Factors Affecting the Assessment of Student Achievement

To what extent do expectations, disconfirming information, and degree of parental involvement in schooling affect teachers' judgments about a student's growth and achievement? This study manipulated these variables with 147 preservice teacher candidates as they assessed the progress of a student named Chris in language arts over a 10-week period. As predicted by social cognition findings, these results showed that early expectations and differential growth patterns were substantial contributors to differences in this student's reported final grade. For example, these assessors were impressed by their student's socioeconomic background and other contextual data, and this early information affected the grade awarded him or her weeks later. In addition, the pattern of achievement exhibited by Chris was also significantly related to the report card grade. If Chris seemed to improve, the grade improved, but if he or she remained steady or even fell behind, the grade was unaffected. The implications of these findings for assessment practice are discussed briefly in the conclusion.Dans quelle mesure les attentes, l'information invalidante, et le degré d'implication parentale dans l'éducation affectent-ils l'évaluation que font les enseignants du progrès et des réalisations des élèves? Voilà les variables que la présente étude a manipulé avec 147 stagiaires pendant que ceux-ci évaluaient le progrès sur dix semaines qu'a réalisé un élève nommé Chris dans un cours des arts du langage. Tels que prédit par les connaissances sur la cognition sociale, les résultats ont indiqué que les attentes du début du stage et les schémas de croissance différentiels ont grandement contribué à l'écart dans la note finale que l'on accordait à l'élève. Par exemple, les évaluateurs ont été influencés par le milieu socio-économique ainsi que par d'autres données contextuelles qu'on leur avait présentés au début de l'étude. Ces renseignements ont affecté la note qu'on accordait à Chris plusieurs semaines plus tard. De plus, il existait une relation significative entre le modèle de réussites effectué par Chris et la note qu'on lui donnait sur son bulletin. Quand Chris semblait faire des progrès, sa note s'améliorait; par contre, quand il restait au même niveau ou qu'il réussissait moins bien, sa note restait inchangée. On discute rapidement des implications de ces résultats pour la pratique d'évaluation

Confidence bands for multiplicative hazards models:Flexible resampling approaches

We propose new resampling-based approaches to construct asymptotically valid time-simultaneous confidence bands for cumulative hazard functions in multistate Cox models. In particular, we exemplify the methodology in detail for the simple Cox model with time-dependent covariates, where the data may be subject to independent right-censoring or left-truncation. We use simulations to investigate their finite sample behavior. Finally, the methods are utilized to analyze two empirical examples with survival and competing risks data

Instrumental Variable Estimation in a Survival Context

Bias due to unobserved confounding can seldom be ruled out with certainty when estimating the causal effect of a nonrandomized treatment. The instrumental variable (IV) design offers, under certain assumptions, the opportunity to tame confounding bias, without directly observing all confounders. The IV approach is very well developed in the context of linear regression and also for certain generalized linear models with a nonlinear link function. However, IV methods are not as well developed for regression analysis with a censored survival outcome. In this article, we develop the IV approach for regression analysis in a survival context, primarily under an additive hazards model, for which we describe 2 simple methods for estimating causal effects. The first method is a straightforward 2-stage regression approach analogous to 2-stage least squares commonly used for IV analysis in linear regression. In this approach, the fitted value from a first-stage regression of the exposure on the IV is entered in place of the exposure in the second-stage hazard model to recover a valid estimate of the treatment effect of interest. The second method is a so-called control function approach, which entails adding to the additive hazards outcome model, the residual from a first-stage regression of the exposure on the IV. Formal conditions are given justifying each strategy, and the methods are illustrated in a novel application to a Mendelian randomization study to evaluate the effect of diabetes on mortality using data from the Health and Retirement Study. We also establish that analogous strategies can also be used under a proportional hazards model specification, provided the outcome is rare over the entire follow-up

Analysis of time-to-event for observational studies: Guidance to the use of intensity models

This paper provides guidance for researchers with some mathematical background on the conduct of time-to-event analysis in observational studies based on intensity (hazard) models. Discussions of basic concepts like time axis, event definition and censoring are given. Hazard models are introduced, with special emphasis on the Cox proportional hazards regression model. We provide check lists that may be useful both when fitting the model and assessing its goodness of fit and when interpreting the results. Special attention is paid to how to avoid problems with immortal time bias by introducing time-dependent covariates. We discuss prediction based on hazard models and difficulties when attempting to draw proper causal conclusions from such models. Finally, we present a series of examples where the methods and check lists are exemplified. Computational details and implementation using the freely available R software are documented in Supplementary Material. The paper was prepared as part of the STRATOS initiative.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figures. For associated Supplementary material, see http://publicifsv.sund.ku.dk/~pka/STRATOSTG8

Non-Destructive Identification of Cold and Extremely Localized Single Molecular Ions

A simple and non-destructive method for identification of a single molecular ion sympathetically cooled by a single laser cooled atomic ion in a linear Paul trap is demonstrated. The technique is based on a precise determination of the molecular ion mass through a measurement of the eigenfrequency of a common motional mode of the two ions. The demonstrated mass resolution is sufficiently high that a particular molecular ion species can be distinguished from other equally charged atomic or molecular ions having the same total number of nucleons

Hungarian International Development Cooperation: Context, Stakeholders and Performance

This paper explores the domestic and international context of Hungary's emerging international development policy. Specifically, it looks at three factors that may influence how this policy operates: membership in the European Union (EU) and potential ‘Europeanization’, Hungary's wider foreign policy strategy, and the influence of domestic stakeholders. In order to uncover how these factors affect the country's international development policy, semi-structured interviews were carried out with the main stakeholders. The main conclusions are: (1) While accession to the EU did play a crucial role in restarting Hungary's international development policy, the integration has had little effect since then; (2) international development policy seems to serve mainly Hungary's regional strategic foreign policy and economic interests, and not its global development goals; and (3) although all the domestic development stakeholders are rather weak, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) still seems to play a dominating role. Convergence with European requirements and best practices is, therefore, clearly hindered by foreign policy interests and also by the weakness of non- governmental stakeholders

Preliminary results from the project ”Slow On the Bottle – Enjoy the Road (SOBER)”: Instruments to measure implicit associations towards drunk-driving and to change implicit drunk-driving associations

Attitude-based interventions are often a key element in attempts to change behavior, but do not always have the expected effect. A reason for the lack of success may be that people have two types of attitudes, explicit (introspectively accessible, what people say they mean) and implicit attitudes (not accessible to conscious introspection, cannot be measured by questionnaires, but by other experiments methods). Implicit attitudes are assessed by measuring participants implicit associations between a target category (here drunk-driving and sober-driving) and valence categories (here good and bad words). International research shows that a person’s implicit associations’ sensitivity can be changed by relatively simple behavioral methods. This study aims to adjust existing methods of implicit associations’ measurement and of implicit associations change, to measure and change implicit associations towards drunk-driving. As a first step, implicit associations towards drunk-driving and sober-driving were measured with the Go/No-Go Associations Task (GNAT), and the implicit associations change was performed with behavioral training method, the Avoid/Approach Task (AAT). The preliminary results show that the GNAT successfully measures implicit associations towards drunk-driving and sober-driving. Also, the preliminary results show that the implicit associations towards drunk-driving and sober-driving were changed with the AAT. The results are promising as it looks like both instruments are applicable. The study has both national and international value, as the first study that measures implicit attitudes towards drunk-driving and also the first to try to change drunk-driving implicit attitudes. Pending a complete sample and further analysis, the results will reveal drunk-driving attitudes and if these attitudes can be changed in a socially beneficial ways

Lifetime measurement of the metastable 3d 2D5/2 state in the 40Ca+ ion using the shelving technique on a few-ion string

We present a measurement of the lifetime of the metastable 3d 2D5/2 state in the 40Ca+ ion, using the so-called shelving technique on a string of five Doppler laser-cooled ions in a linear Paul trap. A detailed account of the data analysis is given, and systematic effects due to unwanted excitation processes and collisions with background gas atoms are discussed and estimated. From a total of 6805 shelving events, we obtain a lifetime tau=1149+/-14(stat.)+/-4(sys.)ms, a result which is in agreement with the most recent measurements.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. Submitted for publicatio