3 research outputs found
Indonesian junior secondary school teachers' conceptions of assessment: A mixed methods study
No full textUnderstanding teachers’ conceptions of assessment is important because of their influence on teachers’ assessment practices. Despite numerous quantitative studies on teachers’ conceptions and practices of assessment, little research exists regarding the unique assessment environment of Indonesia. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative data to examine how Indonesian junior high school teachers understand assessment, how their conceptions of assessment relate to their assessment practices, and what factors contribute to their conceptions and practices of assessment.
This mixed methods study adopted a participant selection model in which quantitative data was analysed to select participants for the qualitative phase. A validated measure of teacher conceptions of assessment was adapted for use in the quantitative phase to explore teacher (N=107) conceptions of whether they thought assessment was for improvement, accountability or whether it was irrelevant. These three criteria were used to select twelve Indonesian teachers for semi-structured interviews and to contribute documents for analysis in the qualitative phase.
The Indonesian teachers believed that the purpose of assessment was to improve teaching and learning and also to demonstrate the accountability of students and school. They tended to disagree with the view that assessment is irrelevant. Further analysis of the data revealed that teachers’ conceptions of assessment were conflicted. They were keen to use assessment practices to improve their classroom teaching, but felt that the state-wide examination policy requirements constrained their efforts. These distinctive and conflicting conceptions of assessment held by Indonesian teachers appeared to arise from the interplay of socio-ecological factors including culture and the Indonesian education system.
Conceptions of assessment are unique to every setting. These findings highlight that valid measurement of teacher conceptions is likely to require national and regional accommodations based on contextual factors. Furthermore, government, policy makers, and curriculum developers must work to build a strong synergy among themselves in order to share consistent goals with teachers. If cultural expectations of school assessment and government policy were aligned, Indonesian teachers may be better able to resolve conflict between their beliefs and assessment practices
An OpenURL resolver (SFX) in action: the answer to a librarian's prayer or a burden for technical services?
No full textThis paper will reflect on the experience of installing, configuring and maintaining the Ex Libris' OpenURL resolver - SFX. Particular attention will be paid to the extraordinary usefulness of this tool for gluing together the components of the resource discovery process. This paper will discuss the level of staffing required to maintain the resolver service, the skill sets required by those staff and the place of an OpenURL resolver within the extended ILMS. Finally the authors will speculate on the future of such a service within the portfolio of online services offered by a university library
Housing supply in the Netherlands
No full textIn spite of a growing recognition of the importance of supply conditions for the level and volatility of house prices, empirical work on housing supply outside the US is scarce. This paper considers various measures of housing supply in the Netherlands, where real house prices have roughly tripled since 1970. Besides the volume of investment in residential structures and new housing construction in units, we derive time series of structure and location quality in a hedonic analysis. Each of these variables appears to be almost fully inelastic with respect to house prices in at least the short to medium long run. Further analysis of the quality of location index shows that conventional models of competitive land and housing markets cannot account for these findings. However, they may be well explained in terms of the rather extensive body of interventions by the Dutch government.
