Preschool/Kindergarten teachers' conceptions of standardised testing

Standardised tests play an important role in early childhood (EC) education in many countries. Although teachers' conceptions largely determine whether and how these instruments are used, research on this topic is scarce. As a result, factors that influence conceptions of standardised testing have remained largely unexplored. To examine teachers' conceptions of standardised testing and aspects that may influence these conceptions, Brown's CoA-III-A questionnaire was distributed to 97 EC educators. Based on their responses, a selection of six preschool/kindergarten teachers participated in a series of semi-structured interviews. Analyses of the questionnaire and the interviews indicated that the teachers did not see these tests solely as instruments for accountability or improvement. While some perceived the test as pleasant confirmation, others perceived the results as negative opposition to their own observations. The teachers' conceptions were influenced by classroom population, management team, and the ascribed purpose of the test

Backgrounds of language delays of young children in East Groningen

Oost-Groningen is een gebied met traditioneel veel leerlingen met taalachterstanden. Recent reviewonderzoek heeft dat nog eens bevestigd. Inmiddels is veel bekend over de achtergronden van taalachterstanden. Desondanks stagneert de achterstandsbestrijding in deze regio. In deze bijdrage wordt getracht na te gaan op welke manier achtergrondkenmerken van ouders uit Oost-Groningen, hun verwachtingen van hun kinderen, hun opvattingen ten aanzien van onderwijs en aspecten van informele educatie een verklaring vormen voor de taalontwikkeling van 4-jarige kinderen in groep 1. Uit toetsing van het gepresenteerde theoretische model met LISREL blijkt dat opvattingen en verwachtingen van ouders in Oost-Groningen substantieel mediëren tussen achtergrondkenmerken van ouders en de taalontwikkeling, ook als gecontroleerd wordt intelligentie en verbaal geheugen van de kinderen. Ook mediëren opvattingen en verwachtingen tussen de achtergrondkenmerken en aspecten van informele educatie. Informele educatie medieert echter niet tussen de achtergrondkenmerken en taalontwikkeling. Het belang van informatieve geletterdheid van ouders en van opvattingen en verwachtingen wordt besproken. Het feit dat opvattingen en verwachtingen als leefstijlkenmerk doorwerken in de proximale processen, maar tevens verankerd zijn in de culturele leefstijl van ouders weerspiegelt de complexiteit van het vraagstuk

NBS monograph

From Abstract: "An introductory text gives a detailed description of each column of the solar ledger. Tables include counts of lines of each spectrum recorded in the identification column, leading lines in the first and second spectra, and summaries of molecules and elements present in the sun. About 73 percent of the lines are wholly or partially identified. Sixty-three elements are recorded as present.

Learning Interpretable Rules for Multi-label Classification

Multi-label classification (MLC) is a supervised learning problem in which, contrary to standard multiclass classification, an instance can be associated with several class labels simultaneously. In this chapter, we advocate a rule-based approach to multi-label classification. Rule learning algorithms are often employed when one is not only interested in accurate predictions, but also requires an interpretable theory that can be understood, analyzed, and qualitatively evaluated by domain experts. Ideally, by revealing patterns and regularities contained in the data, a rule-based theory yields new insights in the application domain. Recently, several authors have started to investigate how rule-based models can be used for modeling multi-label data. Discussing this task in detail, we highlight some of the problems that make rule learning considerably more challenging for MLC than for conventional classification. While mainly focusing on our own previous work, we also provide a short overview of related work in this area.Comment: Preprint version. To appear in: Explainable and Interpretable Models in Computer Vision and Machine Learning. The Springer Series on Challenges in Machine Learning. Springer (2018). See http://www.ke.tu-darmstadt.de/bibtex/publications/show/3077 for further informatio

Basic Hypergeometric Functions and Covariant Spaces for Even Dimensional Representations of U_q[osp(1/2)]

Representations of the quantum superalgebra U_q[osp(1/2)] and their relations to the basic hypergeometric functions are investigated. We first establish Clebsch-Gordan decomposition for the superalgebra U_q[osp(1/2)] in which the representations having no classical counterparts are incorporated. Formulae for these Clebsch-Gordan coefficients are derived, and it is observed that they may be expressed in terms of the $Q$-Hahn polynomials. We next investigate representations of the quantum supergroup OSp_q(1/2) which are not well-defined in the classical limit. Employing the universal T-matrix, the representation matrices are obtained explicitly, and found to be related to the little Q-Jacobi polynomials. Characteristically, the relation Q = -q is satisfied in all cases. Using the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients derived here, we construct new noncommutative spaces that are covariant under the coaction of the even dimensional representations of the quantum supergroup OSp_q(1/2).Comment: 16 pages, no figure