{"title":"MOVING HIGH STAKES ASSESSMENTS TO DIGITAL PLATFORM IN SOUTH AFRICA","authors":"N. Jappie, Ashley Niekerk","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end017","url":null,"abstract":"Student success is critical in higher education. Measuring student success in higher education comprises of student support for retention, achievement and throughput, and to ensure employability of students. In addition, it can also be viewed through the important lens of transformation, equality and diversification. In South Africa the National Benchmark Test was developed to ensure that student was ready for university and through a diagnostic analysis it is able to provide an early warning system. The assessment has always been a pencil and paper format, however the sudden shift during the 2020 pandemic, from contact to remote digital learning platforms brought about unique challenges to the South African (SA) education landscape forcing learners into unfamiliar pathways. Similarly, the facilitation of assessments via online platforms presented new, uncharted challenges. The purpose of this technical research paper is to document the digitisation project from a paper-based test to an Online perspective and describe the @NBT Online system migration from a project and technical management perspective. Consultations were held with stakeholders to brainstorm possible solutions that would assist the Centre for Educational Assessments in responding to the global pandemic which led to a partnership with Territorium Life. Territorium had an online platform known as EdTest-AI, a software as a service (SaaS) solution, which combined proprietary software that uses Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services, Azure App Service, and Azure Database for My Standard Query Language (SQL) to deliver remote test proctoring, including verifying student identity and monitoring the room during an assessment. The digitisation of the NBT assessment was initiated on 1 June 2020 and completed by 12 July 2020, thus taking a total of 35 days to complete with the first pilot @NBT Online successfully administered on Saturday, 25 July 2020. The cost-effective and innovative SaaS approach implemented for this project is the first of its kind to be used in South Africa. Taking a high-stakes assessment digitally allowed the Centre for Educational Assessments’ department to expand the types of services, reports, and products offered. Thus, this project is envisaged to support the departmental and institutional plans in highlighting the needs that require innovation, new approaches, new service models and the adoption of new and emerging technologies.","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80645191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"QUALITY OF ONLINE BIODIVERSITY SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS ADMINISTERED TO STUDENT TEACHERS AT A SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY","authors":"Kholofelo Makgopa, M. Kazeni","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end035","url":null,"abstract":"Summative assessments are often used to make high stake decisions about students’ academic success, which have long-term implications for both students and their respective institutions. Therefore, these assessments need to be of high quality to ensure that they yield accurate, objective and dependable results, upon which valid decisions could be made. The use of online assessments, where most lecturers have little experience and students have control of the assessment environment could compromise the quality of summative assessments. This is particularly true for Biodiversity assessments, which are complex. There is dearth of literature on the quality of online Biodiversity summative assessments in the South African context. This qualitative case study was conducted to determine the quality of online Biodiversity summative assessments administered at a South African university. The LINQED Quality Assurance Framework for Student assessment guided this study, which involved a review of eight online Biodiversity summative assessments administered to student teachers. Quality was measured by determining the content validity, authenticity, alignment with course objectives and the cognitive levels at which the assessments were pitched. The reviewed assessments were found to have high content validity and alignment to course objectives, but had poor coverage of the content and course objectives. In addition, the assessments were pitch at low cognitive levels and they had low to moderate authenticity. While these findings are based on a small sample, they could signify a global phenomenon. We therefore recommend further research, involving a bigger sample, to determine the recurrence of the findings from this study.","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"144 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76227371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ivan Dominguez‐Candela, S. Cardona, M. López-Pérez, J. Lora, V. Fombuena
{"title":"IMPLEMENTATION OF MATLAB GUIDE TEMPLATES FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERING STUDENTS TO SOLVE COMPLEX MATERIAL AND ENERGY BALANCES","authors":"Ivan Dominguez‐Candela, S. Cardona, M. López-Pérez, J. Lora, V. Fombuena","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end142","url":null,"abstract":",","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73203390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"CONSIDERING TEACHERS' IDENTITY,WELL-BEING, AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CROATIAN CULTURAL CONTEXT","authors":"","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end108","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"367 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77606092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MENTORING IN TEACHER TRAINING PRACTICE: THE INTERPRETATION OF MENTORS’ ROLE IN THE TRIADIC RELATIONSHIP","authors":"R. Bencze, Magdolna Chrappán","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end010","url":null,"abstract":"Teacher training is a key element of the quality of the education system. Staying in the teaching career is determined by many factors, however, overcoming the so-called praxis-shock means the first step for beginner teachers. For teacher students, mentoring during practical training is the main support, that is why it is important to know how the triadic relationship between the school mentor, the teacher and the university works. In our heuristic research, interactions between mentors, students and university actors, as elements of the mentoring process were examined. During our research (2021-2022) we asked mentors working in Hungarian teacher training and student teachers who had just completed their coherent teacher training practice. Research was carried out with mixed methods, qualitative (scientific literature exploration, focus group interview in 4x8 groups) and quantitative (self -developed questionnaire based on the results of focus group interviews with 280 mentors and 351 students. In our lecture we present one segment of mentors: how the role interpretation of mentors is influenced by organizational support, and also by the communication with the student teacher and the university (intensity, content). For the role interpretation of the mentors, we made a scale based on different models, which refer to different elements of the pedagogical process and the relationship with the mentor. Our correlation and cluster analysis also shows that the wide range of role interpretation is influenced by two factors: the intensity of supportive environment and communication with universities, as a result of which not only subject-matter knowledge, but also pedagogical content knowledge got in the focus of mentoring. The intensive communication with candidates results in the strengthening of their mental and emotional support, the strength of the correlation depends significantly on the mentor gender. Based on our results, recommendations may be articulated for each party regarding the triadic relationship: the more intense the communication between the actors and the more supportive the school environment is, the more effectively mentors and teacher candidates can participate in the mentoring progress.","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85148408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"EXAMINING THE MENTAL HEALTH STATUS OF HUNGARIAN TEACHERS","authors":"Mónika Veronika, Szigeti","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end007","url":null,"abstract":"Research on burnout examines the phenomenon from an individual, interpersonal, and organizational perspective. The individual approach focuses on the examination of personality, with particular regard to personality traits predisposing to the burnout syndrome, as well as the symptoms of burnout appearing at the individual level. The interpersonal aspects refer to the social environment, the relationship between the helping professional and his client. Research on the organizational level emphasizes the particularities of the given workplace, job title, and the organization. Examining the causes of the burnout syndrome, Pines, Aronson, Kafry (1990) revealed three reasons for burnout based on their research with 4,000 people: emotional overload, client-centered orientation and certain personality traits. As a result of these findings, in our research we investigated the psychological immune competence of teachers, because they can be regarded as a particularly vulnerable group, and psychological immune competence is a good coping resource (Vargay et al., 2019). We analyzed the mental health status of teachers (N: 301) from individual and interpersonal aspects in 2022, in Hungary. Based on our results, among the 16 factors of the Psychological Immune Competence Test (Oláh, 2005), they achieved the weakest result in the field of emotional control. We measured weaker results in the areas of challenge/flexibility, inhibition of irritability and social creativity, too. However, their results in the field of sense of coherence and endurance are better. In the mobilizing-creating-executive subsystem, they achieved a much higher value than the standardized average (for Hungarians). In the self-regulating and approach-monitoring subsystems, the results of teachers are similar to the standard average. 92% of the teachers have a positive mindset, but 40% achieved poor results in terms of challenge/flexibility. In the field of emotional control, 20% of them have below average results, which can lead to burnout later. Our results show that among teachers, psychoeducational training can play an important role in preventing psychosomatic illnesses and burnout. Our long-term goal is to device targeted trainings for Hungarian teachers to prevent and alleviate burnout.","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90289425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"TEACHER TRAINING ON FUNDAMENTAL PROGRAMMING FOR MATHEMATICS AND TECHNOLOGY – WHAT ARE THE COURSE TAKEAWAYS?","authors":"Peter Mozelius","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end041","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction of computer programming in K-12 education is a prioritised initiative in many countries. In the Swedish context this is an ongoing process with support from the government and the National Agency for Education. The focus has been set on secondary school and how to implement programming as an extension for teaching and learning activities in mathematics and technology. Several studies have reported on how to optimise the teacher training, but less has been presented on learning outcomes that can have an impact on teaching and learning in secondary school. The aim of this study was to analyse and discuss how learning outcomes could be of use in secondary school teachers daily teaching and learning activities. The main research question to answer was: \"In what parts of secondary school mathematics and technology can programming add value, and how might this be related to the learning outcomes of the teacher training?\" Data have been gathered from course participants essays that were submitted in two batches of the teacher training course on programming. Essays were analysed thematically with the research strategy of analytical induction. Found themes have been grouped into main categories that are related to the essayists course outcomes. Most of the essayists have completed the course, but not all of them. Findings indicate that the subset of course takeaways that the essayists have chosen to reuse are related to their learning outcomes, but also to the stage of secondary school where they teach. Lower secondary school teachers with low learning outcomes have a tendency to choose the themes of visualisation of geometrical concepts and computational thinking. To be compared with upper secondary school teachers with high learning outcomes that had a preference for using programming to illustrate number series and statistics. However, there are a lot of variations from these themes and counterpoints, which is the main discussion in this paper. Interesting new themes that emerged from the analysis of the essays were Debugging, General problem solving","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77287648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"BULLYING AS DRIVER OF LOW MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT: SOUTH AFRICAN NO-FEE-PAYING SCHOOLS IN A CHALLENGED CONTEXT","authors":"M. A. Graham","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end005","url":null,"abstract":"Children in South Africa have the right to quality education free from harm. Still, incidents of school bullying continue to dominate South African news coverage. Creating a safe environment conducive to learning is vital to mathematics achievement (MA). We investigated the association between bullying and Grade 9 MA in South African public institutions that do not charge tuition. In South Africa, ordinary public schools are divided into five quintiles, with Quintiles 1 to 3 being in the most economically disadvantaged (poorest) geographic locations (no-fee-paying schools) and Quintiles 4 and 5 being in the wealthiest geographical areas (fee-paying schools). This study only considers schools in Quintiles 1 to 3 and uses Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory to investigate MA in a less-researched context (Global South) in schools in the most economically disadvantaged locations. We followed a quantitative design with a research paradigm of positivism and a secondary data analysis study design. We analysed Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS) 2019 data, and, at Grade 9 level, South Africa was second to last in MA. We constructed a multi-level model containing 21 constructs; 20 independent variables (gender, socio-economic status (SES) and 18 bullying variables), with the dependent variable being MA. At learner-level, the unsurprising results were that learners who have been refused to talk to, their family insulted, made to do things they didn’t want to do, sent nasty or hurtful messages online, shared nasty or hurtful things or embarrassing photos about them online and physically hurt, performed significantly worse than those where these occurrences happened less frequently. A surprising result is that learners who indicated they had been stolen from or had mean things said about their physical appearance outperformed learners where this was happening less frequently. For these results that seem counterintuitive, we give some suggestions on why this may be the case. At school-level, principals’ beliefs concerning the level of severity of intimidation or verbal abuse amongst learners was a significant predictor. Learners must be reminded that there are clear policies that punish perpetrators of bullying. Since e-Learning has grown exponentially over the last two years due to COVID-19, we urge the inclusion of cyber-safety and cyber-protection strategies in all learner-teacher training. From the counterintuitive results, this study challenges deficit views by showing how learners living in disadvantaged areas and in a challenged context resile despite being bullied.","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77945855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MEASURING SELF-REGULATED LEARNING IN STUDENTS WITH/WITHOUT CARE-RESPONSIBILITIES TO PUSH GENDER EQUITY","authors":"","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end090","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"358 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72427951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"AN EVALUATION OF FLIPPED CLASSROOM PEDAGOGY IN NATURAL SCIENCES LEARNING USING MOBILE VIRTUAL REALITY","authors":"","doi":"10.36315/2023v1end113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36315/2023v1end113","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":93546,"journal":{"name":"Education and new developments","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82555018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}