1,720,986 research outputs found
Reporting Versant Spanish Test on the Global Scale of Languages: a standard setting study
No full textThis study reports a standard setting exercise using the data from the Versant Spanish Test (VST). The aims of the study are to 1) consolidate the relationship between the VST scale and the Common European Framework (CEFR); 2) derive a transformation function to report the VST scores on the Global Scale of Languages (GSL) and its corresponding CEFR level. This study used operational test data in addition to the Learning Objectives data that was used to establish the GSL. In addition, a standard setting approach was adopted to triangulate the results obtained from the comparative judgement approach that was used in the original study. Results showed a great level of agreement among the VST, the GSL and the CEFR. A minor adjustment of the alignments was recommended. This adjustment, following a transformation function derived from the results of this study, allows the VST scores to be reported on the GSL and its corresponding CEFR level
Extending the Global Scale of English (GSE) to the Global Scale of Languages (GSL): Part 3 - aligning Chinese Learning Objectives to the GSL
No full textThe Global Scale of English (GSE) offers a detailed means of describing and assessing the progress and performance of English language learners. Pearson has conducted extensive research (see Pearson) in using the GSE Learning Objectives as the reference scale to extend the 2001 set of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) Can-do statements to address the needs of learners of languages other than English.The purpose of this study was to validate whether Learning Objectives from the newly established Global Scale of Languages (GSL) are also applicable to adult learners of Chinese. 312 GSE Learning Objectives were translated into Chinese and 28 new objectives were added in order to represent Chinese-specific language aspects, primarily the recognition and understanding of Pinyin, Chinese characters and tones. A panel of 20 qualified raters drawn from a pool of Chinese teachers were invited to conduct 25 Comparative Judgement (CJ) comparisons per learning objective resulting in 8,500 data points.A series of analyses, including rater and item fit statistics, were performed. Strong correlations were established among the Learning Objectives’ CJ scores in European languages and English versions, as well as with the original GSE values. Further analysis on the combined Chinese CJ data validates the alignment of the GSL with the GSE
Extending the Global Sale of English (GSE) to the Global Scale of Languages (GSL) : Part 2 - aligning German Learning Objectives to the GSL
No full textThe Global Scale of English (GSE) offers a detailed means of describing and assessing the progress and performance of English language learners. Pearson has conducted extensive research (see Pearson) in using the GSE Learning Objectives as the reference scale to extend the 2001 set of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) Can-do statements to address the needs of more learners.The purpose of this study was to validate whether learning objectives from the newly established Global Scale of Languages (GSL) are applicable to adult learners of German-as-a-Foreign Language (GFL). 320 GSE Learning Objectives were translated into German. A panel of 20 qualified raters drawn from a pool of GFL teachers were invited to conduct 25 Comparative Judgement (CJ) comparisons per learning objective resulting in 8000 data points. A series of analyses, including rater and item fit statistics, were performed. Strong correlations were established among the Learning Objectives’ CJ scores in German, Spanish and English versions, as well as with the original GSE values. Further analysis on the combined Spanish and German CJ data validates the alignment of the GSE with the GSL
Extending the Global Scale of English (GSE) to the Global Scale of Languages (GSL): Part 1 - aligning Spanish learning objectives to the GSL
No full textThe Global Scale of English (GSE) offers a more detailed means of describing and assessing the progress and performance of English language learners. Pearson has conducted extensive research (Pearson) in using the GSE Learning Objectives as the reference scale to extend the 2001 set of Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) Can-do statements to address the needs of more learners. This study compared the rank order of GSE Learning Objectives translated into Spanish to establish if the existing GSE values are applicable to adult learners of Spanish-as-a-Foreign-Language (SFL). 320 Learning Objectives were translated into Spanish. A panel of 20 qualified raters drawn from a pool of SFL teachers were invited to conduct 25 Comparative Judgement comparisons per Learning Objective resulting in 16,000 data points. A series of analyses, including rater and item fit statistics, were performed to gauge the difficulty of existing English Learning Objectives in Rasch logits and compare them with Comparative Judgement estimates of both English and Spanish versions across four language skills. Transformation equations were derived from these comparisons to align the outcomes of Spanish Learning Objectives with the existing GSE, ultimately leading to the creation of a new Global Scale of Spanish
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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