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The 10th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2017) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Optics Velley Kingdom Plaza Hotel, Wuhan, Hubei Province, in China. This years conference features two invited talks by: Dr. Jie Tang, Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University; and Dr. Ron Cole, President of Boulder Learning Inc. The main conference invited contributions to the Research Track and Industry Track. 122 submissions were received (71 full, 47 short, 4 industry). 18 full papers papers were accepted (25% acceptance rate) and 32 short papers for oral presentation (42% acceptance rate) and an additional 39 for poster presentations, 3 demonstrations. The industry track includes all 4 submitted industry papers and 1 paper initially submitted as a full paper. The EDM conference provides opportunities for young researchers, and particularly Ph.D. students, to present their research ideas and receive feedback from the peers and more senior researchers. This year, the Doctoral Consortium features 6 such presentations. In addition to the main program, the conference includes 3 workshops: (1) Graph-based Educational Data Mining (G-EDM 2017); (2) Sharing and Reusing Data & Analytics Methods with LearnSphere; and (3) Deep Learning with Educational Data; and 2 tutorials: (1) Why Data Standards are Critical for EDM and AIED; and (2) Principal Stratification for EDM Experiments. [For the 2016 proceedings, see ED592609.]

The study obtained cross-cultural measures of quality of life (QOL), based upon perceptions of individuals with mental retardation/developmental disabilities (MR/DD) of their degree of satisfaction, productivity, independence, and community integration. The Quality of Life Questionnaire was administered to 92 persons in MR/DD programs in Australia, the Federal Republic of Germany, Israel, and the Republic of China and 552 persons from MR/DD programs in Nebraska and Colorado. A very consistent trend was found across the five countries: quality of life scores increase as one lives and works in more normalized environments. The paper also outlines characteristics of mental retardation/developmental disabilities services in the four countries (excluding the United States), focusing on: public laws regarding services to persons with MR/DD, funding patterns, administrative structures for MR/DD services, current living options, and current employment options. The paper notes that the concept of quality of life in habilitation services can be used cross-culturally to foster international QOL-oriented public policy, implement QOL-oriented program practices, and complete QOL-focused cross- cultural research projects. Includes 16 references. (JDD)

Understanding and accounting for gender performance differences on high stakes examinations has become a particular concern for educational researchers to ensure test fairness for all examinees. In the context of second/foreign language proficiency testing, research suggests that males and females do not react differently at the item level. However, as R. Nandakumar (1993) suggested, items with small but systematic differential item functioning (DIF) may very often go statistically unnoticed, but when combined, they may be detected at the bundle level. Thus a study of differential bundle functioning (DBF) becomes necessary in order to understand more fully the influence of gender on test performance, especially when important, although perhaps subtle, secondary dimensions associated with different testlets have been found in the Test of English as a Foreign Language. In this study of the English Proficiency Test in China, the computer program SIBTEST was used for DIF/DBF analyses and DIMTEST for dimensionality testing. Subjects were 3,160 males and 1,299 females. The results indicate that although the English Proficiency Test did not demonstrate much gender DIF, the SIBTEST and DIMTEST analyses identified and confirmed the presence of the bundle of listening comprehension obviously favoring females and the bundles of grammar and vocabulary and close favoring males slightly. (Contains 3 tables, 2 figures, and 24 references.) (Author/SLD)

These "Proceedings" derived from the Commission for International Adult Education's (CIAE) 2018 International Pre-Conference. They contain 23 papers from 32 authors. Eight of the lead authors are graduate students -- four are rounding up their Master's degrees while four are on their doctoral programs. The rest are a mix of seasoned and mid-career adult education scholars and practitioners. Each year delegates travel from all over the world to share ideas, engage in scholarship, and inspire one another to continue to make meaningful change in the world. One of the greatest strengths of the CIAE conferences is the broad level of involvement from so many different areas of practice and study within the Adult Education field, and having such a large group of scholars and practitioners from around the globe each year is a significant part of what makes them who they are.

The classifications of 11 attributions according to dimensions of locus, stability, controllability, predictability, and globality by participants in 7 countries (China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Spain, and the United States) were compared in a cross-cultural study. The attributions were: (1) bias; (2) help; (3) luck; (4) ability; (5) competence; (6) effort; (7) task; (8) chance; (9) knowledge; (10) skill; and (11) mood. It was hypothesized that different cultures would assign different meanings to attributions according to the dimensions. Participants from the 7 countries were 1,145 undergraduate and graduate students and lay individuals (over age 35 with no formal education beyond high school). Nine of the 11 attributions could be validly compared, but bias and competence were not comparable across the countries. Subjects from all countries perceived ability, mood, skill, and knowledge as internal. All countries except Israel (neutral position) perceived chance and task as external. In all countries, effort was seen as controllable. Israelis were neutral with regard to skill and knowledge, but other countries perceived these attributions as controllable. Luck was generally perceived as uncontrollable, with luck and chance seen as unstable. Average values were seldom found at the extremes. The most significant differences were found for Israel, and these were findings that could be reflected in a greater sense of control of one's destiny and more perceived power. Five tables summarize study findings. (Contains 9 references.) (SLD)

The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) is an international, non-profit educational organization. The Association's purpose is to advance the knowledge, theory, and quality of teaching and learning at all levels with information technology. "EdMedia + Innovate Learning: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology" took place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 25-29, 2018. These proceedings contain 308 papers, including 14 award papers. The award papers cover topics such as Open Education Resources (OER) certification for higher education; a cooperative approach to the challenges of implementing e-assessments; developing an e-learning system for English conversation practice using speech recognition and artificial intelligence; the Learning Experience Technology Usability Design Framework; developing strategies for digital transformation in higher education; pre-service teachers' readiness to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education; teacher development through technology in a short-term study abroad program; Austria's higher education e-learning landscape; a digitised educational application focused on the water cycle in nature carried out in a secondary school in Ireland; evaluative research on virtual and augmented reality for children; how children use computational thinking skills when they solve a problem using the Ozobot; a strategy to connect curricula with the digital world; the learning portfolio in higher education; and adult playfulness in simulation-based healthcare education. [For the 2017 proceedings, see ED605571.]

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]

The communication apprehension and interpersonal needs of college students in the People's Republic of China were examined and compared to similar data on college students in the United States, Korea, Japan, and Australia. The instruments used in the studies were the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA) and the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation--Behavior (FIRO-B) scale, which measured expressed/wanted inclusion, control, and affection. The Chinese students appeared to be as anxious as the Americans and Australians about communicating orally, less so than the Japanese, and more so than the Koreans. Their interpersonal needs of inclusion and control tended to be weaker than those of the students in the other countries, although their expressed/wanted affection was stronger. It was proposed that the group-oriented society in the People's Republic probably provided satisfaction of the inclusion and control needs but not the affection need, since intimacy was not a quality of Chinese group life. The studies presented several methodological problems, including the difficulties of comparing peoples with different homogeneous backgrounds, and the varying sizes of the groups studied. Since all the studies used the same English language versions of the measures, there also was the possibility that the Chinese, Japanese and Korean respondents possessed an English fluency that set them apart from their less linguistically capable compatriots. (Author/RL)

Youth's transition pathways into adulthood are important to study given that they closely relate to many late life outcomes. However, limited scholarly attention is paid in investigating youth's transition pathways in multiple domains of life from a rural, non-western context. This paper has two objectives. The first is to describe transition pathways in education, work and home-leaving among a group of rural youth residing in one of China's most impoverished provinces- Gansu Province. The second objective is to provide a critical documentation on the roles that structural and agentic resources play in shaping rural youth's pathways into adulthood. Data came from Wave 1 (2000) and Wave 4 (2009) of the Gansu Survey of Children and Family (GSCF). This study first uses latent class analysis (LCA) to characterize youths' diverse transition pathways patterns from age 12-19. Multinomial logit model is then applied to investigate agentic and structural resources that associated with different patterns of transition pathways. LCA analysis revealed six latent pathways: (1) vocational school attenders; (2) local high school attenders; (3) move for high school; (4) move for work; (5) late middle school finishers and move for work; and (6) late middle school finishers and local high school. Multinomial analysis further distinguishes three sets of variables among these groups: youths' agentic orientations, family SES, and community-level educational resources.This study highlights heterogeneous pathways experienced by rural Gansu youth in transition into adulthood. It also underscores the role that structural and agentic resources play in shaping youths' transition pathways into adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the most recent two waves from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), collected in 2002 and 2005, we test the longitudinal effects of childhood, adulthood, and community socioeconomic status (SES) on functional limitation, chronic conditions, cognitive impairment, self-rated health, and mortality people aged 65 or over in China. We then examine psychosocial pathways linking SES to mortality and health in later life. Compared to childhood and community SES, adulthood SES is the primary determinant of various facets of health in older ages. Childhood SES is only predictive of cognitive impairment. Community SES affects both cognitive impairment and chronic illness. The SES effects on chronic illness are intriguing, inconsistent with our hypotheses. These patterns can not be explained by social differentials in health practices previously hypothesized as a potential psychosocial pathway. More studies are needed to further explore processes through which socioeconomic standings affect healthy aging in China. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]