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This paper makes two criticisms of dichotomously scored instruments. One is that dichotomous scoring restrains the scores to ipsative measures that should not be compared, and the other is that dichotomous scoring ignores the strength with which a subject endorses a response so that the resulting count may imply a different construct measure from that indicated by the sum of rating responses. These criticisms were explored by comparing the reliability and validity of dichotomously scored responses and rating response scores from the Impulsivity Scale (L. Hirschfield, 1965). The concurrent validity of both scoring methods was established by comparison with scores on the Children's Perceived Self-Control Scale (P. Humphrey, 1982). Adolescent ninth graders (n=687) from 14 Jamaican schools were tested and retested with these instruments 2 weeks apart. Results show that rating scores were more reliable in stability and consistency and had greater validity than dichotomous scores. These results give empirical support to the criticisms raised in the paper. (Author/SLD)

This study examined the use of two locus of control instruments for teachers in the Caribbean: the Adult Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Locus of Control (LOC) Scale (T. Wolf, M. Sklov, M. Hunter, and G. Berenson, 1982) and the Medway and Rose Teachers' LOC Scale (F. Medway and J. Rose, 1981). Participants were 183 teachers from 10 high schools in Jamaica who agreed to be tested and retested with these measures. The structures of the instruments were analyzed, as was the appropriateness of their scoring methods for measuring teacher LOC. Results show moderate to high reliabilities for both instruments and suggest a scoring modification to improve test-retest reliabilities. Concurrent validity for the two measures, however, was low for this sample. The paper also discusses possibilities for modifying and monitoring the LOC orientation of teachers in training and for showing teachers how to use this information in self-evaluation. (Contains 4 figures, 1 table, and 22 references.) (SLD)

Situated Attainment (SA) is a within-class concept that allows the exploration of why teachers award some students higher or lower grades than their intelligence might warrant. A student's SA is operationally defined as the difference in ranks between the grade awarded by the teacher and the student's intelligence quotient (IQ). For this initial exploration of the concept, 9 classes of grade 9 students were selected, a total of 319. These students responded to an attitude questionnaire and a subset of culturally and psychometrically appropriate IQ questions from the General Ability Tests 2. Half-year results from which grades were derived were also recorded. The theoretical assumptions if using class as the unit of analysis, school as the unit of analysis, and student as the unit of analysis were supported, and further analysis using the SA metric showed that teachers were not gender biased in their grading of males and females relative to their IQs. The SA analysis revealed teachers extreme grading bias with respect to the student's age (95.8%) and a bias toward students' attitudes. The study reveals the negative effect of continued underachievement on students' self-esteem and shows that 62.5% of student dissatisfaction with low grades was the result of underachievement rather than lack of ability. (Contains 5 tables and 39 references.) (SLD)

Economic globalization make it increasingly important for Caribbean professionals to be able to communicate effectively in English, French, and Spanish. Accordingly, the University of Technology in Jamaica is developing French and Spanish courses designed to teach culturally appropriate and successful communication for specific professions. The design of these courses is radically different from the traditional university courses in both subject content and teaching methodology in order to accommodate the specific practical communication demands now placed on professionals in the Caribbean. This paper discusses the crucial importance of introducing specific occupational foreign language courses to equip undergraduate students with the fundamental foreign language skills necessary to function competently in linguistically diverse Caribbean work environments. It explains how linguistic competence is achieved by designing foreign language courses, using discipline-oriented lexical registers, content-based simulated situations, and nonconformist communicative contextual foreign language teaching methodology. Two illustrative examples of occupational French or Spanish course development for hotel and tourism management are described, highlighting the practical relevance of their course contents and teaching methodology to hotel and tourism management. (Contains 25 references.) (Author/KFT)

This paper explains how oral competence in foreign languages is developed by applying constructivist pedagogic methodology to the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Foreign language constructivist methodology departs from the information processing model and behaviorist teaching that guide the transmission of foreign language teaching. In contrast, the learner-centered pedagogic approach inherent to foreign language constructivism is geared to enhancing self-directed learning and to promoting foreign language communicative competence through authentic language use in the classroom. This methodology endorses current positive foreign language pedagogic values, such as authenticity and collaboration and the encouragement of active engagement in learning. This is primarily achieved through the use of thematically-focused communicative activities, which create energizing living experiences in the foreign language. This paper shows how to use these affect-structuring techniques of emotional anchors, motivators, and cognitive direction to design these constructivist foreign language experiences and gives practical examples of their application in a multicultural, multi-ability and multi-age French class. (Author/KFT)

This study tested the common assumption that lists of instructional objectives (LIOs) presented at the start of a lesson are used as advance organizers (AOs). Because traditional research designs have yielded conflicting results, an alternative design was used that sought to falsify the necessary association between the objectives and their use that results when AOs are used. Students (n=684) aged 12 to 19 in 17 classes in 8 schools were shown different lists of 4 objectives for 10 minutes of a 30-minute normal lesson. One objective was not used in the lesson. Students were then asked to recall the four objectives and identify which was not used. In all, 234 students correctly recalled all 4 objectives. Of these, 70 (29.6%) could not identify the unused objective. These 70 cases falsify the existence of the necessary association. Comparisons of the mean percentile rankings of these students from previous class tests indicated that an emphasis on memory and a de-emphasis on structuring learning may have discouraged the use of LIOs as AOs. (Contains 3 figures, 3 tables, and 48 references.) (Author/SLD)

Many societies institute coeducational and single-sex schools to mediate adolescents' antisocial behavior. This paper details a study comparing antisocial behavior of adolescent boys and girls in coeducational schools with that of a matching group in single-sex schools in Jamaica. The study identified the 10 most common types of antisocial adolescent behavior in Jamaican secondary schools by means of individual interviews with a random sample of 112 students representing the 6 different types of secondary schools in Jamaica. These data were triangulated through interviews with principals and teachers. The prevalence of these behaviors was then determined by surveying a random sample of 1,193 adolescents from 16 representative coeducational and single-sex schools. Analysis showed that adolescent males exhibit significantly more antisocial behaviors than do adolescent females. These gender differences were less significant for verbally based antisocial behavior. Findings indicated that boys in coeducational schools were less antisocial than boys in single-sex schools, a surprising finding because students at single-sex schools generally came from the highest socioeconomic status. Adolescent girls in single-sex schools tended to be less antisocial. The paper's 4 tables list the survey results in terms of mean differences between the genders and school groups on 28 behaviors including minutes it took for teachers to settle class; respect for principal, teacher, prefects and classmates; and the prevalence for both self and friends for stealing, breaking school rules, fighting, absconding, disrespect for teachers, verbal abuse, bad language, wounding, vandalizing, fondling and clothing faults. The social problems of using coeducational schools to mediate antisocial violence among adolescent boys are also discussed. (Contains 28 references.) (JPB)

Anti-social behavior is reported to be a growing problem in school systems of different countries. A comparison was made about anti-social adolescent behaviors between students who attend single-sex schools and coeducational schools in Jamaica. Students (N=112) were interviewed to determine the most prevalent school discipline problems. A sample of 1,193 adolescents from 16 schools was then surveyed to determine the prevalence of anti-social adolescent behavior in the school system. Most of the anti-social behavior was associated significantly more with males, although there were no male/female differences in absconding, disrespecting teachers, verbal abuse, and bad language use. Adolescent boys attending coeducational schools were less anti-social than adolescent boys attending single-sex schools. The survey concluded that coeducational schools most significantly decreased adolescent males' anti-social behavior and single-sex schools most significantly decreased adolescent females' anti-social behavior. The results suggest that coeducational schools should help reduce socially disruptive and violent behavior of both adolescent males and females. (Contains 5 tables and 25 references.) (JDM)

This paper introduces a new instrument for assessing teacher motivation and uses it to compare the motivations of male and female teacher trainees in Jamaica. The results are then contrasted with the gender specific motivations that researchers have found for teachers in other parts of the world. The instrument is a three factor model based on a 13-item questionnaire that can be easily replicated for the assessment of teacher motivation. The three factors are extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and altruistic motivation. The items were developed from 15-minute semistructured individual and focus group interviews with 130 teacher trainees and teacher educators in Jamaica. The factor model was tested on 1,444 teacher trainees who represented an island-wide sample of one-third of the inservice and preservice teacher trainees covering all 3 years of teacher training in Jamaica. The model identified a 51% systematic variation in their responses. It was then used to compare the motivations of male and female teacher trainees and to explore how motivations for teaching were related to age and teaching experience. The results show similarities and differences in the gendered motivations of teachers reported from other countries, and they throw some light on the global phenomenon of the higher attrition for male teachers that can be of some use across cultures in policy decisions for teacher recruitment. (Contains 8 tables and 33 references.) (SLD)

Continuing education students are usually mature students who have a wealth of experience from which their peers and the lecturer could profit. An effective teaching method with such students is the use of cooperative work assignments, but a problem that prevents lecturers from using this method is the difficulty of assigning grades to individual students for their collaborative group work. This paper describes an effective assessment procedure that puts individual accountability into the assessment of cooperative assignments so that students are fairly rewarded for sharing their experience. The technique, which involves peer evaluations of each member's contributions to the work, was tested with 57 undergraduate and graduate students in 8 cooperative groups. Students were asked to evaluate the contributions of each member of the group to the project, but the project grade was assessed without regard to these ratings. The variation in the marks received by a group member were used as a measure of the reliability of the member's grade, and the reasons given for each of the peer evaluations served as indications of the construct validity of the group member's mark. The peer assessments were used in combination with the group mark to award a grade to each participant. Results from the study support the use of the technique in assessing the contributions of each group member. (Contains 2 tables and 18 references.) (SLD)

Continuing education students bring with them expectations from previous teaching that challenge the effectiveness of usual teacher evaluation procedures. This paper presents a validated approach to the evaluation of teaching that identifies potential problems with individuals and minority groups of continuing students. This approach can be used during the course to steer teaching back on course before problems arise. The approach, the Three Ability Framework (3AF), results in a single quantitative measure of the quality of teaching that can be used as an administrative decision point. The 3AF feedback form takes only a few minutes to complete. The teacher explains to the students the three abilities research has identified as essential to effective teaching: (1) technical skills; (2) professional competence; and (3) professional attitudes. Students are asked to rate their assessments of each of these areas and their expectations of how the areas should be fulfilled in the course, and instructors rate themselves in each area. Student and instructor ratings are compared (student change rating is subtracted from lecturer change rating), and the resulting number is makes an evaluative decision point. "Zero" would be a perfect indicator of the alignment between student and instructor expectations that is indicative of effective teaching. The method allows frequent assessments over the duration of the course, permitting adjustments when necessary, and it is particularly suited to the evaluation of courses in continuing education. (Contains 35 references.) (SLD)

This paper aims to make the techniques of cooperative learning more attractive to teachers by presenting a method of assessment that avoids the drawbacks associated with trying to extract valid and reliable individual marks from cooperative performances. The paper presents an easy-to-use method of assessing an individual's contribution to a cooperative performance. The method makes efficient use of the teacher's time, has a built-in reliability measure, and validity checks. By separating the performance criteria from the assessment process the method also highlights cooperative dynamics within the group and identifies a fundamental learning problem faced by less able students across types of performance and subject content areas. Participants in the study that developed the approach were 57 undergraduate and graduate students in 8 groups. Students were asked to assess the contributions of each member of the group, with the assessment of the project itself kept separate. The product assessment was weighted by the number of students in the group and combined with the confidential peer assessments to arrive at a mark for each person. The variation in the marks received by a group member were a measure of the reliability of the member's marks, and the reasons given by peers were an indication of the construct validity of the group member's mark. Results with the eight groups support the use of the technique. (Contains 2 tables and 18 references.) (SLD)

This paper presents an alternative to student questionnaires for the evaluation of teaching quality, which is defined as maximizing students' academic attainment and the satisfaction of students and the lecturer with the course. The approach aligns students' and the teacher's expectations for change during the course. Previous research has identified three fundamental abilities that lecturers seek to change during the course: (1) technical skills; (2) professional competence; and (3) professional attitudes. A Three Ability Framework (3AF) has been developed to compare students' assessments of the change in these three abilities with the instructor's perceptions of change. The alignment between these evaluations, expressed as the result of subtracting student-rated change from lecturer-rated change, is a figure that can be used as the effective teaching score. To use the 3AF in practice, lecturers explain the abilities to their students, and then ask for ratings at desired time points during the course. This method promotes a positive teaching and learning culture in direct and indirect ways. (Contains 33 references.) (SLD)

This study investigated the assumption that students use instructional objectives as advance organizers. This assumption, developed by D. Ausubel (1968), is appealing to instructors, but has been difficult to test experimentally. Participants in this study were 8 teachers from 4 different ethnic groups applying the design in 2 lessons for 4 subjects taught in rural and urban schools to 492 students aged 13 to 19 years. Students in the experimental condition were given four instructional objectives at the start of each class, and asked to mark the one objective not covered at the end of each session. The inability to identity that an instructional objective was not used in the lesson was taken as evidence that the student did not use the objective as an advance organizer. Results show that 29.8% of students with the best recall ability (students who were able to remember all four objectives) could not tell which objective was not used, and therefore did not use the objectives as a conscious strategy for advance organization of the lesson material. (Contains 2 tables and 40 references.) (SLD)

This paper presents an alternative means of assessing faculty teaching that can be used by administrators. This method has been derived from in-depth faculty and student interviews, and its criterion of quality has been validated with empirical data through computer sensitivity analysis. The assessment process has been successfully tested in clinical teaching trials. Interviews with faculty have identified that their implicit expectations for professional development can be described in terms of technical skills, professional competence, and professional attitudes. This Three Ability Framework (3AF) is explained to the students by the lecturer, who is then rated by the students on each of these abilities. The lecturer rates himself or herself on the same abilities, and the alignment between the self-rating and the students' ratings is used as a measure of the effectiveness of teaching. The indicator of effective teaching is that the students and the instructor are working toward the same changes. This method promotes a positive teaching and learning culture in direct and indirect ways as it encourages teaching that promotes students' critical and evaluative thinking and high standards in technical skills and professional values. (Contains 33 references.) (SLD)

This paper presents the results of research into a technique for the measurement of effective teaching that avoids the problems inherent in student evaluations of teacher effectiveness. The method takes as little as 5 minutes to administer and so can be used in-course by the teacher to track his or her teaching effectiveness. It results in a single number that can be used at the end of a course as an administrative decision point measure. The initial research with 3 classes of teacher training students (n=12, n=12, and n=23) was done in an Australian university and is now being replicated in other universities. The measure operationally defines the three basic abilities of the Three Ability Framework (3AF): technical skills, professional competence, and professional attitudes. The 3AF method assesses the degree of alignment between the changes the students expect in these three abilities and the changes toward which the teacher is working. Correlations between the scores of academic attainment, degree of teacher/student alignment, and course satisfaction indicated that when the students and their teacher were working towards the same proportion and amount of these three abilities, the students had higher academic attainment and greater course satisfaction. The four steps of the application of the method are outlined. (Contains 1 table and 28 references.) (SLD)

A method for measuring the contribution an individual makes to group work is described, and its use is supported through a study of 57 university students aged from 20 to 46 years working in 8 groups of 4 to 10 members each. The method recognizes that the most valid sources of information on the contribution of each individual to the group work are the group members. The study relied on peer evaluation of the percentage contribution that each member made to the group work. Group members were also asked for a rationale for each evaluation given. The reliability of the individual's mark was indicated by the variance of the marks the group member received from his or her peers. Additional validity was provided by the qualitative agreement of the rationales. The group work was assessed separately using usual appropriate criteria. An individual's mark was calculated as his or her mean percentage of the group's mark, weighted by the number of people in the group. By separating the measurement of process from the assessment criteria for the group work, the method highlighted the cooperative intragroup dynamics. The method also allowed the identification of consistent patterns of correlations within group scores that indicate a problem common to students with low achievement in group work that is independent of the subject assessed. (Contains 2 tables and 18 references.) (SLD)

This paper describes subjectivist psychology, discussing its use for guiding teaching and learning. Subjectivist psychology focuses on joint cognitive and affective experiences of learning. It describes the natural affective-cognitive enculturation processes that children experience in learning the skills, understandings, and values of their society. These affect-laden processes of enculturation are transplanted to the constructivist classroom where they become the teaching techniques of the subjectivist teacher. The paper focuses on: constructivism as a cognitivist theory of knowledge; affective multipliers of learning; subjectivism; enculturation and empowerment (the two aims of subjectivism); and design of surface purpose activities. It examines three affective-structuring techniques that are used to design surface purposes (the emotional anchor, the motivator, and the cognitive direction). The paper illustrates the main principles of subjectivist psychology by reported examples of subjectivist teaching in a 7th-grade mathematics class. It presents two surface purpose activities to illustrate applications of subjectivism, both of which teach aspects of circles. The first activity is to revise the names of parts of a circle. The second activity is to appreciate the curvatures of circles. (Contains 44 references.) (SM)

Why trainee teachers join the teaching profession in Jamaica was studied. Previous research has suggested that their reasons may be extrinsic (related to characteristics of the job), intrinsic (related to the individual's wishes), or altruistic (related to the social contribution). Some reasons that could be classified into these 3 categories were identified in 130 interviews with students from the Teaching College of the University of the West Indies. Approximately one third of the students at Jamaican colleges of education (n=1,444) were asked to rate their agreement with each of the 19 reasons on a scale from 0 to 9. Results indicate that extrinsic, intrinsic, and altruistic consideration were three distinct motivations teacher trainees had for choosing the profession. Extrinsic motivation was the most important, accounting for 24.2% of the variance, as compared to 14.6% for altruistic motivation, and 8.8% for intrinsic motivation. (Contains 3 tables and 16 references.) (SLD)

This paper explores the issue of why some students in the Caribbean do not do as well as expected in assessed groupwork. The study was based on peer assessment in 2 university courses taken by 57 students who worked in 8 groups (group sizes 4 to 10). Both males and females participated, their ages ranging from 20 to 46 years. The study was designed to focus on fundamental learning problems rather than on problems that might be associated with learning the content of a particular course. This was done by separating the assessment of the final quality of each group's work from the assessment of individual contributions to the work and by duplicating the study in two courses. Findings indicate that a fundamental problem associated with less able students is their lack of discrimination about what the work entails. These findings are robust in that the correlations show that the effect is not just apparent for low achieving students, but that the effect decreases as the ability of the student increases. Findings were the same across groups of different sizes and across content areas. Suggestions are made about how students might reduce this problem. (SLD)

This paper describes a new, but tried and tested, paradigm in teacher evaluation: the Three Ability Framework (3AF). Previous research has identified three fundamental abilities that faculty implicitly expect to develop in their courses: technical skills, professional competence, and professional attitudes. The 3AF monitors the alignment of the student's and teacher's expectations of these developments. The process respects the professional freedom of lecturers to be responsible for how they believe their subjects should be taught. Because the process is so efficient, it can be used two or three times during courses to monitor the quality of teaching. This evaluation method also links student assessment to the professional awareness of the teacher, resulting in a single number that is used as an administrative decision point. The 3AF is applied in a five-step process that begins with training provided the lecturer by the institution. Alignment between student ratings and the lecturer's own rating is calculated. It has been found in previous research that the alignment of percentage ratings correlates with academic attainment as measured by examination and coursework and that the alignment of proportions of the three abilities correlates with enjoyment of the course. (Contains 14 references.) (SLD)

The purpose of this paper is to report a successful technique for assessing cooperative group work reliably and validly. The paper demonstrates a simple-to-use assessment procedure that tracks individual accountability, energizes student interaction, and rewards cooperative learning, even as it uses fewer administrative resources than traditional approaches. The difficulty in assessing an individual's contribution to group work lies in determining who did what. The solution suggested here is to separate the assessment of the final product from the assessment of each individual's contribution. In practice, students are given the criteria for the final product at the beginning of the work, and they receive a confidential feedback sheet on which they make a judgment about the percentage of each member's contribution to the group work, including their own if that assessment is culturally appropriate. These forms are confidential and not anonymous. The form also asks for the rationale for each judgment. Percentages awarded by each group member are averaged, and this average is applied to the product of the independently awarded product score times the number of members of the group. Students are not asked to assess the quality of the work, but only the contributions of each group member. (Contains 1 table and 10 references.) (SLD)

This paper presents an alternative means of assessing faculty teaching that can be used by administrators. This method has been derived from in-depth faculty and student interviews, and its criterion of quality has been validated with empirical data through computer sensitivity analysis. The assessment process has been successfully tested in clinical teaching trials. Interviews with faculty have identified that their implicit expectations for professional development can be described in terms of technical skills, professional competence, and professional attitudes. In practice, lecturers explain these three skill areas to their students and describe how students will be taught and assessed. Students are asked to rate the lecturer on these three areas, and then the lecturer rates himself or herself. The indicator of effective teaching, that the students and the lecturer are working toward the same changes, is measured by the change expected from the students subtracted from the change expected by the lecturer. A "zero" is the score that indicates perfect alignment. This method promotes a positive teaching and learning culture by encouraging teaching and learning that promotes students' critical and evaluative thinking. (Contains 31 references.) (SLD)