This document discusses a study examining the interaction between class size, formative feedback, and student achievement. The study found that smaller class sizes allowed teachers to provide more frequent formative feedback to students. It also found that for students who received frequent formative feedback, lower achieving students in 4th grade showed greater improvement in achievement by 6th grade compared to lower achieving students who received less frequent feedback. The results suggest that smaller class sizes enabling more formative feedback can help improve achievement growth for lower performing students over time.
A review of School-Based Assessment (SBA) practiced in countries like Hong Kong, Australia, Nigeria etc. Articles are from the Web of Science between 2007-2012.
This presentation clarifies what formative assessment is. The purpose and intention of formative assessment on improving student learning is emphasized. The different techniques on conducting formative assessment inside the classroom are provided.
A review of School-Based Assessment (SBA) practiced in countries like Hong Kong, Australia, Nigeria etc. Articles are from the Web of Science between 2007-2012.
This presentation clarifies what formative assessment is. The purpose and intention of formative assessment on improving student learning is emphasized. The different techniques on conducting formative assessment inside the classroom are provided.
Moving Beyond Student Ratings to Evaluate TeachingVicki L. Wise
Evidence of teaching quality needs to take into account multiple sources, as teaching is multidimensional. Moreover, the likelihood of obtaining reliable and valid data and making appropriate judgments are increased with more evidence.
A detailed description on school based assessment, Bangladesh view.
Reference: National Curriculam and Textbook Board. (2006). Teacher’s guide for SBA.
This is the peer-reviewed article form of my assessment literacy slide show. This article was recently published in the Spring, 2009 edition of OnCUE, a peer-reviewed journal published in Japan for college and university educators. A Japanese translation of the abstract is provided at the beginning.
Moving Beyond Student Ratings to Evaluate TeachingVicki L. Wise
Evidence of teaching quality needs to take into account multiple sources, as teaching is multidimensional. Moreover, the likelihood of obtaining reliable and valid data and making appropriate judgments are increased with more evidence.
A detailed description on school based assessment, Bangladesh view.
Reference: National Curriculam and Textbook Board. (2006). Teacher’s guide for SBA.
This is the peer-reviewed article form of my assessment literacy slide show. This article was recently published in the Spring, 2009 edition of OnCUE, a peer-reviewed journal published in Japan for college and university educators. A Japanese translation of the abstract is provided at the beginning.
"Social Innovation for Employment" information session Nahdet El Mahrousa
What the Nahdet El Mahrousa Incubator is, and what it offers ?
How to get your start up incubated and receive seed funding
What start ups qualify to apply ?
What the criteria for awardee selection is ?
What we mean by "Social innovation for Employment" ?
FOR EVERY STARTUP THAT IS BORN,
AT LEAST 5 PEOPLE ARE EMPLOYED!
Nahdet el Mahrousa (NM) and Barclays bank present to you “Social Innovation for Employment”
Have an idea for an enterprise that would work towards fixing an existing social problem in Egypt and would create job opportunities?
We are looking for passionate Egyptian change agents who have an innovative approach to job creation!
All you need is a viable idea and a team! Awardees will receive incubation and seed funding!
At least 5 social enterprises will receive seed funding and technical support to help maximise their success.
Apply now on www.nahdetelmahrousa.org/apply
Deadline January 6th, 2014
مع كل فكره مشروع جديد خمسة بيلاقوا شغل
جمعية نهضة المحروسة برعاية بنك باركليز تقدم مسابقة جديدة لتوظيف شباب مصر
لو عندك فكرة مشروع يحل مشكلة في المجتمع و كمان بساهم في خلق فرص عمل للشباب في مصر، قدم علي المرحلة الجديدة من حضانة نهضة المحروسة للمشاريع المجتمعية المبتكرة بالتعاون مع بنك باركليزمصر. هندعم على الاقل خمس مشاريع مجتمعية . المشاريع اللي هيتم اختيارها هتحصل علي دعم مالي وفنى اللازمين لإنجاح المشروع
قدم في مسابقة "الريادة المجتمعية من أجل التوظيف" واحصل على دعم فني ومادي
www.nahdetelmahrousa.org/apply
اخر معاد للتقديم ٦ يناير
اخر معاد للتقديم ٦ يناير ٢٠١٤
From Summative to Formative Assessment in a Traditional ELT InstituteClaudio Fleury
This session describes the process of moving from a summative towards a more formative way of assessing adult students at Casa thomas Jefferson, in Brasili, Brazil.
Continuing the conversation of working with class and school profiles/reviews to better support inclusion. Includes a focus on what makes a difference in teaching, 'no plan, no point' and co-teaching.
Overall, assessments are used either as a Programmatic Assessment or as a Learning Assessment. One of the most familiar learning assessments is the multiple choice assessment that reflects the typical pen and paper traditional classroom test (Popham, 2006). However, these tests are not very easy to construct to ensure validity due to unclear directions, ambiguous statements, unintended clues, complicated syntax and difficult vocabulary (Popham, 2006). Other learning assessments with construct validity, such as the essay and the reflective journal, tend to focus on student-centered pedagogy. These assessments are ideal for assessing the learning outcomes of the individual and increase the student’s personal responsibility for their own learning. This reading document provides a brief summary of assessment tools that are available for both programmatic and learning.
The use of Nauplii and metanauplii artemia in aquaculture (brine shrimp).pptxMAGOTI ERNEST
Although Artemia has been known to man for centuries, its use as a food for the culture of larval organisms apparently began only in the 1930s, when several investigators found that it made an excellent food for newly hatched fish larvae (Litvinenko et al., 2023). As aquaculture developed in the 1960s and ‘70s, the use of Artemia also became more widespread, due both to its convenience and to its nutritional value for larval organisms (Arenas-Pardo et al., 2024). The fact that Artemia dormant cysts can be stored for long periods in cans, and then used as an off-the-shelf food requiring only 24 h of incubation makes them the most convenient, least labor-intensive, live food available for aquaculture (Sorgeloos & Roubach, 2021). The nutritional value of Artemia, especially for marine organisms, is not constant, but varies both geographically and temporally. During the last decade, however, both the causes of Artemia nutritional variability and methods to improve poorquality Artemia have been identified (Loufi et al., 2024).
Brine shrimp (Artemia spp.) are used in marine aquaculture worldwide. Annually, more than 2,000 metric tons of dry cysts are used for cultivation of fish, crustacean, and shellfish larva. Brine shrimp are important to aquaculture because newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii (larvae) provide a food source for many fish fry (Mozanzadeh et al., 2021). Culture and harvesting of brine shrimp eggs represents another aspect of the aquaculture industry. Nauplii and metanauplii of Artemia, commonly known as brine shrimp, play a crucial role in aquaculture due to their nutritional value and suitability as live feed for many aquatic species, particularly in larval stages (Sorgeloos & Roubach, 2021).
Deep Behavioral Phenotyping in Systems Neuroscience for Functional Atlasing a...Ana Luísa Pinho
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) provides means to characterize brain activations in response to behavior. However, cognitive neuroscience has been limited to group-level effects referring to the performance of specific tasks. To obtain the functional profile of elementary cognitive mechanisms, the combination of brain responses to many tasks is required. Yet, to date, both structural atlases and parcellation-based activations do not fully account for cognitive function and still present several limitations. Further, they do not adapt overall to individual characteristics. In this talk, I will give an account of deep-behavioral phenotyping strategies, namely data-driven methods in large task-fMRI datasets, to optimize functional brain-data collection and improve inference of effects-of-interest related to mental processes. Key to this approach is the employment of fast multi-functional paradigms rich on features that can be well parametrized and, consequently, facilitate the creation of psycho-physiological constructs to be modelled with imaging data. Particular emphasis will be given to music stimuli when studying high-order cognitive mechanisms, due to their ecological nature and quality to enable complex behavior compounded by discrete entities. I will also discuss how deep-behavioral phenotyping and individualized models applied to neuroimaging data can better account for the subject-specific organization of domain-general cognitive systems in the human brain. Finally, the accumulation of functional brain signatures brings the possibility to clarify relationships among tasks and create a univocal link between brain systems and mental functions through: (1) the development of ontologies proposing an organization of cognitive processes; and (2) brain-network taxonomies describing functional specialization. To this end, tools to improve commensurability in cognitive science are necessary, such as public repositories, ontology-based platforms and automated meta-analysis tools. I will thus discuss some brain-atlasing resources currently under development, and their applicability in cognitive as well as clinical neuroscience.
Richard's aventures in two entangled wonderlandsRichard Gill
Since the loophole-free Bell experiments of 2020 and the Nobel prizes in physics of 2022, critics of Bell's work have retreated to the fortress of super-determinism. Now, super-determinism is a derogatory word - it just means "determinism". Palmer, Hance and Hossenfelder argue that quantum mechanics and determinism are not incompatible, using a sophisticated mathematical construction based on a subtle thinning of allowed states and measurements in quantum mechanics, such that what is left appears to make Bell's argument fail, without altering the empirical predictions of quantum mechanics. I think however that it is a smoke screen, and the slogan "lost in math" comes to my mind. I will discuss some other recent disproofs of Bell's theorem using the language of causality based on causal graphs. Causal thinking is also central to law and justice. I will mention surprising connections to my work on serial killer nurse cases, in particular the Dutch case of Lucia de Berk and the current UK case of Lucy Letby.
Comparing Evolved Extractive Text Summary Scores of Bidirectional Encoder Rep...University of Maribor
Slides from:
11th International Conference on Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering (IcETRAN), Niš, 3-6 June 2024
Track: Artificial Intelligence
https://www.etran.rs/2024/en/home-english/
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We characterize the earliest galaxy population in the JADES Origins Field (JOF), the deepest
imaging field observed with JWST. We make use of the ancillary Hubble optical images (5 filters
spanning 0.4−0.9µm) and novel JWST images with 14 filters spanning 0.8−5µm, including 7 mediumband filters, and reaching total exposure times of up to 46 hours per filter. We combine all our data
at > 2.3µm to construct an ultradeep image, reaching as deep as ≈ 31.4 AB mag in the stack and
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redshifts and use robust selection criteria to identify a sample of eight galaxy candidates at redshifts
z = 11.5 − 15. These objects show compact half-light radii of R1/2 ∼ 50 − 200pc, stellar masses of
M⋆ ∼ 107−108M⊙, and star-formation rates of SFR ∼ 0.1−1 M⊙ yr−1
. Our search finds no candidates
at 15 < z < 20, placing upper limits at these redshifts. We develop a forward modeling approach to
infer the properties of the evolving luminosity function without binning in redshift or luminosity that
marginalizes over the photometric redshift uncertainty of our candidate galaxies and incorporates the
impact of non-detections. We find a z = 12 luminosity function in good agreement with prior results,
and that the luminosity function normalization and UV luminosity density decline by a factor of ∼ 2.5
from z = 12 to z = 14. We discuss the possible implications of our results in the context of theoretical
models for evolution of the dark matter halo mass function.
Travis Hills' Endeavors in Minnesota: Fostering Environmental and Economic Pr...Travis Hills MN
Travis Hills of Minnesota developed a method to convert waste into high-value dry fertilizer, significantly enriching soil quality. By providing farmers with a valuable resource derived from waste, Travis Hills helps enhance farm profitability while promoting environmental stewardship. Travis Hills' sustainable practices lead to cost savings and increased revenue for farmers by improving resource efficiency and reducing waste.
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As consumer awareness of health and wellness rises, the nutraceutical market—which includes goods like functional meals, drinks, and dietary supplements that provide health advantages beyond basic nutrition—is growing significantly. As healthcare expenses rise, the population ages, and people want natural and preventative health solutions more and more, this industry is increasing quickly. Further driving market expansion are product formulation innovations and the use of cutting-edge technology for customized nutrition. With its worldwide reach, the nutraceutical industry is expected to keep growing and provide significant chances for research and investment in a number of categories, including vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and herbal supplements.
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Since volcanic activity was first discovered on Io from Voyager images in 1979, changes
on Io’s surface have been monitored from both spacecraft and ground-based telescopes.
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Binocular Telescope, show evidence of a major resurfacing event on Io’s trailing hemisphere. When compared to the most recent spacecraft images, the SHARK-VIS images
show that a plume deposit from a powerful eruption at Pillan Patera has covered part
of the long-lived Pele plume deposit. Although this type of resurfacing event may be common on Io, few have been detected due to the rarity of spacecraft visits and the previously low spatial resolution available from Earth-based telescopes. The SHARK-VIS instrument ushers in a new era of high resolution imaging of Io’s surface using adaptive
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Salas, V. (2024) "John of St. Thomas (Poinsot) on the Science of Sacred Theol...Studia Poinsotiana
I Introduction
II Subalternation and Theology
III Theology and Dogmatic Declarations
IV The Mixed Principles of Theology
V Virtual Revelation: The Unity of Theology
VI Theology as a Natural Science
VII Theology’s Certitude
VIII Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
All the contents are fully attributable to the author, Doctor Victor Salas. Should you wish to get this text republished, get in touch with the author or the editorial committee of the Studia Poinsotiana. Insofar as possible, we will be happy to broker your contact.
Toxic effects of heavy metals : Lead and Arsenicsanjana502982
Heavy metals are naturally occuring metallic chemical elements that have relatively high density, and are toxic at even low concentrations. All toxic metals are termed as heavy metals irrespective of their atomic mass and density, eg. arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, thallium, chromium, etc.
1. Class-size and
Standard-based Assessment
Formative Feedback Interaction
on Academic Achievement
Change
Koyo Yamamori
Senior Researcher of Educational Psychology
National Institute for Educational Policy Research,
Japan
2. Lecture Outline
• Japanese system
• Classroom assessment
• Class size standard
• Overview of previous studies about class size
• Class size puzzle
• Individual difference in class size effect
• Presenter’s recent study about class size
• Class-size and standard-based assessment formative feedback
interaction on academic achievement change
4. Japanese system
Classroom Assessment
4
National Level
4 viewpoints provided
Conation
(関心・意欲・態度)
Problem solving thought
(思考・判断・表現)
Skills and Strategies
(技能)
Factual Knowledge
(知識・理解)
Classroom Level
Set by teachers
Referring both national level
viewpoint intent and lesson content
Class-specific standards(規準)
Scoring guideline(基準)
Class-specific standards(規準)
Scoring guideline(基準)
Class-specific standards(規準)
Scoring guideline(基準)
Class-specific standards(規準)
Scoring guideline(基準)
5. Japanese system
Class size: Features
• Students are assigned to homerooms.
• Members of the homeroom remain the same over several years.
• Students spend most of the time together all year round.
5
Academic Year Starts Academic Year Ends
6. Japanese system
Class size: Features
6
Morning Greeting
Afternoon Lesson
• Classroom as the place of both academic learning and daily life.
• Homeroom teacher have the responsibilities for both enhancing
academic achievement and developing social-emotional skills.
9. Class-size research
Effect on student achievement
• Experimental study: STAR Project
• Comparing small-size class (n~15), regular-size
class(n~25) with a full-time teacher’s aide, and regular-
size class.
• Small-size class was advantageous for pupils’
achievement.
• Other investigative studies reported similar findings (US,
England, Australia, etc.)
9
10. Class-size research
Class-size puzzle
• Inconsistency of study findings
• Not all class-size studies showed the advantage of small
class size in relation to students’ academic achievement.
• Hanushek (1999) : 14% of the studies showed positive
effects of smaller Pupil-Teacher Ratio(PTR)s, another 14%
indicated the opposite result and 72% indicated no
contribution of smaller PTRs.
• These inconsistency is called “Class-size puzzle”
10
11. Class-size research
Individual differences in class-size effect
• Class-size puzzle seems to come from students’ individual
difference.
• Prior achievement seems to be one of the moderators of class-
size effect (Blatchford, Bassett, Goldstein, and Martin, 2003;
Nye and Hedges, 2002)
11
Class size Achievement
Prior Achievement
12. Class-size research
Student engagement and teacher behavior
12
Student engagement
Smaller class
• Better classroom attitude
• Less disruptive behavior
• More engagement
Teacher behavior
• Less dealing with negative
pupil behavior
• More individual instructions
(Bateman, 2002; Blatchford, 2003; Cahen et al., 2002)
(Blatchford et al., 2011; Stasz and Stecher, 2000)
13. Class-size research
Formative assessment
• Effective feedback information should contain not so much right or
wrong but the difference between goals and current levels of
achievement (Sadler, 1989)
13
Smaller class
Teacher behavior
• Less dealing with negative
pupil behavior
• More individual instructions
AND
Formative assessment /
feedback ?
• Formative assessment /
feedback have larger effect
(Kluger and DeNisi, 1996;
Hattie and Timperley, 2007).
14. Class-size research
Aptitude-Treatment Interaction
• Class-size puzzle is attributed to
ATI.
• The effects of teaching depends
on individual differences of
students.
• We need to be mindful of
students’ individual differences,
teachers’ behaviors, and the
interaction between teaching
strategies and students’
individual differences.
14
(Cronbach & Snow, 1977)
16. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Aim of the study
• Does smaller class enhance frequent formative feedback by teachers?
• Does smaller class and formative feedback interaction compensate lower
attainers’ academic achievement?
16
Prior Achievement
Subsequent
Achievement
Smaller class ×
Formative feedback
17. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Participants
• 1,672 students, in the
4th grade at the first
measurement point.
• From 50 public
elementary schools in
Yamagata prefecture.
17
18. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Measures
• Student level
• Panel data of individual students’ scores on norm-referenced standardized
test of social studies at two occasions (4th and 6th grades).
• Class level
• Questionnaire to indicate yearly implementation of both presenting clear
learning goals at the start of each instructional unit and implementing
individual feedback about the ability level relative to the goal at the end of a
unit.
• School level
• All participated school’s class-size
18
19. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Analytical strategy
• Three-level HLM
• Random-intercept and fandom-
slope model
• Do class-size, feedback
implementation, and these
interaction affect the intercept
and the slope of the regression
estimates subsequent (2 years
later) achievement by prior
achievement at student level?
19
20. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Results: Effect on feedback implementation
• The relationship between the class-size and “state achievement goal - provide
progress” formative feedback which teacher provided.
• The frequency of formative feedback in the 5th grade decreases as the number of
students in a class increases.
20
21. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Result: Effect on achievement change
• The relationship between prior achievement at the 4th grade and subsequent achievement at the 6th
grade.
• Diagram (a) on the left side shows the result of the students who received frequent formative feedback,
and diagram (b) on the right is the results of students who received less frequent or no formative
feedback.
21
22. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Discussions
22
Class-size: No main effectCS × FA interaction
Smaller class and formative feedback implementation improved
low attainers’ achievement over 2 years.
23. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Discussions
Teachers in smaller
classes are likely to
provide formative
feedback more
frequently.
23
24. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Discussions
Smaller classes allow
teachers to provide more
feedback for students.
24
The attainment of previously
lower achievers was
improved.
26. Conclusion
Power of standard-based assessment
• Formative feedback is one of effective interventions of
classroom learning.
• Standards should be needed when we conduct
effective formative feedback.
• The effect of standard-based assessment makes a
significant contribution to helping the students with low
achievement when conducted in small size classes.
26
27. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Class-size: Indispensable aspect
• “How many students in this classroom?” is the
indispensable aspect when we implement
standard-based formative feedback.
27
28. Class-size and formative feedback interaction
Effect on student achievement
• Instruction, learning, and assessment, all we do under the given
set of conditions.
• Effect of instruction, learning, and assessment, all comes from the
interaction between the given set of conditions and individual
differences among students.
28
n=30 n=40
Editor's Notes
Goodmorning Ladies and Gentleman.
I am honored to have the opportunity to present my recent research and communicate with participants here.
I am Koyo Yamamori, a senior researcher of educational psychology of the national institute for educational policy research of Japan.
[TRANSLATOR]
At the beginning of my lecture, I wish to express our sincere gratitude to all of Taiwan people who have supported afflicted people after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.
It is greatly appreciated.
[TRANSLATOR]
Here, I'd like to talk about the Class-size and Formative Feedback effect on students' achievement change regarding aptitude-treatment interaction paradigm, then I'd like to indicate the importance of standard based assessment and emphasize the need to consider educational condition when we conduct effective standard-based assessment in classrooms.
[TRANSLATOR]
Thereafter, I'll first describe Japanese system of classroom assessment and class-size. Secondary, overviewing previous studies about class size. Thirdly, my recent research finding that is interaction of class-size and standard-based assessment formative
feedback on academic achievement change.
[TRANSLATOR]
At first, I'll briefly describe Japanese system.
[TRANSLATOR]
I can say that the approach to classroom assessment taken by Japanese elementary and secondary schools is, indeed, standard-based.
Teachers make class-specific standards on their own, with referring to both lesson content and the national standards compiled by the Ministry of Education.
[TRANSLATOR]
The national standards provide a system of viewpoints to be used as a guide by teachers.
The national standards shows the domains of students' behaviors to be evaluated, i.e., students' conation, problem-solving thoughts, skills and strategies, and factual knowledge.
This framework is applied to all subjects.
[TRANSLATOR]
As well as utilizing the viewpoints shown by the national standards, teachers set class-specific standards, or scoring guidelines, in relation to lesson content and learning activity.
The class-specific standards are to be specified by level, and each level is specified in the form of descriptions of students' performances desired in the lesson.
And also, the class-specific standards will be the basis of both summative and formative assessment.
[TRANSLATOR]
In schools in Japan, particularly elementary schools, students are assigned to homerooms.
Members of the homeroom remain the same over several years, and they spend most of the time together all year round.
[TRANSLATOR]
Their daily lives, including lessons, are managed by the homeroom teacher.
Thus, responsibilities of homeroom teachers include providing quality education, by taking into consideration varied intra-individual differences among students and enhancing interactive learning activities, and also facilitating positive peer relationship to develop students' social skills.
Developing students' social skills is an important educational goal of Japan's school education.
[TRANSLATOR]
In Japan, maximum class-size in public schools in Japan was set at 50 in 1959.
The left picture is the classroom when there was no class-size standard. It was brought down to 45 in 1964, and to 40 students in 1991 as shown in right picture.
[TRANSLATOR]
In 2011, a further reduction was made to the first grade only: the maximum is now at 35 for the first grade while it remains at 40 for the other grades.
[TRANSLATOR]
So I am going to overview previous studies about class size.
[TRANSLATOR]
Many studies have been reported to date that examined the relationship between class-size and academic achievement.
Most of their findings indicate that smaller class-size is associated with higher achievement. The Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) Project, a well-known class size study conducted in the state of Tennessee in the United States, examined the effects of class-size on the students' academic achievement by tracking various age groups ranging from kindergarten to the third grade over four years.
[TRANSLATOR]
In this experimental study, schools were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions: (1) the "small-size class" condition with 13 to 17 students per class; (2) the "regular-size class with a full-time authorized teacher and a full-time teacher's aide" condition with 22 to 27 students per class; and (3) the "regular-size class" condition with only full-time authorized teacher and 22 to 27 students per class.
[TRANSLATOR]
Students' academic achievement was compared across the three conditions.
The results showed that, irrespective of the presence of teacher-aids, students assigned to the small-class condition achieved higher test scores than students assigned to the conditions of regular class size.
[TRANSLATOR]
Other studies conducted in the United States report parallel findings with the STAR Project, such as the pupil-teacher ratio reduction programs conducted in the state of Wisconsin, and a result of analysis of large-scale longitudinal study data.
Studies conducted in England and Australia also report similar findings.
[TRANSLATOR]
It must be noted, however, that not all class-size studies showed the advantage of small class in relation to students' academic achievement.
[TRANSLATOR]
Hanushek (1999) is one of the crucial studies about the inconsistency of class-size study findings..
He reviewed about 300 studies related to Pupil-Teacher Ratio and academic achievement. He revealed that while 14% of the studies showed positive effects of smaller Pupil-Teacher Ratio, another 14% indicated the opposite result and 72% indicated no contribution of smaller Pupil-Teacher Ratio.
[TRANSLATOR]
As these results indicate, there is an inconsistency among class-size studies, which is known as the "class-size puzzle"
Class-size puzzle seems to be attributes in part to students' individual differences.
[TRANSLATOR]
Some previous researches showed that the effects of class size may be moderated by students' prior achievement.
[TRANSLATOR]
In addition, some study showed some advantages of smaller class: smaller classes led to pupils receiving more individual attention from teachers, and having more active interactions with them; students' off-task behavior and teachers' dealing with negative pupil behavior increased in larger classes.
[TRANSLATOR]
These classroom processes seem to specially affect to lower attaining students.
[TRANSLATOR]
One of the aspects of classroom instruction that impacts students' achievement and is likely to be affected by class size is formative assessment.
[TRANSLATOR]
Considerable amount of research has examined the effect of formative assessment and feedback on students.
Meta-analyses show that formative assessment or feedback have a valid effect on students' achievement.
The average effect size is around d=0.50.
[TRANSLATOR]
In addition, there is another claim that feedback information should contain not so much right or wrong but the difference between goals and current levels of achievement.
[TRANSLATOR]
Given the implication from class-size studies that smaller classes increase interactions of teachers and students, it is likely that smaller class-size improves the quality of formative assessment and consequently impacts students' achievement.
[TRANSLATOR]
As we have seen so far, the effects of class size on students' achievement are inconsistent, and this inconsistency may arise due to students' individual differences, particularly prior achievement.
[TRANSLATOR]
To disentangle the complicated nature of class-size effects, researchers should incorporate the Aptitude-treatment Interaction paradigm.
The basic tenet of Aptitude-treatment Interaction is that effects of treatment are moderated by aptitude; or in the case of education, the effects of teaching depends on individual differences of students and therefore, there is no panacea effective for all individuals.
[TRANSLATOR]
This way of thinking is applicable not only to classroom instruction but also to educational system and policy.
We should note that specific structural conditions encouraged by the educational policy are not always effective for all individuals.
And, as previous research has shown, teachers' educational interventions are also affected by the educational policy.
[TRANSLATOR]
Therefore, when we discuss class-size, which is a policy-level discussion, we also need to be mindful of students' individual differences, teachers' behaviors, and the interaction between teaching strategies and students' individual differences.
[TRANSLATOR]
Now, let's move on to the main theme of this lecture.
[TRANSLATOR]
Although benefits of a small class are not fully validated, indeed, some studies revealed smaller classes help low achievers to improve.
[TRANSLATOR]
In addition, class-size had an effect on students' learning strategies, teachers' instruction, and interaction between students and teachers in class, then consequently made a difference in students' achievement.
[TRANSLATOR]
Formative assessment is one of the variables that predict academic achievement to a large extent.
Furthermore, feedback information that conveys achievement goals and progress enhanced performance.
[TRANSLATOR]
Drawing on these previous findings, this study examines the effects of class-size on students' achievement over two years by taking into consideration their prior achievement, implementation of formative feedback, and the interaction between class-size and formative feedback.
[TRANSLATOR]
In this study, around 1700 students, in the 4th grade at the first measurement point, from 50 public elementary schools in Yamagata prefecture participated.
[TRANSLATOR]
Data was collected at three levels: the student, the class, and the school.
At the student level, we gathered panel data of individual students' scores on norm-referenced standardized test of social studies at two occasions; at the beginning of fourth and sixth grade school year.
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The class-level data was collected from homeroom teachers who taught the participating students in their 4th and 5th grades.
The teachers responded to a questionnaire to indicate yearly implementation of both presenting clear learning goals at the start of each instructional unit and implementing individual feedback about the ability level relative to the goal at the end of a unit.
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The school-level data was sizes of all classes of participated schools, which was provided by the Yamagata prefectural bureau of education.
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The theoretical model is presented in this figure.
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At the student level, subsequent achievement is predicted by prior achievement.
The particular interests are in the slope S1 and the intercept I1.
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When the slope is less steep, the magnitude of the impact of prior achievement on subsequent achievement is smaller.
When the intercept is higher, it indicates that students' subsequent achievement is higher.
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At the class level, prior achievement, class-size, formative feedback implementation, and the interaction of class-size and feedback are postulated to predict the slope S1 and the intercept I1 on the student level.
At the school level, prior achievement is posited to predict the slope and the intercept on both class level and student level.
In addition, homeroom teachers' years of teaching experience is included in the model as covariate.
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As the result, this figure shows the result of the relationship between the class-size and "state achievement goal - provide progress" formative feedback which teacher provided.
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A significant result is that the frequency of formative feedback in the 5th grade decreases as the number of students in a class increases.
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As the result of estimated model, the interaction between the class-size and the formative feedback had a positive effect on the slope for the test score at the 6th grade on the student level:
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that is, the interaction between class-size and formative feedback moderated changes in students' achievement.
On the other hand, no direct effect of class-size and formative feedback on the slope and intercepts were found.
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This figure shows the relationship between prior achievement at the 4th grade and subsequent achievement at the 6th grade, made by estimated result of the hierarchical linear modeling parameter estimates.
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Diagram (a) on the left side shows the result of the students who received frequent formative feedback, and Diagram (b) on the right is the results of students who received less frequent or no formative feedback.
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The results of the estimated model showed no main effects of class size on students' achievement. However, as was expected, the interaction between class-size and formative feedback had a positive effect on the changes in students' achievement.
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These results indicate a combined effect of class-size and formative feedback: the adequate feedback implementation in smaller class has a compensatory role to enhance the attainment of previously lower achievers, as shown in this figure.
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In addition, as shown in this figure which shows the relationship between class-size and implementation of formative feedback, teachers in smaller classes are likely to provide formative feedback more frequently than those in larger classes.
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In sum, smaller classes allow teachers to provide more feedback for students, which then compensates the attainment of previously lower achievers.
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Finally, I'd like to indicate the importance of standard based assessment and emphasize the need to consider educational condition when we conduct standard-based assessment effectively in classrooms.
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Now, let us focus on standard-based assessment.
More than establishing accountability of what students achieved, the power of feedback by means of standard-based assessment should be emphasized.
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The effect of standard-based assessment makes a significant contribution to helping the students with low achievement when conducted in small size classes.
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In order to ensure the power of standard-based assessment, we should not ignore the aspect of "how many students in this classroom?"
This is the implications from our research.
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Instruction, learning, and assessment, all we do under the given set of conditions. Effect of instruction, learning, and assessment, all comes from the interaction between the given set of conditions and individual differences among students.
Thank you for your attention
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