Stories Of Contradiction In Policy And Practice: Challenging The Unspoken Realities Of Accountability Policies In Public Education

The purpose of this study is to understand the subjective reality of a teacher working in a low-performing school and how this reality influences their self-efficacy and autonomy in the classroom. The effectiveness of using designations and performance grades to rate a school or a teacher’s ability to perform within socially constructed standards will be questioned. This research examines the influence of school performance designations based on the personal experiences of teachers as they approach planning for instruction. A qualitative approach using narrative inquiry is used to capture the voices of teachers in North Carolina’s public schools as they navigate through the discourses of legislative mandates. The told stories of the participants capture the human experience while at the same time provide for a clearer picture of the reality of the work in which teachers are immersed on a daily basis. The data from this study suggests that teacher perceptions of being designated low performing or ineffective have a dramatically negative impact on what happens in the classroom, which also perpetuates low-performance in highly impacted schools. The unintended consequences of accountability policies are detailed in the participant’s stories which support the contradiction between policy and practice

Writing to learn statistics in an Advanced Placement Statistics course

This study investigated the use of writing in a statistics classroom to learn if writing provided a rich description of problem-solving processes of students as they solved problems. Through analysis of 329 written samples provided by students, it was determined that writing provided a rich description of problem-solving processes and enabled teachers to find student mistakes easier. Requiring students to write in a statistics course provided a window into the problem-solving abilities of students. The researcher also concluded that he was better able to help students fix errors and misunderstandings since writing made them easier to find. This study also investigated if there any differences when analyzing written samples of students, using ratings from a rubric, for problem-solving processes as they solve problems. A Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) procedure was used and found one statistically, significant difference between the problem-solving process of conceptual understanding and that of problem- solving ability, t (1643) = -9.231, p < .001. This suggested that students received a significantly lower score for conceptual understanding compared to problem-solving ability when the researcher analyzed their work using a rubric designed by Pugalee (2005)

Alternatives to project-specific consent for access to personal information for health research: Insights from a public dialogue

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The role of consent for research use of health information is contentious. Most discussion has focused on when project-specific consent may be waived but, recently, a broader range of consent options has been entertained, including broad opt-in for multiple studies with restrictions and notification with opt-out. We sought to elicit public values in this matter and to work toward an agreement about a common approach to consent for use of personal information for health research through deliberative public dialogues.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted seven day-long public dialogues, involving 98 participants across Canada. Immediately before and after each dialogue, participants completed a fixed-response questionnaire rating individuals' support for 3 approaches to consent in the abstract and their consent choices for 5 health research scenarios using personal information. They also rated how confident different safeguards made them feel that their information was being used responsibly.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Broad opt-in consent for use of personal information garnered the greatest support in the abstract. When presented with specific research scenarios, no one approach to consent predominated. When profit was introduced into the scenarios, consent choices shifted toward greater control over use. Despite lively and constructive dialogues, and considerable shifting in opinion at the individual level, at the end of the day, there was no substantive aggregate movement in opinion. Personal controls were among the most commonly cited approaches to improving people's confidence in the responsible use of their information for research.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Because no one approach to consent satisfied even a simple majority of dialogue participants and the importance placed on personal controls, a mechanism should be developed for documenting consent choice for different types of research, including ways for individuals to check who has accessed their medical record for purposes other than clinical care. This could be done, for example, through a web-based patient portal to their electronic health record. Researchers and policy makers should continue to engage the public to promote greater public understanding of the research process and to look for feasible alternatives to existing approaches to project-specific consent for observational research.</p

Framework for strategic wind farm site prioritisation based on modelled wolf reproduction habitat in Croatia

In order to meet carbon reduction targets, many nations are greatly expanding their wind power capacity. However, wind farm infrastructure potentially harms wildlife, and we must therefore find ways to balance clean energy demands with the need to protect wildlife. Wide-ranging carnivores live at low density and are particularly susceptible to disturbance from infrastructure development, so are a particular concern in this respect. We focused on Croatia, which holds an important population of wolves and is currently planning to construct many new wind farms. Specifically, we sought to identify an optimal subset of planned wind farms that would meet energy targets while minimising potential impact on wolves. A suitability model for wolf breeding habitat was carried out using Maxent, based on six environmental variables and 31 reproduction site locations collected between 1997 and 2015. Wind farms were prioritised using Marxan to find the optimal trade-off between energy capacity and overlap with critical wolf reproduction habitat. The habitat suitability model predictions were consistent with the current knowledge: probability of wolf breeding site presence increased with distance to settlements, distance to farmland and distance to roads and decreased with distance to forest. Spatial optimisation showed that it would be possible to meet current energy targets with only 31% of currently proposed wind farms, selected in a way that reduces the potential ecological cost (overall predicted wolf breeding site presence within wind farm sites) by 91%. This is a highly efficient outcome, demonstrating the value of this approach for prioritising infrastructure development based on its potential impact on wide-ranging wildlife species