In this article, the author discusses the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning's (McREL's) Knowledge Taxonomy, which is a useful guide for any educational technology professional development plan. This taxonomy is based on the assertion that teachers need to know not only "what" to do to improve student achievement, but "why," "how,"…

There is growing interest in the concept of "mechanism" across many areas of the social sciences. In the field of program and policy evaluation, a number of scholars have also emphasized the importance of causal mechanisms for explaining how and why programs work. However, there appears to be some ambiguity about the meaning and uses of…

Analysts of institutional performance have occasionally used a peer grouping approach in which they compared institutions only to other institutions with similar characteristics. Because analysts historically have used cluster analysis to define peer groups (i.e., the group of comparable institutions), the author proposes and demonstrates with…

Valuable methods have been developed for incorporating ordinal variables into structural equation models using a latent response variable formulation. However, some model parameters, such as the means and variances of latent factors, can be quite difficult to interpret because the latent response variables have an arbitrary metric. This limitation…

In this inquiry-based activity, students catalog external and internal characteristics of four different classes of animals during dissection exercises. On the basis of their accumulated data, students compare and contrast the animals, devise a phylogenetic tree, and provide reasonable characteristics for extinct transitional organisms. (Contains…

This article presents a table that provides a snapshot of how employment is expected to change in 289 occupations. For each occupation, it shows estimated employment in 2008, the projected numeric change in employment (that is, how many jobs are expected to be gained or lost) over the 2008-18 decade, and the projected percent change in employment…

Whether students should memorize classification schemes (taxonomies) is a column in itself, but the author can address the role that this system plays in the study of biology. To that end, it will help to address how the system developed over time. And toward "that" end, you will do a simple activity to start. (Contains 3 figures.)

In this article, procedures are described for estimating single-administration classification consistency and accuracy indices for complex assessments using item response theory (IRT). This IRT approach was applied to real test data comprising dichotomous and polytomous items. Several different IRT model combinations were considered. Comparisons…

University rankings have gained popularity around the world, and are now a significant factor shaping reputation. This book is the first comprehensive study of rankings from a global perspective, making an important contribution to our understanding of the rankings phenomenon. (Contains 17 figures, 17 tables and 4 illustrations.)

We calculate the number of subgroups in a direct product of finite cyclic groups by applying the fundamental theorem of finite abelian groups and a well-known structure theorem due to Goursat. We also suggest ways in which the results can be generalized to a direct product of arbitrary finite groups.

There are many aims that have been articulated with respect to national qualifications frameworks (NQFs). Among them are those concerned with transparency, which is to say, that it is assumed that once employers understand the competencies of employees, as defined by their education credentials, then the mismatch between what employers are looking…

In providing a continued focus on tasks and activities that help to illustrate key ideas embedded in the new Australian Curriculum, this issue the authors focus, on Geometry in the Measurement and Geometry strand with strong links for an integrated focus on the Statistics and Probability strand. The small unit of work on the sorting and…

In a regional young-earth creationist museum, objects are presented as if they speak for themselves, purportedly embodying proof that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that humans have lived on earth throughout its history, and that dinosaurs and humans lived simultaneously. In public lectures, tours, and displays, museum associates…

The purpose of this study was to determine the trends of recent research papers in foreign language teaching in Turkish context and to give ideas to researchers and policy makers for future studies. Content Analysis method was used in this study. The focus of the study was 189 research papers published between 2009-2013 years in journals indexed…

This article describes key findings from contemporary research on screening for early primary grade students in the area of mathematics. Existing studies were used to illustrate the constructs most worth measuring and the diverse strategies that researchers used to study potential measures. The authors discussed the strengths and weaknesses of…