Measuring Success
Grounded Outcomes: A Qualitative Approach to Learning Assessment in the Arts View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brian Harlan
Learning outcomes are a useful heuristic as an organizing principle for developing and aligning curriculum, lessons plans, and assignments, yet as such, it is reasonable to consider if we are in fact measuring what we believe we are measuring through outcomes-based assessment. Is it possible that what we are measuring is predominantly the effectiveness of the learning design and pedagogy rather than student learning itself? The demonstration of student learning we are able to tease out through outcomes-based assessment, in this view, would be better understood as a byproduct of a process for measuring educational effectiveness. To the extent that we are satisfied with this condition then there is no cause for concern. If we really want to know what students are learning, however, considering both the explicit and the implicit curricula within a given learning environment, the personal experiences of students and their backgrounds, and the contemporaneous social and political climate both inside and outside the institution, then we might do better with a different approach. Here I am not proposing self-reported learning achievement, but rather a process of discovery that allows student learning to be revealed rather than checked. This necessarily requires an inductive methodology for assessment. If we approach learning assessment as an epistemological inquiry rather than a performance measurement, learning outcomes would then no longer be targets, goals, or objectives; they would be open questions.
Featured Islamic Work Ethics and Quality of Work Life among Arab High School Teachers in Israel View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Afnan Haj Ali, Ismael Abu-Saad
Islamic work ethics (IWE) is a multidimensional concept that originates from the Quran and the saying and practices of Mohammad Prophet. It links an organization’s prosperity and continuity to societal welfare and is based on four basic elements: effort, competition, transparency, and morally responsible conduct. Quality of Work Life (QWL) is defined as the degree to which the job includes factors related to employment that promote beneficial results for both the employees and the organization, that achieve organizational effectiveness, productivity, and outcomes. The current study examines and measures the IWE and the QWL dimensions, among Arab high school teachers in the Arab Education system in Israel. Also, it examines the relationship between IWE and the perceived QWL dimensions. Arab high school teachers' QWL was measured using the QWL scale developed by Swamy et al., (2015), the IWE was measured using the IWE scale developed by Ali (1992). A total of 1245 teachers from 60 Arab high schools in Israel responded to the survey. The data collected were subjected to statistical processing including factor analysis, regression, and SEM analyses, using SPSS and AMOS software. Six dimensions of QWL were obtained among the study participants: Autonomy and good relations, Fringe benefits, Job security and skill utilization, Open communication and balance of resources, Fair wages, Training and skill development. Likewise, two dimensions of IWE were emerge; Dedication and social responsibility at work, Independence, diligence and achievement at work. It was also found that there is a strong positive relationship between IWE and QWL dimensions.
The Impact of a New Story-based Approach on Language Learning View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ahmet Sahbaz, Cristina Pérez Valverde
The current quasi-experimental study aims at finding the impact of a story-based language learning approach on different aspects of language learning. Ten students aged between 17-19 studying at a pre-intermediate level at the English Education Program of Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University are the participants of this study as the experimental group and 10 students of the same profile participate in the study as the control group. It is a seven-week process in which the experimental group associated new vocabulary with the archetypal images and wrote sentences for them as an in-class activity. In addition, as an extracurricular activity, they individually wrote a story following “The Hero’s Journey” by using the archetypes which they worked on as characters in their stories. Following this process, they narrated in pairs the stories they wrote after each extracurricular session where they completed a certain stage of the Hero’s Journey in their stories. To investigate the impact of the current study on the participants’ language competence, the weekly writing outcomes of the experimental group were investigated as a formative assessment method the results were analyzed via content analysis. Additionally, to support this data and explore the perceptions of the experimental group regarding the impact of the study, focus group interviews were held and the results were analyzed via content analysis. The results show that the current study has positive impact on language learning in a variety of ways.
