Artificial Intelligence is at the heart of modern society with computers now capable of making process decisions in many spheres of human activity. In education, there has been intensive growth in ...systems that make formal and informal learning an anytime, anywhere activity for billions of people through online open educational resources and massive online open courses. Moreover, new developments in Artificial Intelligence‐related educational assessment are attracting increasing interest as means of improving assessment efficacy and validity, with much attention focusing on the analysis of the large volumes of process data being captured from digital assessment contexts. In evaluating the state of play of Artificial Intelligence in formative and summative educational assessment, this paper offers a critical perspective on the two core applications: automated essay scoring systems and computerized adaptive tests, along with the Big Data analysis approaches to machine learning that underpin them.
Lay Description
What is already known about this topic?
AI and machine learning are established in summative assessments (SA) of learning
The main types are Automated Essay Scoring (AES) and Computerised Adaptive Testing (CAT)
Machine learning, based on Big Data and Learning Analytics, offers exciting possibilities in formative assessment (FA)
What this paper adds?
A review of current AI and machine learning platforms in FA and SA
Insights into the structure and design of CATs and AESs
A review of current research on usage of Big Data/Learning Analytics for FA and SA
A critique of the future for AI and machine learning in assessing higher order learning
Implications for practice and/or policy
The use of AI for the assessment of higher order learning is not yet a feasible reality
Sophisticated learning analytics can now offer closer alignment of AI to human judgment
‘Trained’ machine feedback can support self‐regulated learning in online environments
Indicators are emerging from process data analysis on a learner's behaviour and affective state
Organizations often operate in complex and dynamic environments which place a premium on employees' ongoing learning and acquisition of new competencies. Additionally, the majority of learning in ...organizations does not take place in formal training settings, but we know relatively little about how informal field-based learning (IFBL) behaviors relate to changes in job performance. In this study, we first clarified the construct of IFBL as a subset of informal learning. Second, on the basis of this clarified construct definition, we developed a measure of IFBL behaviors and demonstrated its psychometric properties using (a) a sample of subject matter experts who made item content validity judgments and (b) both an Amazon Mechanical Turk sample (N = 400) and a sample of 1,707 healthcare employees. Third, we advanced a grounded theory of IFBL in healthcare, and related it to individuals' regulatory foci and contextual moderators of IFBL behaviors-job performance relationships using a cross-level design and lagged nonmethod bound measures. Specifically, using a sample of 407 healthcare workers from 49 hospital units, our results suggested that promotion-focused individuals, especially in well-staffed units, readily engage in IFBL behaviors. Additionally, we found that the IFBL-changes in job performance relationship was strengthened to the extent that individuals worked in units with relatively nonpunitive climates. Interestingly, staffing levels had a weakening moderating effect on the positive IFBL-performance improvements relationship. Detailed follow-up analyses revealed that the peculiar effect was attributable to differential relationships from IFBL subdimensions. Implications for future theory building, research, and practice are discussed.
Understanding equitable practice is crucial for science education since science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and STEM learning practices remain significantly marked by ...structural inequalities. In this paper, building on theories of discourse and situated meaning developed by Foucault, Gee, and Sedgewick, we explore how educators navigated discourses about social justice in informal science learning (ISL) across four UK sites. We draw on qualitative, multimodal data across 5 years of a research–practice partnership between a university, a zoo, a social enterprise working to support girls and nonbinary youth in STEM, a community digital arts center, and a science center. We identify three key discourses that shaped social justice practices across all four practice–partner sites: (1) “inclusion” for STEM, (2) “inclusion” for the institution, and (3) “inclusion” for minoritized youth. We discuss how educators (n = 17) enacted, negotiated, resisted, and reworked these discourses to create equitable practice. We argue that while the three key discourses shaped the possible meanings and practices of equitable ISL in different ways, educators used their agency and creativity to develop more expansive visions of social justice. We discuss how the affordances, pitfalls, and contradictions that emerged within and between the three discourses were strategically navigated and disrupted by educators to support the minoritized youth they worked with, as well as to protect and promote equity in ISL. This paper contributes to research on social justice in ISL by grounding sometimes questions about power and discourse in ISL educators' everyday work.
This paper explores the processes of construction of difference in the materiality of a space of daily interculturalism, through the analysis of the interactions characterizing the life of a ...multiethnic condominium, which is located in the historic center of Arezzo (Tuscany, Italy). An ethnographic study was conducted which – entering the wider movement of post-qualitative methodologies – incorporated in the analysis process our experiences and personal interpretations, since directly involved and participating in the reality observed as residents in the housing complex. Our interest is aimed at studying the practical use of difference in everyday life, analyzing a condominium as effective space of multiethnic coexistence where matter, subjects, spaces, categories, and geographies are articulated along a continuum of sense and experience, which has found a learning laboratory in the building and its “practices of living”.
The purpose of this research was to develop and test a model of factors contributing to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning and career orientation, examining the complex ...paths and relationships among social, motivational, and instructional factors underlying these outcomes for middle school youth. Social cognitive career theory provided the foundation for the research because of its emphasis on explaining mechanisms which influence both career orientations and academic performance. Key constructs investigated were youth STEM interest, self-efficacy, and career outcome expectancy (consequences of particular actions). The study also investigated the effects of prior knowledge, use of problem-solving learning strategies, and the support and influence of informal educators, family members, and peers. A structural equation model was developed, and structural equation modeling procedures were used to test proposed relationships between these constructs. Results showed that educators, peers, and family-influenced youth STEM interest, which in turn predicted their STEM self-efficacy and career outcome expectancy. STEM career orientation was fostered by youth-expected outcomes for such careers. Results suggest that students' pathways to STEM careers and learning can be largely explained by these constructs, and underscore the importance of youth STEM interest.
This article outlines the results from an investigation on elementary school students designed to find out whether the coronavirus pandemic had an impact on their conceptualisation of microorganisms. ...We compared 9- to 11-year-old children's drawings and answers to questionnaires conducted before the pandemic (during 2017 and 2018, N = 137) with those conducted after the pandemic (during 2022, N = 94). We found that the impact has been deep. On the one hand, the post-pandemic group not only reinforced their negative image about microorganisms but assimilated the group of microorganisms to that of viruses. Moreover, most of their representations showed great similarities to the images of the typical sphere-with-peaks coronavirus presented in public media. On the other hand, the tendency to associate microorganisms predominantly with human beings decreased in this group at the expense of an increase in the notion of their ubiquity. These results are a starting point to design new didactic strategies to capitalise on informal learning during the pandemic and channel it towards scientifically correct models.
This article aims to shape understandings of the geographies of informal education by exploring an aspect of education that has been broadly overlooked by geographers to date-apprenticeships-within a ...Global South context. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in Accra, Ghana, where young male and female apprentices learn a trade alongside master craftspeople, the nature of the apprenticeship system and how it is evolving are explored. The article develops an analytical framework for examining the dynamics of informal education with three core elements: the people and everyday praxes; the materialities, technologies, and spatialities of the learning process; and the regulatory apparatus. The apprenticeship system in Ghana is shown to be constantly evolving, with some aspects of the learning process remaining informal, some being formalized, and still others informalized; the extent and nature of these processes vary between trades and over time. The article thus demonstrates how the boundary between informal and formal education is far from clear-cut, with processes of informalization and formalization occurring concomitantly. Calls are made to expand the agenda of geographies of informal education in both the Global North and South to incorporate livelihood-related issues, including apprenticeships, and geographers are challenged to rethink the informal-formal divide within education. This timely research thus forms part of broader trends to consider how addressing the Global South forces a rethinking and revisioning of theoretical frameworks. Key Words: Africa, apprenticeship, education, Ghana, informal.
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