Edizioni FrancoAngeli - Last issue of CADMO (2/2011)

La ricerca educativa: esprit de géométrie e/o esprit de finesse?

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Benedetto Vertecchi

Principles for establishing policy and practice in assessment for courses in higher education. Advice for the Tempus Demed project

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Chris Whetton
Ten principles for assessment in courses of higher education and the processes involved are set out and elaborated. The principles encompass: the alignment of assessment with learning objectives; reflecting the required standards; students’ achievements; reliability, validity and effort; documentation of the processes; quality assurance; marking and moderation; handling of results, including confidentiality; fairness; and review and continuous improvement.

Tempus Demed project and operational solutions for online distance education

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Antonella Poce, Francesca Corradi
Lps-Diped - Università Roma Tre chaired the Tempus Demed - Development of Master Study Programmes in Education (2009-2011) - project. The project’s main objective was the renovation of the Masters courses in Education in certain Balkan countries (Macedonia, Albania e Kosovo). The basic intention involved the adaptation of the higher education provided in the cultural reference area to the principles established within the European context. In particular, during the Dublin Conference in 2004, the so-called Bologna follow up group drew a number of indicators. As already mentioned, at different times, EU policy has highlighted the need to carry out actions aimed at a renovation of higher education cycles, but not much was provided in terms of definition of the curricula, especially for the second cycle of studies. The Demed project also attempted to fill a gap in this regard, operating an indepth revision of this level of studies in the Education sector in Albania, Kosovo e Macedonia. This intervention, moreover, was always carried out working in close cooperation with the partner countries, so that the support provided by Lps Diped, as leader, by Cdell - Centre for Developing and Evaluating Lifelong Learning - University of Nottingham (UK) and by DPU - Arhus University (DK) was realized with an actual collaboration programme, and never resulting as an imposition of certain Western models. The present contribution, therefore, is intended to give a general overview regarding the Tempus funding programme, a description of the Demed project itself, a synthetic report of the online seminar broadcasted to Seeu staff during the project period and of the data collected while evaluating the same experience.

Fede

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Tempus Demed - An educational experience with academics in the Balkan region

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Cinzia Angelini
This article focuses on the courses held in the first year of the Tempus Demed project in the three Balkan universities belonging to the partnership: the University of Tirana (Albania), South East European University (Seeu - Macedonia), the University of Prishtina (Kosovo). The project main goal was the launch of new masters programmes in education in the three universities and the Improving teacher education. In-service intensive summer courses represented the first step in this direction. They were therefore designed to provide participants (mostly academics) with the necessary knowledge and skills to be involved in the future masters programmes. The article describes the main features of the courses and the participants’ perceptions and reactions.

Committee for Education and Cultural Action's (Icom-Ceca) research trends

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Emma Nardi
In 1946 Unesco created the International Council of Museums (Icom), an organization with the purpose of coordinating the activities of museums around the world and promoting cooperation. Since then, Icom has extraordinarily grown and is nowadays organized in National committees, reuniting members of each country, and International committees, made of professionals who share the same interests in their works and research. The first International committee created by Icom is the Committee for Education and cultural Action (Ceca), and this proves the priority attributed to museum communication towards the public. This article develops in two parts: in the first, Icom political and administrative structure is described, with the explanation of how it works; in the second, Ceca institutional aims are introduced, and then, its work in the research field of cultural mediation in museums is presented. A complex picture is thus drawn which aims at the definition of educational standards, development indicators and shared procedures, capable of overcoming any cultural, social and logistic difference, from the professionals of cultural mediation in museums all over the world.

A diachronic interpretation of learning factors

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Gabriella Agrusti
The study of phenomena related to learning is based on the duality between the experimental approach and the observational or descriptive approach. According to a classical interpretation of research methodology in education, the latter is centred on the description of reality, in order to take a snapshot of the modal profiles in a given context, in terms of learning achievements, attitudes of opinions, most popular practices and so on, thus setting the interpretations on the space axis, in a synchronic sense. Through a descriptive approach, it is possible to answer the questions about which aspects can be linked to situations and events prior to the time of observation, or how they can affect their progress. Within the am-learning project on individualisation in distance education, mainly synchronic interpretation models have been used during the stage of the measuring instruments construction and platform testing. However, innovative theoretical designs are needed, that can constitute an appropriate basis for the desired change in learning habits in the long haul. Starting from scientific literature, this paper aims at outlining some of the fundamental aspects of such diachronic modelling.

Comparison of the reliability of scoring methods of multiple-response items, matching items, and sequencing items

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Theo J.H.M. Eggen, Tecla T.M. Lampe
Multiple-response items, sequencing items, and matching items are three innovative item types often included in systems for computer-based assessment that offer the benefit of polytomous scoring and the possibility to measure partial knowledge. In the present study, different scoring methods of these three item types were compared. Based on the assumption that different response patterns to these item types represent different knowledge levels, these knowledge levels are described. Features of different scoring methods were studied to select the scoring methods included in this study. Subsequently, a probability distribution of scoring results for each knowledge level was derived and computed. Based on classical test theory, a measure for the reliability of the different scoring methods on the level of a single item was derived. To compare the results of the scoring methods selected, reliabilities were computed for several distributions of knowledge levels in a population. For a multiple-response item, when an examinee must select all the right options, the dichotomous scoring method resulted in higher reliabilities than scoring the response patterns polytomously. For matching items and for multiple-response items, when an examinee is asked to select fewer options than the total number of right options given, polytomous scoring methods gave higher reliabilities than the dichotomous scoring method. Simple polytomous scoring by counting the selected right options or relations is recommended instead of more complex polytomous scoring methods, for instance, using a correction for wrong answers or a so-called "floor". The results of scoring sequencing items were not as conclusive as for the other two item types explored.

Research in progress

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Francesco Agrusti

Errata corrige

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Speranza

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Abstracts

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Carità

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Libri ricevuti

Mon, 15 Jan 2012 8:00:00 GMT