This Open Access book summarizes the key findings from the second cycle of IEA’s International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS), conducted in 2018. ICILS seeks to establish how well ...schools around the globe are responding to the need to provide young people with the necessary digital participatory competencies. Effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is an imperative for successful participation in an increasingly digital world. ICILS 2018 explores international differences in students’ computer and information literacy (CIL), namely their ability to use computers to investigate, create, and communicate at home, at school, in the workplace, and in the community. Participating countries also had an option to administer an assessment of students’ computational thinking (CT), focused on their ability to recognize aspects of real-world problems appropriate for computational formulation, and to evaluate and develop algorithmic solutions to those problems, so that the solutions could be operationalized with a computer. The data collected by ICILS 2018 show how digital competencies can be assessed using instruments representing authentic contexts for ICT use, and how students’ CIL and CT skills relate to school learning experiences, out-of-school contexts, and student characteristics. Those data also show how learning technologies are used in classrooms around the world. Background questionnaires asked students about their use of ICT, and collected information from teachers, schools, and national education systems about the resourcing and teaching of CIL (and CT) within their countries. The results of ICILS 2018 will enable policymakers and education systems to develop a better understanding of the contexts and outcomes of CIL (and CT) education programs.
This open access book is written for educators and policymakers who seek to empower young people with competencies necessary for fulfilling lives in the 21st century. It reports how a large group of ...educators from government and civil society organisations, together with researchers from universities, used their curriculum, assessment, and social economy expertise to develop contextualised definitions of life skills and values, and associated assessment tools. The book also reports on levels of these competencies of over 45,000 adolescents, from a household-based assessment conducted in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The results describe how these adolescents vary in proficiency by region, age, and other factors, providing a resource for national education ministries to factor into policy decisions. Given the technical requirements of measuring individuals’ social-emotional and related competencies, how is it possible to capture an adolescent’s life skills across varied contexts? The book provides readers with a pragmatic yet technically robust process for undertaking a large-scale assessment program designed to inform policy.
Chan and Colloton’s book is one of the first to provide a comprehensive examination of the use and impact of ChatGPT and Generative AI (GenAI) in higher education. Since November 2022, every ...conversation in higher education has involved ChatGPT and its impact on all aspects of teaching and learning. The book explores the necessity of AI literacy tailored to professional contexts, assess the strengths and weaknesses of incorporating ChatGPT in curriculum design, and delve into the transformation of assessment methods in the GenAI era. The authors introduce the Six Assessment Redesign Pivotal Strategies (SARPS) and an AI Assessment Integration Framework, encouraging a learner-centric assessment model. The necessity for well-crafted AI educational policies is explored, as well as a blueprint for policy formulation in academic institutions. Technical enthusiasts are catered to with a deep dive into the mechanics behind GenAI, from the history of neural networks to the latest advances and applications of GenAI technologies. With an eye on the future of AI in education, this book will appeal to educators, students and scholars interested in the wider societal implications and the transformative role of GenAI in pedagogy and research.
In a gradually more complex and insecure world, children, youth, teachers, and school leaders must learn to navigate unpredictability. To prevent inertia, knowledge, learning and education need to be ...reshaped to strengthen the ability to act responsibly and constructively. This edited volume reveals a need for pedagogical approaches that may assist both teachers and pupils into dealing with uncertainty, ambiguity, and indeterminacy. The book offers original and new knowledge with polyphony, possibilities, and tensions as overarching perspectives. Each chapter represents specific contexts and perspectives within different segments of the educational sector, on a continuum from early years learning to school management. Concrete examples are offered for teaching, learning, research, and management in a world marked by diversity, tension, and insecurity. Several chapters intersect and include findings that can be transferred to other contexts and practices. The aim is for the edited volume to serve as an initiating impetus for changes in practices, and to reveal how practices in dissimilar contexts may fruitfully stimulate one another. The authors represent different areas within teacher education and school management, and became acquainted while being enrolled in The Norwegian National Research School in Teacher Education (NAFOL) as doctoral students in cohort 8 (2016-2020). We hope the edited volume can inspire representatives across disciplines and sectors to learn from one another and contribute to a polyphonic discussion within educational research in Norway, through a continually questioning and reflexive approach towards one’s own practices and attitudes.
I en verden med økende kompleksitet og usikkerhet på en rekke områder må barn og unge, lærere og skoleledere lære seg å leve med uforutsigbarhet. For å hindre handlingslammelse, må kunnskap, læring og utdanning omformes for å styrke ansvarlig og konstruktiv handling. Antologien avdekker et behov for pedagogiske tilnærminger som hjelper både lærere og elever til å håndtere usikkerhet, tvetydighet og ubestemthet. Boken tilbyr original og ny kunnskap med flerstemmighet, muligheter og spenninger som overordnede perspektiver. Hvert kapittel representerer spesifikke kontekster og perspektiver innenfor forskjellige deler av utdanningssystemet, og strekker seg fra barnehagefeltet til skoleledelse. Det gis eksempler på hvordan en kan undervise, lære, forske og lede i en mangfoldig, spenningsfylt og usikker verden. Flere av kapitlene tangerer hverandre og har overføringsverdi til andre kontekster og praksiser. Målet er at antologien skal fungere som en igangsettende impuls for endringer av praksiser, der praksiser på ulike felt kan gi næring til hverandre. Forfatterne representerer forskjellige områder innen lærerutdanning og utdanningsledelse, og ble kjent med hverandre som doktorgradsstudenter ved Nasjonal forskerskole for lærerutdanning (NAFOL), kull 8 (2016–2020). Vi håper antologien kan inspirere representanter på tvers av fag og sektorer til å lære fra hverandre og bidra til en flerstemmig diskusjon innenfor utdanningsforskningen i Norge, med utgangspunkt i en kontinuerlig spørrende og refleksiv holdning til egen praksis og egne holdninger.
Advancing Natural Language Processing in Educational Assessment examines the use of natural language technology in educational testing, measurement, and assessment. Recent developments in natural ...language processing (NLP) have enabled large-scale educational applications, though scholars and professionals may lack a shared understanding of the strengths and limitations of NLP in assessment as well as the challenges that testing organizations face in implementation. This first-of-its-kind book provides evidence-based practices for the use of NLP-based approaches to automated text and speech scoring, language proficiency assessment, technology-assisted item generation, gamification, learner feedback, and beyond. Spanning historical context, validity and fairness issues, emerging technologies, and implications for feedback and personalization, these chapters represent the most robust treatment yet about NLP for education measurement researchers, psychometricians, testing professionals, and policymakers.
This book explores issues regarding student assessment in university-level physics education. With a firm emphasis on practical experience and numerous examples of current assessments, the book ...serves as a guide to academics new to assessment, as a refresher to more experienced academics who wish to think more deeply about what they are trying to achieve, and as a challenge to senior figures working on higher education infrastructure.
This open access book focuses on trends in educational inequality using twenty years of grade 8 student data collected from 13 education systems by the IEA’s Trends in Mathematics and Science Study ...(TIMSS) between 1995 and 2015. While the overall positive association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and student achievement is well documented in the literature, the magnitude of this relationship is contingent on social contexts and is expected to vary by education system. Research on how such associations differ across societies and how the strength of these relationships has changed over time is limited. This study, therefore, addresses an important research and policy question by examining changes in the inequality of educational outcomes due to SES over this 20-year period, and also examines the extent to which the performance of students from disadvantaged backgrounds has improved over time in each education system. Education systems generally aim to narrow the achievement gap between low- and high-SES students and to improve the performance of disadvantaged students. However, the lack of quantifiable and comprehensible measures makes it difficult to assess and monitor the effect of such efforts. In this study, a novel measure of SES that is consistent across all TIMSS cycles allows students to be categorized into different socioeconomic groups. This measure of SES may also contribute to future research using TIMSS trend data. Readers will gain new insight into how educational inequality has changed in the education systems studied and how such change may relate to the more complex picture of macroeconomic changes in those societies.
This open access book presents a systematic investigation into internationally comparable data gathered in ICILS 2013. It identifies differences in female and male students’ use of, perceptions ...about, and proficiency in using computer technologies. Teachers’ use of computers, and their perceptions regarding the benefits of computer use in education, are also analyzed by gender. When computer technology was first introduced in schools, there was a prevailing belief that information and communication technologies were ‘boys’ toys’; boys were assumed to have more positive attitudes toward using computer technologies. As computer technologies have become more established throughout societies, gender gaps in students’ computer and information literacy appear to be closing, although studies into gender differences remain sparse. The IEA’s International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) is designed to discover how well students are prepared for study, work, and life in the digital age. Despite popular beliefs, a critical finding of ICILS 2013 was that internationally girls tended to score more highly than boys, so why are girls still not entering technology-based careers to the same extent as boys? Readers will learn how male and female students differ in their computer literacy (both general and specialized) and use of computer technology, and how the perceptions held about those technologies vary by gender.
