Educational Psychology (PSY406) VU

Lesson 39
TEACHING FOR SELF-REGULATION, CREATIVITY AND TOLERANCE III

Violence in schools among other factors has diverted the attention of educational psychologists to focus
on how compassion and tolerance may be fostered and developed in schools.Educational psychologists
have been successful in identifying factors that lead to an absence of compassion and tolerance in
schools, and breed violence in schools and society.

Some of the factors that may lead to absence of compassion and toleration include:

 Emotional pathology of students

 Easy access to weapons
 Lack of surveillance/supervision in schools
 Violence depicted in the media
 Violence depicted in the video games

There has been shown to be a direct relationship between violence depicted in media and violence shown
by younger generation in real life.There is also a high relationship between children/students viewing
violent video games and their violent behavior.

1. One way to curb violence therefore is to curb violent video viewing.

2. Another way to avoid and control violence in schools to teach students the value of
compassion and tolerance.

Some psychologists put forward the view that compassion and tolerance should be taught in schools.
They feel that compassion and tolerance come from character education.Character education aims at
building certain positive qualities in students.These qualities include honesty, wisdom, kindness to
others and self-discipline.To achieve these in students, some educational psychologist believe students
should be taught moral reasoning, should be imparted with relevant broad knowledge, empathy, that is
feeling for others, self-respect, kindness, and to have supportive and democratic attitudes.

This is all the more relevant to Pakistani school education scene, because Pakistan boasts of many
diverse cultural units, including Punjabis, Baluchis, Sindhis and Pathans.So since Pakistan is proud to be
a multicultural society, in any classroom in Pakistan, one would find cultural diversity amongst students.
Thus there is greater need for compassion and tolerance in Pakistani school educational scene.

Strategies for Cooperation

Compassion and tolerance can be taught by direct means, where material related to tolerance is directly
taught.It can also be taught by indirect means. We now turn to different strategies that build in structures
to both social and cognitive learning.

Jigsaw: One direct method, as developed by some psychologists, is called the “Jigsaw”.Jigsaw is a
method to develop cooperation and thereby develop tolerance in a diverse classroom situation where
each student in the class is responsible for teaching one section of the lesson to another student.Each
student therefore has to cooperate with another classmate of different mistral background in order to
learn the whole lesson. In this way, students confront complex, real life problems and not simplified
worksheets. They learn by doing and teaching others. The students must take positions and argue for
them. They may encounter different representations of the same information, i.e., graphs, databases,
maps or interviews and have to integrate information from different sources. The students have a good
chance of learning how to do library research by actually doing it.

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Reciprocal Questioning: Reciprocal questioninginvolves a small group of three/four students asking
each other relevant questions about the lesson, thus learning and cooperating at the same time. It requires
no special materials or testing procedures. After a lesson or presentation by the teacher, students work in
pairs or triads to ask and answer questions about the material. The teacher question stems then students
are taught how to develop specific questions on the lesson material using the generic question stems. The
students create questions and then take turns asking and answering. This process has proved more
effective than traditional discussion groups because it seems to encourage deeper thinking about the
material.

Scripted Cooperation: Another strategy in this context is called “scripted cooperation” wherein
students work together on almost any task, including reading a selection of text, solving math problems
or editing writing drafts. In reading, for example, both partners read a passage, and then one student
gives an oral summary. The other partner comments on the summary, noting omissions or errors. Next
the partners work together to elaborate on the information, i.e., create associations, images, mnemonics,
ties to previous work, examples, analogies and so on. The partners switch roles of summarizer and
listener for the next section of the reading and then continue to take turns until they finish the
assignment.

Conflict and Negotiation

Research shows that if students see their schools as places where some students are treated differently
than others, then they are discouraged.However when they see personal improvement taking place,
where they feel respected, where they feel they are supported by teachers, and when they are given more
responsibility by teachers, students are encouraged they are then prepared to cooperate with others and
work as a group or community.All groups may experience conflict, so is it within classroom and within
schools.

Educational psychologist suggests five ways of dealing with conflicts in this regard.

1. Students jointly define the conflict. Separate the person form the problem and the actions
involved, avoid win-lose thinking and get both parties’ goals clear.
2. Exchange positions and interests. Present a tentative proposal and make a case for it;
listen to the other person’s proposal and feelings; and stay flexible and cooperative.
3. Reverse perspectives. See the situation from other person’s point of view and reverse
roles and argue for that perspective.
4. Invent at least three agreements that allow mutual gain. Brainstorm, focus on goals,
think creatively and make sure everyone has power to invent solutions.
5. Reach an integrative agreement. Make sure both sets of goals are met. If all else fails,
flip a coin, take turns, or call in a third party, a mediator.

Educational psychologist hold the view that when the above is done a community can be established of
students and conflicts can be resolved by following these steps.

 Recognize and respect each other’s rights.

 Do not accept violence in any form.
 Clearly define violence of students and others.
 Put strategies and programs for correction of the wrong in to action and operation.

All of the above strategies, research shows help in creating a learning community in the class and the
school which then improves creativity and brings about tolerance in school and the class.

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Lesson 40
STANDARDIZED TESTINGI

All teaching involves evaluation.Evaluation is decision making about student performance and about
appropriate teaching strategies in the context of educational psychology.Measurement on the other hand
is evaluation in quantitative or numbers terms, the numeric description of an event or characteristic.
Measurement tells how much, how often or how well by providing scores, ranks or ratings.
Measurement also allows a teacher to compare one student’s performance on one particular task with
either a standard or the performances of the other students.

Evaluation and measurement require the use of numbers and simple and basic statistical techniques.So
we need to get familiar with certain statistical terms and techniques in this context.

Standardized Tests
For the purpose of evaluation or measurement, educational psychologists use standardized
tests.Standardized tests are tests given under uniform conditions and scored according to uniform
procedures to a large number people in a country. Standard methods of developing items, administering
the test, scoring it and reporting the scores are all implied by the term standardized test.

What Do Test Scores Mean?

The test publishers provide one or more ways of comparing each student’s raw score (number of correct
answers) with the norming sample. Let’s look at some of the measurements on which comparisons and
interpretations are based.

Measurement of Central Tendency and Standard Deviation

A mean is simply the arithmetical average of a group of scores. To calculate mean, all the scores are
added and divided by the number of people who were tested. This procedure yields a single figure, the
mean of the group. The mean offers one way of measuring central tendency, the score that is typical or
representative of the whole distribution of scores.

When you have a large number of scores, there is the middle point or middle score of those large
numbers of scores.The middle score in a series of score is called the median.

In that large number of scores, there might be some scores that occur more frequently than others. The
score that occurs most frequently in a series of scores is called the mode.

The standard deviation is a measure of how widely the scores vary from the mean. The larger the
standard deviation, the more spread out the scores in the distribution.

Types of Scores

Percentile rank scores: Another meaningful number in a set of large measurements is the percentile
rank.
Percentile rank is the percentage of those in a given sample who score at, or below an individual’s
score.A percentile rank of 50, for example means that a student has scored as much or better than 50% of
students in a group or a class.Similarly a percentile rank of 90% means a student has scored as much or
better 90% students in a group.

Standard scores:Another useful concept in this context is that of standard scores, these are the scores
based upon standard deviation.A very common standard score is called the z score.Az score tells us how
many standard deviations above or below the average, any given raw score is placed.

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Because it is often inconvenient to use negative numbers, other standard scores have been devised to
eliminate this difficulty. A T score is the standard score with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of
10. Thus a T score of 50 indicates average performance.
Lesson 41
STANDARDIZED TESTING II
Interpreting Test Scores
Before any test or measurement can be used in the class for the purpose of assessment, the user must
make sure that the measure fulfills a number of conditions. Because in this regard one of the most
common problem is the misinterpretation of scores.

Three factors are important in developing good tests and interpreting results: reliability, validity and
absence of bias.

Reliability
Reliability refers to a high positive correlation in test and retest scores.This may simply be understood in
the following manner: -

Suppose you weigh yourself on a weighing machine on Monday morning and your weight comes out to
be 120 pounds.Then you weigh yourself again on the same machine on Tuesday at the same place and in
the same manner: And your weight comes out to be 400 pounds.Is your weighing machine reliable?Of
course not, because a person cannot gain 300 pounds in twenty four hours.However if you weigh
yourself on a machine on Monday and your weight is shown to be 100 pounds and then on Tuesday it
also shows your weight to be 100 pounds, the weighing machine is reliable because it is showing
consistent scores.

Reliability refers therefore to the consistency in test scores.Reliability of a measuring device can also be
tested by another method.You may weigh yourself on one weighing machine; your weight comes out to
be 100 pounds.Now you might weigh yourself on another weighing machine which has already been
tested and found to be reliable.On the second machine your weight comes out to be the same as on the
first machine that is 100 pounds.Now because the second machine has proven to be reliable, and your
weight on both the machines is same, therefore the first machine is also reliable.This procedure is called
alternate form reliability. When you compare and contrast one measuring device with another already
proven to be reliable measuring device.

In educational testing, experts also use another method of testing reliability of a test.Let us assume that a
test has one hundred items in it.Experts may administer the test to person and then compare his score on
first fifty items with his score on the last fifty items.If the scores on first fifty items and the score on later
fifty items are very close, or similar, the measuring device is considered reliable.

Validity
Another criterion of a good measuring device is its validity.Validity refers to the degree to which a test
measures what it is supposed to measure.If test items are relevant, the test is valid.Experts usually talk
about content related validity, criterion related validity, and construct related validity.These are different
ways that experts adopt to check the validity of a measuring instrument.

Absence of Bias
Expert also expect that a measuring device must be free of any assessment bias.Assessment bias refers to
qualities of an assessment instrument that offend or penalize a person or a group because of gender, race
or ethnicity.Therefore experts use tests or measures which do not have any assessment bias.

Types of Standardized Tests

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Several kinds of standardized tests are used in schools today. There are three broad categories of
standardized tests: achievement, diagnostic and aptitude (including interest).

Achievement Tests: What Has the Student Learned?

The most common standardized tests given to students are achievement tests. These are meant to
measure how much a student has learned in a given content area such as reading, comprehension,
language usage, computation, science, social studies, mathematics and logical reasoning. Your students’
examination reports during a school or college terms are examples of achievement tests.
Diagnostic What Are the Student’s Strengths and Weaknesses?
If teachers want to identify specific learning problems, they may need to refer to results from the various
diagnostic tests that have been developed. Most diagnostic tests are given to students individually by a
highly trained professional. The goal is usually to identify the specific problems a student is having.
Individually administered diagnostic tests identify weaknesses in learning processes. Diagnostic tests
may assess or recall, the sequence of symbols, coordination in eye and hand movement, recognition of
details in a picture and the like.

Aptitude Tests: How Well Will the Student Do in the Future?

Aptitude tests are meant to measure abilities developed over many years and to predict how well a
student will do in the future at learning unfamiliar material.

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Lesson 42
STANDARDIZED TESTING III

Preparing for Tests

Those students who prepare themselves to take tests for the purposes of examination and promotion tend
to perform better than those who do not take time out for such preparation.Proper preparation includes a
number of things that a student may undertake to perform well in a test.

 One such undertaking is getting familiarity with the test material.Those students who are
familiar, with the subject matter and have tackled similar materials in preparation, tend to
perform better than others.
 The other related matter apart with familiarity with subject in this regard, is being familiar with
the testing procedure.There are different testing procedures used by different teachers in
different subjects.If the student is well aware and familiar with those procedures apart from his
familiarity with the subject matter, then that procedural familiarity will help student perform
well in a standard test.
 Research shows that those students who have an extensive experience in taking standardized
tests, perform better in such test than others, all other factors, such as preparation, ability etc,
being equal.
 Research also shows that a high degree of self confidence helps student perform better in
tests.Conversely those students who have low confidence become fearsome, or those who panic
in an exam, tend to performance poorly.
 Familiarity with similar questions as included in the exam helps students to perform better than
not having familiarity with type of exam questions included in an exam.
 It is also shown during different experiments that brief orientation about how to take a test, and
how to take an exam helps students to perform better than before.
 A different set of training regimen may also help students to perform better in exams. One such
training module helps to improve general cognitive or thinking skills of students.Those with a
trained thinking skills perform better than others.
 Again training in problem solving is another way to improve test scores.Another way to improve
performance in exams is to teach or prepare students to carefully analyze questions at hand.This
is done by teaching students to carefully consider all aspects of a question and then choosing the
answer to it.
 Another technique is to see the relevant details and the irrelevant details of a question, and then
address only the relevant ones.
 Another important strategy in this regard is to avoid impulsive answers and to focus on relevant
materials to answer.
 And finally checking and rechecking the answer is an important strategy to improve examination
performance.

Portfolios
A portfolio is a systematic collection of work, often including work in progress, revisions, student self-
analyses and reflections on what the student has learnt. Written work or artistic pieces are common
contents of portfolios but students might also include graphs, diagrams, snapshots of displays, peer
comments or audio or videotapes, laboratory reports and computer programs, anything that demonstrates
learning in the area being taught and assessed.

The following steps may show how a portfolio may be created.

1. A student should be involved in selecting the pieces that will be included in the portfolio.
2. It should include information that shows the student’s self reflection and self criticism.
3. It should include a student’s, activities and his/her learning.
4. It should show self-growth, improvement in academics, and his school performance.
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5. Student should be encouraged and taught to make maintain his portfolios.

If all of the above are undertaken, preparing and keeping portfolios becomes in an important and useful
activity in school learning.

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