20 years of interactive tasks in large‐scale assessments: Process data as a way towards sustainable change?

Background Over the last 20 years, educational large-scale assessments have undergone dramatic changes moving away from simple paper-pencil assessments to innovative, technology-based assessments. This comprehensive switch has led to some rather technical improvements such as identifying early guessing or improving standardization. Objectives At the same time, process data on student interaction with items has been shown to carry value for obtaining, reporting, and interpreting additional results on student skills in international comparisons. In fact, on the basis of innovative simulated assessment environments, news about student rankings, under- and overperforming countries, and novel ideas on how to improve educational systems are prominently featured in the media. At the same time, few of these efforts have been used in a sustainable way to create new knowledge (i.e., on a scientific level), to improve learning and instruction (i.e., on a practical level), and to provide actionable advice to political stakeholders (i.e., on a policy level). Methods This paper will adopt a meta-perspective and discuss recent and current developments with a focus on these three perspectives. There will be a particular emphasis on new assessment environments that have been recently employed in large-scale assessments. Results and Conclusions Most findings remain very task specific. We propose a necessary steps that need to be taken in order to yield sustainable change from analysing process data on all three levels. Implications New technologies might be capable of contributing to the research-policy-practitioner gap when it comes to utilizing the results from large-scale assessments to increase the quality of education around the globe but this will require a more systematic approach towards researching them

Understanding the Role of Nonverbal Tokens in the Spread of Online Information

Individuals and society continue to suffer as the fake news infodemic continues unabated. Current research has focused largely on the verbal part (plain text) of fake news, the nuances of nonverbal communication (emojis and other semiotic tokens) remain largely understudied. We explore the relationship between fake news and emojis in this work through two studies. The first study found that information with emojis is retweeted 1.28 times more and liked 1.41 times more than information without them. Additionally, our research finds that tweets with emojis are more common in fake news (49%) than true news (33%). We also find that emojis are more popular with fake news compared to true news. In our second study, we conducted an online experiment with true and fake news (N=99) to understand how the functional usage (replace/emphasize) of emoji affects the spread of information. We find that when an emoji replaces a verbal token, it is liked less (p0.05)

Replication of Internet Privacy Concerns in the Mobile Banking Context

This study is a conceptual replication of the work of Hong and Thong (2013), who developed the Internet Privacy Concerns scale to measure individuals’ concerns regarding how personal information is handled by websites. We adapt the wording of the original survey items to the context of mobile banking and follow the same procedures to assess the scale. The replication results reinforce the stability and applicability of the scale over the years and in different scenarios. In contrast with the original study, however, we detect a high correlation between the Control and Awareness dimensions, suggesting the design of an additional second-order dimension that we label “exposure management” (individuals’ consciousness about existing controls that mitigate the risks of personal data loss)

Corporate digital responsibility

We propose that digital technologies and related data become increasingly prevalent and that, consequently, ethical concerns arise. Looking at four principal stakeholders, we propose corporate digital responsibility (CDR) as a novel concept. We define CDR as the set of shared values and norms guiding an organization's operations with respect to four main processes related to digital technology and data. These processes are the creation of technology and data capture, operation and decision making, inspection and impact assessment, and refinement of technology and data. We expand our discussion by highlighting how to managerially effectuate CDR com-pliant behavior based on an organizational culture perspective. Our conceptualization unlocks future research opportunities, especially regarding pertinent antecedents and consequences. Managerially, we shed first light on how an organization's shared values and norms regarding CDR can get translated into actionable guidelines for users. This provides grounds for future discussions related to CDR readiness, implementation, and success.Open access articleThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

NPM1 Deletion Is Associated with Gross Chromosomal Rearrangements in Leukemia

BACKGROUND: NPM1 gene at chromosome 5q35 is involved in recurrent translocations in leukemia and lymphoma. It also undergoes mutations in 60% of adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cases with normal karyotype. The incidence and significance of NPM1 deletion in human leukemia have not been elucidated. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Bone marrow samples from 145 patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and AML were included in this study. Cytogenetically 43 cases had isolated 5q-, 84 cases had 5q- plus other changes and 18 cases had complex karyotype without 5q deletion. FISH and direct sequencing investigated the NPM1 gene. NPM1 deletion was an uncommon event in the "5q- syndrome" but occurred in over 40% of cases with high risk MDS/AML with complex karyotypes and 5q loss. It originated from large 5q chromosome deletions. Simultaneous exon 12 mutations were never found. NPM1 gene status was related to the pattern of complex cytogenetic aberrations. NPM1 haploinsufficiency was significantly associated with monosomies (p<0.001) and gross chromosomal rearrangements, i.e., markers, rings, and double minutes (p<0.001), while NPM1 disomy was associated with structural changes (p=0.013). Interestingly, in complex karyotypes with 5q- TP53 deletion and/or mutations are not specifically associated with NPM1 deletion. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: NPM1/5q35 deletion is a consistent event in MDS/AML with a 5q-/-5 in complex karyotypes. NPM1 deletion and NPM1 exon 12 mutations appear to be mutually exclusive and are associated with two distinct cytogenetic subsets of MDS and AML

Privacy Concerns and Information Disclosure: An Illusion of Control Hypothesis

In this paper, we run a series of experiments in order to investigate one possible cause of inconsistency in people’s behavior and concerns regarding online privacy. Even though individuals claim that privacy is very important, many end up revealing considerable private information in online social networks. It is possible that individuals suffer from illusion of control when dealing with the privacy of their data: when subjects are personally responsible for the publication of private information online, they may also tend to perceive some form of control over the access and use of that information by others. If, instead, a third party were responsible for the publication of the same data, they may feel a loss of control and realize that once private information is posted online not only can it be accessed, but also used by others without authorization: once it is available on the network, that information becomes indeed public

Self-disclosures, Impression Formation, and Biases in Web 2.0

<p> The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed the rise of Web 2.0 technologies that allow users to create and share content online with friends – and strangers alike. These technologies have generated an ‘enthusiasm for sharing’ as well as privacy concerns that researchers, organizations and policy makers often measure and debate. After introducing the trade-offs of information sharing (Chapter 1), I investigate one of the antecedents of willingness to share personal information – namely, perceived control – as a possible explanation for the success of online social media, notwithstanding people’s diffuse concern for privacy protection. The results challenge the consensus view of control as a sufficient means of privacy protection, since increased perceived control may lead to higher self-disclosure, even in situations of higher objective risks (Chapter 2). I then examine some of the consequences that public disclosures entail in terms of impression formation and reputation building for the person who discloses information. It could be argued that online disclosures, even if embarrassing or incriminating, will soon stop representing diagnostic information about people – either because we will forget about them as time passes (Chapter 3), or because, as social norms about disclosure change, the majority of people will soon be tainted by embarrassing online records, which may contribute to render them more lenient towards others’ disclosures (Chapter 4). The results of studies in Chapters 3 and 4 challenge this view, and suggest that online disclosures may have a long lasting effect on impression formation.</p

Privacy Concerns and Information Disclosure: An Illusion of Control Hypothesis

This paper investigates one possible explanation for people’s conflicting attitudes regarding protection of private information. The proliferation of studies about crimes such as identity theft and cyber-stalking, together with the sharp increase in the number of victims, and the easiness with which data can be retrieved on the Web has raised people’s awareness and concerns about the consequences of revelation of private information, especially on the Internet. On the other hand, the increasing popularity of online social networks and blogs suggests that more and more people are willing to reveal all kinds of information about themselves to the members of these communities. In order to understand this dichotomy, we introduce and test the hypothesis that people may confuse control over publication of private information with control over accessibility and use of that information by third parties. Borrowing the terminology of psychology and behavioral decision research, we refer to this hypothesis as “illusion of control”. We designed two experiments in the form of online surveys to students at Carnegie Mellon University, in which we manipulated control over information publication. The results provide empirical evidence of illusion of control

Discounting the Past: Bad Weighs Heavier than Good

This paper introduces and tests the hypothesis that the effects of information with negative valence tend to fade away more slowly than the effects of information with positive valence, not only because their immediate impact may be stronger, but also because the two types of information are discounted differently. To empirically test this hypothesis, we designed three survey‐based randomized experiments, in which we manipulated the valence of the information that subjects are exposed to and the time to which such information refers. We measured how our subjects reacted to such information using judgment metrics derived from the literature or created ad‐hoc for our experiments. We used a difference‐in‐difference model to disentangle the effects of valence, time and their interaction. Our findings provide some empirical support for our hypothesis. We suggest the theoretical grounds that could motivate differential discounting, and the implications of such phenomenon in a society where negative and positive information about people is so easily retrievable

NCRN Meeting Spring 2014: Aiming at a More Cost-Effective Census Via Online Data Collection: Privacy Trade-Offs of Geo-Location

presentation at NCRN Spring 2014 meetin