This article is a response to an article written by Wang and Ma "An Examination of Plausible Score Correlation from the Trend in Mathematics and Science Study", published in the Athens Journal of Education. The purpose of this paper is to address issues with Wang’s and Ma’s suggestion to use analysis method for correlating plausible values from TIMSS. The paper reviews the design of international large-scale assessments, and TIMSS in particular, and its implications for data analysis in regard to the application of Canonical Correlation Analysis for calculating association between two sets of plausible values, as proposed by Wang and Ma. The conclusion is that, given the design of TIMSS and other large-scale assessments, the method proposed by Wang and Ma is not appropriate for correlating two sets of plausible values because they are not multivariate measures as the suggested method would assume. Some other methodological issues related to the overall analysis approach used by Wang and Ma is discussed as well

The purpose of this study is to identify students' reactions to the implementation of team-based learning as an instructional strategy in a pharmacology course in the context of a Turkish university. Team-based learning is defined as an active form of learning that not only encourages individual effort but also team involvement to learn in an academic setting. Team-based learning is one of the learning techniques/methods that is increasingly being used in medical education. Literature shows that in teambased learning students apply the concepts at the time they are learned in the classroom, before the exams, as opposed to traditional lecturing, in which the concepts that are learned are later tested in the exams. Furthermore, research supports that faculty are more engaged with their students in team-based learning, since it affords instructors the ability to readily identify what their students are achieving, as opposed to traditional lecturing or other group approaches. There are limited studies in Turkey that examine the applications of team-based learning in a higher education setting. Therefore, this study describes the use of the team-based learning technique in an undergraduate health science course in Turkey. The initial results indicate that this instructional strategy was beneficial for students' learning.

The purpose of this review is to provide a comparison of reading outcomes of the two most popular bilingual programs in the United States: Transitional Bilingual Education and Two-way Bilingual programs. To provide context, we present a theoretical framework and a brief historical perspective on how these programs came to gain popularity. We explored two questions. The first one asks whether there are differences in student outcomes between the programs and whether there are advantages of one program over the other. The second question looks into practical strategies that make these programs beneficial to English learners. For selection methods, we used the previous definition of high-quality articles that included clear outcomes and program definitions. For evaluation of the programs, we used a five-framework model that defines effective bilingual programs that incorporates components of second language literacy development, high-quality instruction, and precise definition of the sample population. After the careful review of articles, academic outcomes are presented, indicating that while there might be non-significant differences on reading outcomes, bilingual programs are not detrimental to English learners and there are additional benefits to having a bilingual program beyond potentially enhancing reading outcomes. Also, we found that strategies that work well in a general education classroom for native speakers, also work well for English learners. Finally, we provide recommendations for program development and future research.

The purpose of this study is to explore factors that affect exclusively physical, virtual and both a Virtual-Physical (VP) and Physical-Virtual (PV) sequence of manipulatives within Studio Physics environment. In this environment students actively work together to learn through real world experimentation and simulation based activities. Activities and tests have been especially designed for that purpose. Students, from different sections and for two consecutive academic years, have been involved in the study. Statistics show that comprehensive learning groups (i.e. any combination of PV or VP sequence) performed better than any other setting. The study also pinpoints the importance of the sequence for which virtual or physical experiments of some specific concepts are initially introduced to students.

This conceptual paper addresses the issue of value creation in the field of higher education and pre-sents a new theoretical perspective by assigning the Service Dominant Logic (SD-logic) and develop-ing a higher education value framework, consisting of ten "foundational premises" for a better understanding of higher education phenomena. Furthermore, based on the theoretical findings this paper presents the Empirical Research Map as a holistic, intermediate learning-und teaching-tool that provides a navigational aid through the entire socio-scientific empirical research process and visualizes all interlinked research steps on a single DIN-A-3-sheet. The empirical research process is affected by high complexity and thus uncertainty. Students have to make many decisions and have problems in anticipating long-range and secondary effects. From a didactic perspective, the Empirical Research Map facilitates making important decisions, the anticipation of long-range and secondary effects and therefore provides additional value to researchers, teachers and students in the social sciences.

To address the skills gap and reward achievement, technical assessment publisher, NOCTI, began an initiative to define technical excellence in career technical education (CTE) programs and to recognize the nation's top CTE students through a digital Technical Badge of Excellence (TBOE). Analysis of standard setting methods and NOCTI student test data from U.S. high schools determined the excellence criteria. NOCTI has assessments in over 100 different technical areas and, because difficulty varies, normative standard-setting methods were most appropriate, as they account for test difficulty and locate students at a high position relative to the tested group. Additional criteria were implemented to assure the validity of the selection and subsequent awarding of the digital badge. Thus, top CTE students nationally can be located using normative standard setting methods, which will provide a source of skilled workers for global employers and help to close the skills gap.

In this paper the authors present some of the results of a research into the influence of information and communication technologies (ICT) on foreign language (FL) teaching. The survey was conducted on a sample of 255 FL teachers (N= 255) in the Republic of Croatia. The teachers are eployed at primary and secondary schools, or at universities, and they teach six different FLs. The vast majority possess a PC at home and/or work, and have access to the Internet, but less than half teach FLs in classrooms equipped with a computer. The starting hypothesis was that the increase of the time teachers spend on their computers and the Internet would lead to the increase in their ICT competences. The results of the study have confirmed the authors' hypothesis: Correlation quotients have shown that there is a positive statistically significant correlation between the amounts of time spent using ICT and the attitudes of FL teachers regarding their own assessment of competence for the successful application of ICT in the FLs teaching. The analysis of the results presented in the paper mainly focus on correlations between the amount of time spent using ICT and the teachers' self-assessments of their 12 different computer competences and the evaluation of their experience with ICT equipment and software.

In this work we examined the content of approximately 950 mathematics questions used in measuring achievement among 4 th , 5 th and 6 th graders in the US in an attempt to determine how the current standardized examinations, which were developed to reflect new national curricular mandates, compared to the old measures used for the same purpose. Using Bloom's Taxonomy and TIMSS characterization of cognitive demands of tasks, we compared the quality of knowledge assessed by the items. Notable differences were found between the new items measuring skills and competencies compared to compatible items on the old tests. We noted that previous assessments primarily tested children's procedural and skill-based knowledge of mathematics, and often allowed children to arrive at a right answer in absence of understanding. In contrast, the new assessments require that children have a conceptual understanding of mathematics, attend to precise mathematical language, communicate their ideas, and utilize abstract reasoning skills.

This exploratory qualitative study focused on the free responses that undergraduate students gave to the question: Should have learned something valuable in this course, what was it?”. This open question is part of a survey that is intended to obtain the views of the students on courses of humanistic character in as part of their college education. Knowing what the students think has been a constant concern to the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City, which academic plans include four humanistic courses for all careers. The courses’ purpose is to contribute to the integral/liberal education of students. There were collected 4625 valid student responses during the spring and autumn periods 2010 and spring 2011, covering the entire population given at that time. For the data analysis it was used a mixed approach, in which qualitative methodology of inductive categorization was supplemented with a statistical analysis of the data. Regarding the qualitative analysis, which was the most important approach, there were inductively discovered eight categories of valuable humanistic learning, namely: 1. Appreciating and respecting cultural diversity. 2. Reflecting on oneself and the sense of life. 3. Increasing knowledge. 4. Bonding with different disciplines 5. Discovering new ways of living with others. 6. Acquiring an ethical perspective. 7. Discovering a sense of social responsibility 8. Improving critical thinking