Measuring The Unmeasurable In Education

Author : Elaine Unterhalter
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429815247
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Measuring the Unmeasurable in Education written by Elaine Unterhalter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates around quality versus quantity in education can generate controversy about how quality is measured. Many question the drive to delineate and quantify precisely what works, suggesting that much value either cannot be measured or is distorted by measurement. This book explores how we can understand measurement in areas of education policy, planning, and practice that have not previously been considered measurable. The contributors ask four main questions: What do we measure and not measure when we try to measure the unmeasurable in education? When attempts have been made to measure the unmeasurable in education, what metrics have been adopted in which contexts, and with what outcomes? Why have measures been adopted as indicators of the unmeasurable, such as human rights? And how have particular organisations approached the problem of measuring the apparently unmeasurable in education, with what epistemological, normative, and conceptual resources, and consequences? The book draws on analyses from philosophy, history, sociology, and economics, with insights from national and international contexts. The contributions consider philosophical distinctions, historical experiences, and contemporary reflections on how to refine existing approaches to measurement of poverty, capability, rights, and the benefits of education. The discussion shows how measuring the unmeasurable takes account of the inequalities, complexities and uncertainties of work in education, thus suggesting a considerable deepening of the notion of education quality and measurement. This book was originally published as a special issue of Comparative Education.

Author : Robert D. Thompson
Publisher : Llumina Press
ISBN 13 : 9781605940571
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Measuring the Unmeasurable written by Robert D. Thompson and published by Llumina Press. This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's competitive businesses thrive on actionable information--information that can easily be used as a guide to decision-making and organizational planning. When discussion moves to the multi-billion dollar business of corporate training, it becomes obvious that there is a serious gap between what is needed and what is provided. Over 75% of business leaders want information about what impact the training has on employee behavior, but less than 15% say they are getting it! If you are one of those charged with the responsibility of identifying and measuring behavioral change results from training and strategic business initiatives, you have your work cut out for you. The science that makes this information available is called "psychometrics." Most people have never heard of the science, let alone become comfortable with how it works. There is information out there, but most of it is written like a graduate school text in statistics. Not this one! Through the use of insightful, humorous analogies, the reader is gently led through the perils and pitfalls of psychology, statistics, and organizational behavior idiosyncrasies. Dr. Bob Thompson creates a roadmap, a working understanding, of how psychometrics can be applied to get actionable information, with an intriguing blend of humor, innovation, and common sense rarely seen in a breakthrough work of this type.

Author : Sally Engle Merry
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022626131X
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Seductions of Quantification written by Sally Engle Merry and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-06-10 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a world where seemingly everything can be measured. We rely on indicators to translate social phenomena into simple, quantified terms, which in turn can be used to guide individuals, organizations, and governments in establishing policy. Yet counting things requires finding a way to make them comparable. And in the process of translating the confusion of social life into neat categories, we inevitably strip it of context and meaning—and risk hiding or distorting as much as we reveal. With The Seductions of Quantification, leading legal anthropologist Sally Engle Merry investigates the techniques by which information is gathered and analyzed in the production of global indicators on human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking. Although such numbers convey an aura of objective truth and scientific validity, Merry argues persuasively that measurement systems constitute a form of power by incorporating theories about social change in their design but rarely explicitly acknowledging them. For instance, the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report, which ranks countries in terms of their compliance with antitrafficking activities, assumes that prosecuting traffickers as criminals is an effective corrective strategy—overlooking cultures where women and children are frequently sold by their own families. As Merry shows, indicators are indeed seductive in their promise of providing concrete knowledge about how the world works, but they are implemented most successfully when paired with context-rich qualitative accounts grounded in local knowledge.

Author : Andreas Bågenholm
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191899003
Total Pages : 881 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Quality of Government written by Andreas Bågenholm and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 881 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent research demonstrates that the quality of public institutions is crucial for a number of important environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes, and thereby human well-being. The Quality of Government (QoG) approach directs attention to issues such as impartiality in the exercise of public power, professionalism in public service delivery, effective measures against corruption, and meritocracy instead of patronage and nepotism. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this rapidly expanding research field and also identifies viable avenues for future research. The initial chapters focus on theoretical approaches and debates, and the central question of how QoG can be measured. A second set of chapters examines the wealth of empirical research on how QoG relates to democratization, social trust and cohesion, ethnic diversity, happiness and human wellbeing, democratic accountability, economic growth and inequality, political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and the outbreak of civil conflicts. The remaining chapters turn to the perennial issue of which contextual factors and policy approaches—national, local, and international—have proven successful (and not so successful) for increasing QoG. The Quality of Government approach both challenges and complements important strands of inquiry in the social sciences. For research about democratization, QoG adds the importance of taking state capacity into account. For economics, the QoG approach shows that in order to produce economic prosperity, markets need to be embedded in institutions with a certain set of qualities. For development studies, QoG emphasizes that issues relating to corruption are integral to understanding development writ large.

Author : Sally Inman
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 9780750707626
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Assessing Personal and Social Development written by Sally Inman and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social and personal development of pupils is an area of growing interest. However, while much has been done in relation to provision for development, there is little available on how teachers might assess the development of pupils, be it spiritual, moral, social or cultural. The contributors also examine how we might accredit such development. With provision for development on the national agenda, this title looks at the repercussions and examines the difficult issues raised by assessment and accreditation - and the problems with which teachers will inevitably be faced.

Author : Simon Bell
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113655601X
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Sustainability Indicators written by Simon Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the first edition: 'This book should be of interest to anyone interested in sustainable development, and especially sustainability indicators. Bell and Morse easily succeed in exposing the fundamental paradoxes of these concepts and, more importantly, they offer us a way forward. Readers ... will find their practical recommendations for those attempting to do sustainability analysis in the field most welcome, which is also the book's greatest strength.' Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 'This book makes a valuable contribution to the theory and practice of using indicators for sustainability. It introduces systems ideas and a range of tools and techniques that have the potential to broaden and deepen our understanding of a whole range of complex situations. Well worth a closer look.' Christine Blackmore, Open University 'This is a book that explores new ways of thinking about how to measure sustainability... It offers stimulating food for thought for environmental educators and researchers.' Environmental Education Research 'This book tells me, as an SI 'practitioner', where I have been and why, and more importantly how I should be thinking in order to effectively present to and empower the local community in the years ahead.' David Ellis, Principal Pollution Monitoring Officer, Norwich City Council 'A practical guide to the development of sustainability indicators which offers a systemic and participative way to use them at local scale. Our preliminary results are highly positive and the approach is applicable in many contexts.' Elisabeth Coudert, Programme Officer Prospective and Regional Development, Blue Plan The groundbreaking first edition of Sustainability Indicators reviewed the development and value of sustainability indicators and discussed the advantage of taking a holistic and qualitative approach rather than focusing on strictly quantitative measures. In the new edition the authors bring the literature up to date and show that the basic requirement for a systemic approach is now well grounded in the evidence. They examine the origins and development of Systemic Sustainability Analysis (SSA) as a theoretical approach to sustainability which has been developed in practice in a number of countries on an array of projects since the first edition. They look at how SSA has evolved into the practical approaches of Systemic Prospective Sustainability Analysis (SPSA) and IMAGINE, and, in particular, how a wide range of participatory methodologies have been adopted over the years. They also provide an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of projects that undertake work in the general field of sustainable development.

Author : MARTIN BUCK
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135711003
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Assessing Children's Personal And Social Development written by MARTIN BUCK and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-07-28 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social and personal development of pupils is an area of growing interest. However, while much has been done in relation to provision for development, there is little available on how teachers might assess the development of pupils, be it spiritual, moral, social or cultural. The contributors also examine how we might accredit such development. With provision for development on the national agenda, this title looks at the repercussions and examines the difficult issues raised by assessment and accreditation - and the problems with which teachers will inevitably be faced.

Author : Sally Inman
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 9780750707619
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Assessing Personal and Social Development written by Sally Inman and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social and personal development of pupils is an area of growing interest. However, while much has been done in relation to provision for development, there is little available on how teachers might assess the development of pupils, be it spiritual, moral, social or cultural. The contributors also examine how we might accredit such development. With provision for development on the national agenda, this title looks at the repercussions and examines the difficult issues raised by assessment and accreditation - and the problems with which teachers will inevitably be faced.

Author : John Warner
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421427117
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Why They Can't Write written by John Warner and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2018-12-03 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important challenge to what currently masquerades as conventional wisdom regarding the teaching of writing. There seems to be widespread agreement that—when it comes to the writing skills of college students—we are in the midst of a crisis. In Why They Can't Write, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn't caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we're teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform "writing-related simulations," which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities. This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn't prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules—such as the five-paragraph essay—designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. In Why They Can't Write, Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers.

Author : Douglas W. Hubbard
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0470110120
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book How to Measure Anything written by Douglas W. Hubbard and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-08-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description