameters were also significantly better