Lessons from Invictus free essay sample

Lessons about Leadership The movie Invictus provides a plethora of lessons about good leadership. First, the movie teaches us about how a good leader leads by example. This is because he/she know how important it is to people look up to them. An example set by the leader helps to drive people ahead when they see that what they are being told to do is in fact possible. The second lesson that the movie teaches about leadership is that a leader does not delve in to the self-serving act of revenge. This is because he/she recognize that the needs of the many must come before his. The third lesson is that a leader has a lot of belief in the goodness of others. He/she truly believe that given a fair chance people can reform and turn for the good. The forth lesson that the movie teaches us is that a leader must have a lot of self-belief. We will write a custom essay sample on Lessons from Invictus or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page As a result when faced with adversity a leader will never back down. In fact he/she will further strengthen their resolve a push forward even harder. The fifth lesson is that a leader know that he/she can alone work towards the fulfillment of the vision. Thus, when the need arises, a leader learns to trust the abilities of those who work for him by delegating. The sixth lesson that the movie teaches us is that a good leader give due importance to every one of his followers, no matter how seemingly small their role might be. This is because he/she know that every little bit matters and thus each individual must be give respect. The seventh lesson is that a leader must combine his /her vision with action as the leader realizes that a vision without it is impotent. The eight lesson the movie teaches is that a leader has a very clear vision about where he/she wants to go. This results in high self-belief and at times results in leaps of faith, when the situation demands it. The ninth lesson that the movie teaches us is that a leader is humble both in victory and defeat. This is particularly true in victory where he/she never claims the victory for him/her self but rather a victory for all. The final lesson that I have learned from this movie is that a true leader is truly passionate about his/her vision. Thus a leader is all about self-sacrifice for the fulfillment of his/her goals, despite all odds and adversities.

Augustus Emperor of Rome

Augustus Emperor of Rome Augustus Emperor of RomeEmperor Augustus of Rome was born with the given name Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 B.C. Three hundred years after Alexander the Great. He took the name Julius Caesar Octavius after the murder of his great uncle, Julius Caesar. In his will Caesar had adopted Octavius and made him his heir. Octavius would later become know as Augustus meaning "The Good". Although he had strengths and weakness through his shrewd, brilliant, hard political calculation he was able to achieve power in Rome.In the course of Augustus long and spectacular career, he put and end to the advancing decay of the Republic and established a new basis for Roman government that was to stand for three centuries. This system called "Principate" was far from flawless, but it provided the Roman Empire with a series of rules who presided over the longest period of peace and prosperity that finally united the East and West.Augustus as a magistrate; the statue's marble head...While Augustus was establishing the Republic he pretended to be restoring all of the Republican political traditions. Through religion and re-organization he established his own ruling while running a full-fledged monarchy.The Roman Republic had no written constitution but was, rather, a system of agreed upon procedures crystallized by tradition. Elected officials carried out administration, and near the end of the second century B.C. the system started to break down. Politicians began to push at the boundaries of acceptable behavior and before long politic had come to be dominated by violence. Augustus' political reinvention was about to take place. With the old system failing miserably the Roman republic finally admitted the need for a "governing leader."Augustus was to remain in control and over the next three decades his position in the state was to establish a complexion of legal and non-legal...

The major failing of Situational Crime Prevention is that it does not Essay

The major failing of Situational Crime Prevention is that it does not address the root causes of crime. Discuss - Essay Example Therefore, SCP was developed based on the notion that crime is expected reduce considerably if focus shifts to minimizing offense opportunities, improving chances of criminals being caught, reducing rewards for perpetration while justifications for offending are also made less plausible. These perceptions of the ability of SCP to minimize the overall level of crime in the community is what informs a number of visible initiatives such as residential or commercial lighting to reduce dark areas around buildings, increasing the number of bus terminals to increase pedestrian traffic, and development of high density housing which promote interaction therefore reducing anonymity in the neighbourhood (Wortley, 2001). SCP approach takes crime prevention away from being the sole responsibility of law enforcement departments which in most cases focuses on criminals to focusing crime prevention on setting and context of crime. The control in SCP initiatives is not taken by the criminal justice agencies since the implementation can be undertaken through a partnership of all relevant community institutions that might include schools, municipality authorities, health centres, transport stakeholders, private enterprises, communication departments and entertainment facilities. SCP m ethods make criminal conduct difficult since the targets become inaccessible to criminals through the application of various techniques that are based on the manipulation of different settings. Application of technology is also a strong contributor to the success of SCP since initiatives such as installation of street lighting and alarm systems in and around business and residential areas have greatly lowered crime rates in different areas (Clarke, 2009). What makes SCP approach to crime distinct from other approaches is its theoretical framework is based on a practical focus to handling crime. Since the introduction of SCP, the

Criminal Justice Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Criminal Justice - Research Paper Example cible entry to a premise is protected under the Fourth amendment when the nature of the circumstances that led to the warrant is considered reasonable. On the mentioned case involving Steiney Richards, petitioner v. Wisconsin, Madison, police officers forcibly entered the motel room that was occupied by the petitioner on December 31 early morning in order to execute a search warrant that was intended to net illegal narcotics. Before the search warrant was granted, the magistrate who issued the warrant rejected a no- knock warrant (Karagiozis & Sgaglio 2005). The magistrate argued that the case submitted did not attain the threshold to justify the need of such a warrant and, therefore, rejected to grant the police officers a no- knock warrant. Despite the magistrate’s judicial ruling, the Madison police officers dismissed the ruling and resorted in using force where they did not disclose the purpose and their presence prior to the entry. The police officers conducted the search and identified illegal narcotics such as cocaine but there was no evidence of gun possession that was collected. The trial court dismissed all attempts from the petitioner to suppress the case after which the petitioner, Steiney Richards pleaded guilty of the felony charges. The suspect possessed illegal narcotics that comprised of cocaine with intents to deliver thus allowing the appellant court to uphold the conviction of the petitioner to a prison term. To affirm the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme court scrutinized the issues in the case and found that the entry to the petitioner’s motel room did not violate the legislation thereby upholding policies as stipulated in the Fourth Amendment. In reaffirming their decision, the supreme court, acknowledged that the police officers are invariably allowed to ignore announcing their presence by considering the nature of the search warrant especially those that involves felonious acts like drug trafficking. The petitioner argued that the

What is Virtue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

What is Virtue - Essay Example The Meno asserts that virtues share a unit form, compelling individuals to work towards a specific goal: the wellbeing of the individual and the city (72c7, 72d8, and 72e5). Subsequently, the Meno attributes an excellent person as one characterized by the virtue of doing noble deeds. The Meno attributes noble deeds as activities meant to do good to the individual himself and the city. This stipulates that an excellent person is one who would chooses the noble over the ignoble, even though it entails sacrificing his will for what is ideally good and benefits the greater society. Virtues are evidenced by an individual’s ability to sacrifice for the greater good (77b2-b5). Additionally, Meno agrees with Socrates that virtue is prudence and knowledge. He affirms that an excellent person is one who has the knowledge and can tell apart what is right from what is wrong. Consequently, an excellent person is one who is prudent, exhibiting caution in his activities (89a3-5, c2-4). Aristotle defines a virtue as a mean. He outlines that an excellent person is characterized by the ability to steer between two extreme points. Aristotle asserts that the ability to arrive at the mean is pleasant for any excellent person and it is not aimed at causing him pain (1120a27-28). He attributes this mean as an attribute of an excellent person who depicts courage by avoiding too fearful and consequently not engaging in fearful events. He attributes an excellent person as one who maintains his temper by not being extremely angry, but getting angry enough (1106a26-28 and 1106b20). In conjunction, Aristotle documents that the goals of a person’s behavior are for either his own good or the greater good depending on the circumstance that the individual was faced with. Activities, which their goodness depends upon circumstances (external goods), are stipulated by Aristotle as wealth, friendship, strength, honor,

Michel Foucault And Judith Butler Influencing Queerness Film Studies Essay

Michel Foucault And Judith Butler Influencing Queerness Film Studies Essay In this essay I will be looking at the work of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler seeing how their work has influence queerness. I will start the essay by looking at the man, Michel Foucault, followed by studying his work on sexuality and homosexuality. I will then look at Judith Butler and her work on gender performances. I will also be giving contemporary examples of homosexuals in the modern day by looking at three different homosexual television presenters to show how the construction of homosexual figures has taken place in recent years. I will also be looking at how gender performances take place in these examples of homosexuals. Michel Foucault The Background Michel Foucault was born in France in 1926. He was known as a philosopher, sociologist and a historian. In all three of these areas he was very influential, pioneering many different concepts that helped revolutionise their certain fields. Foucault continues to be one of the most important figures in critical theory. Foucault is best known for his critical studies on social institutions such as the prison system, medicine, the human sciences and for his work on the history of human sexuality which I will be discussing later. His theories have been largely concerned with the concepts of power and the relationship among power, knowledge and discourse, and his influence is clear in a great deal of post-structuralism, post-modernist, feminist, post-Marxist and post-colonial theorising (Mills 2003). Foucault suffered from depression and attempted suicide on many different occasions. This could be as Mills says due to the great difficulty at the time about being openly homosexual, but it does suggest that his pronounced interest in psychology stemmed from elements in his own life (Eribon 1991: 27). All though Foucault died of AIDS in 1984, his ideas have and still cause much debate. His ideas have never been simply accommodated by theorists around the world. This is due to the iconoclastic and challenging nature of Foucaults theoretical work (Mills 2003). Michel Foucault The History of Sexuality During Foucaults life, he wrote three volumes of The History of Sexuality. In this essay I will be focusing on his ideas on sexuality and society. The first Volume of Michel Foucaults book History of Sexuality was published in 1978, which was written near the end of a period of time called the sexual revolution in the western culture (Spargo 1999). The sexual revolution was a time where peoples thoughts and opinions shifted in regards to how they viewed sexuality throughout the western world. The book presents a powerful counter narrative to the established story about Victorian sexual repression giving way to progressive liberation and enlightenment in the 20th century (Spargo 1999). For example, Foucault describes how in the 17th century onwards sexuality was hidden from view. People were subjected to a power of repression. But as Spargo describes, this all changed in the 20th century. Sexuality was still there, simmering under the prim surface of 19th century bourgeois respectability, but it was stifled by prohibitions and repressions. Until, that is, it, and we, were liberated in the age of the mini-skirt and the analyst, revealing our legs and our innermost desires, bringing it all out into the open (Spargo 1999). This was easier for some but not quite as easy for others. Some struggled with the free expression they were able to give to their sexual desires. People turned to therapists and counsellors to help gain freedom for the years of prohibitions. Did this mean that sexuality was always waiting for us to free it? In Foucaults opinion no. His view was that sexuality wasnt waiting to be freed or repressed but rather sexuality was and is produced in culture and society. Foucault rejected this repression hypothesis and claimed evidence pointed not to a prohibition on speaking about sexuality but to a remarkable proliferation of discourses about sexuality (Spargo 1999). He didnt want people to assume that the repression from the 17th-19th century was effective. He believed that the repression increased the desire of people to express and discuss their sexuality in ways which were seen as violating the taboos of society. If sex is repressed, that is condemned to prohibition, non-existence and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression. A person who holds forth in such language upsets established law and he/she somehow anticipates the coming freedom (Foucault 1986). He didnt believe that sexuality was natural or a normal aspect of life but rather a construction of experiences which has historical, social and cultural beginnings. As I have already discussed Foucault described how the process of restriction had created an increased excitement about sexuality, but he believed that the effect of the repressive discourse seemingly encouraged perverse forms of sexuality and made them more attractive types of behaviour. The construction of homosexuality was one of Foucaults most thought provoking assertions. He believed that the category of homosexuality was created out of a particular context in the 1870s and that it should be viewed as a form of knowledge rather than a discovered identity. Foucault wasnt saying that same sex practises werent accruing before the 19th century but, during this time it was seen as shameful rather than in the 19th century where people embraced same sex relationships and the term homosexual. Foucault said, Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was seen as being totally suffused with sexuality (Foucault 1978). Since the construction of homosexuality in the 19th century, there has been an explosion of homosexual figures in the 20th century. The media have seemed to of caught the homosexual vibe with television in particular employing homosexuals to present different programmes. These programmes which are hosted by homosexuals are often quite particular programme genres. For example, you would often see a homosexual presenter on entertainment, pop culture and lifestyle programmes rather than documentaries, political shows, or on the news. This shows us that homosexuals are possibly seen as a joke, people who make us laugh by there actions, stories or vulgarity and possibly lack the intelligence or the seriousness to host programmes that require composure and a serious minded attitude towards the subject at hand. Here are three contemporary examples of homosexual TV presenters. The first is guy a called Alan Carr. He has worked on some of the biggest television programmes in the 20th century such as, Friday Night Project, Alan Carrs Celebrity Ding Dong and Alan Carr Chatty Man. Carr is famous for being camp, over the top and having a very unusual laugh that cant help but make you laugh. Despite being openly gay he doesnt consider his sexuality to be a focal part of his act. What am I meant to do? Do I go down the Julian Clary route and talk about fisting and poppers? I dont talk about being gay and I think what better equality for gays than that? (Observer online 2008). Unlike many performers, Carr shies away from unnecessary cruelty, instead relying on his own authenticity to win over his audience. His on-stage persona is simply an extension of his own and therein lies the source of both his charm and his talent. Philosopher, Judith Butler who I will be speaking about later believes that we all put on gender performances and that gender, like sexuality, isnt a vital truth that has come from the bodys materiality but rather a regulatory fiction. The second man is called Dale Winton. Winton has been on television since 1987 and has feature in many different types of television programmes. He is most famous for a programme called Supermarket Sweep which ran from 1993-2001. He was seen as the typical homosexual television presenter, very camp and over the top which is very much a trend in homosexual television hosts. During his time he was iconic for being overtly camp, tanned and often touchy feely with his guests, but he was never as he says a banner waving gay. Im not a banner-waving gay guy, because I actually dont believe its important. People never say vehement heterosexual Michael Parkinson, but it will say camp gay entertainer Graham Norton, or Dale Winton since Ive officially come out. (Times online 2008) The third and final television presenter I will be looking at is Graham Norton. He is arguably one of the most well known television presenters in recent years. Again he has many of the homosexual traits and he describes himself on the channel 4 website as a shiny Irish proof. It does not take long to work out that his sexuality has played a large part in his appeal and success. His exceedingly camp style gives him the licence to be exceedingly rude without being offensive, and his quick wit, put-downs and one-liners have made him a homosexual icon. He has been criticised for being too camp and taking the gay stereotype to an extreme. Some gay men have said he is reinforcing the idea that a gay TV star has to be over-the-top and in the mould of like Kenneth Williams or Frankie Howerd. (BBC website, 2001) All three of these television presenters are examples of the 20th century homosexual. They all share similar traits such as the in your face campness, being over the top and also being drama queens. The homosexual has grown and changed over time since its creation in the 19th century and will continue to change as time goes on. Foucault work on the analysis of sexuality has helped in challenging the preconceived ideas of sexual characteristics. He argues that his study wasnt designed to be a history of sexual behaviours nor a history of representation, but a history of sexuality. Judith Butler The theorist most prominently associated with queerness and queer theory is American post-structuralist philosopher Judith Butler. Butler followed the work of Michel Foucault and used his work so she could investigate models of gender and heterosexuality. Butler argues that gender, like sexuality, isnt a vital truth that has come from the bodys materiality but rather a regulatory fiction. Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being (Butler 1990, p. 33) Butler argues that the sex you are i.e. Male or female is seen to cause a gender type i.e. masculine or feminine which is then seen to create a desire towards the other gender. This is seen as a continuous series that is constantly reproducing itself. Inspired by Foucault, Butlers approach is to destroy the links between that series so desire and gender are allowed to be flexible and not made to be steady factors. Butler argues that we all put on gender performances, and she says its not a question of whether this will take place, but in what form will this performance take. She believes that by choosing to be different, we might be able to change gender norms and the understanding of masculinity and femininity. Butler says: There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions that are said to be its results. (Butler 1990, p.25). In other words, gender is a performance; its what you  do  at particular times, rather than a universal  who you are. This approach of gender is very similar to that of sexuality. Butler, Foucault and Queer theory all believe that your identity is not fixed but constructed at certain times or in certain situations. Foucault argued that sexuality was produced which overlaps on what Butler says about gender being performed/produced. This idea of identity as free floating and not connected to a real meaning but rather a performance, is one of the key ideas in the creation of queer theory Modern day examples of Butlers theory regarding gender performances are clear to see. The three examples of homosexual figures in television are examples of what Butler calls gender performances. All three of the television presenters that I have mention Alan Carr, Dale Winton and Graham Norton have created a performance of their gender at particular times. All three man perform their gender in different ways with Alan Carr using his over the top campness as a way of engaging with the audience, Dale Winton using his touchy feely sensual approach to his audience and Graham Norton using his homosexuality as a way of making jokes and putting others down without any consequences. The way in which all three act is a performance of some kind to either feel accepted or to gain a reaction from their audiences. Conclusion In this essay I have looked at the work of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, both of who have influenced the work of queerness in different ways. I have looked at Foucaults work on the repression in the Victorian age and his work on homosexuality. I also looked at the modern day explosion of homosexuals on TV using the examples of three different TV presenters. I then went on to study Judith Butlers work which was influenced by Foucault on gender performances. I discussed how Butler believed that we all go through gender performances but that it isnt who we are, rather a time to time experience. On the back of this I took the example of the three homosexual television presenters and linked their characters to gender performances. Both these theorists have looked at themes in sexuality, gender and society, with some of there ideas overlapping, with both Foucault and Butler looking at sexuality and gender as constructed and performed by individuals. Foucault also looked at the construction of the homosexual figure and I have taken his work on further by looking at the characteristics of the homosexual figure as exemplified by modern day TV presenters.

British Policy of Appeasement at the Beginning of World War Two Essay

British Policy of Appeasement at the Beginning of World War Two The First World War was the beginning of a new era in fighting. Weapons and fighting technique had drastically changed, making war much more dangerous. With the predictions for the new weapons including poisonous gas and bigger bombs, Great Britain was very much afraid for its citizens, especially men and women of fighting age. The country wished to avoid war at any cost. The choices of Neville Chamberlain and The Parliament favoring appeasement affected the decisions of other European leaders, such as French Premier Daladier, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Winston Churchill, and those choices helped Britain enter the war. Many believe that with the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War One, the prelude to World War Two was put in motion. At the time many Europeans, who were still hurting from the war, were not concerned that the restrictions put upon Germany were too stringent. But it gave Germans a reason to elect Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany in 1933. While Britain tried to ignore the new leader of Germany, they could not ignore him any longer when the Saar Basin voted to return to Germany. As part of its World War I repatriations, the Saar Basin had been given to France because of the territory’s natural resources and such.1 Since Germany had now violated the Treaty of Versailles, Britain, France, and Italy gathered at Strea in Italy to discuss a course of action. Britain and France’s main concern was to keep Italy in opposition to the Germans. When Italy decided to attack Ethiopia, Britain was torn between avoiding war or endorsing the unprovoked attack. They left it up to the League of Nations to make the decision. In this deci... ...Lilly, David. (1994). British Reaction to the Munich Crisis, 1. 6. Rempel, Professor Gerhard. (1999). The Nazi-Soviet Pact. Available: http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/hitler/lectures/nazisoviet.html [Mar. 4, 2000], 1. 7. Paul, James. (1998). Britain in World War Two. 8. Lilly, David. (1994). British Reaction to the Munich Crisis, 1. 9. John L. Snell, Problems in European Civilization: The Outbreak of the Second World War, (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1962), 6. 10. Rempel, Professor Gerhard. (1999). The Nazi-Soviet Pact, 2. 11. John L. Snell, Problems in European Civilization: The Outbreak of the Second World War, 6-7. 12. Rempel, Professor Gerhard. (1999). The Nazi-Soviet Pact, 3. 13. John L. Snell, Problems in European Civilization: The Outbreak of the Second World War, 9.

Future Of Self Driving Cars Research Papers Essay

In the technology world, the latest advancement is only as good as the next thing coming down the line. The auto industry is constantly bringing us new technologies, whether it be for safety, entertainment, usefulness or simply for pure innovation (Neiger,C.). Unless you’re an inveterate walker or a mass-transit rider, you probably spend more time in your car each week than anywhere except your workplace and your home. It’s not always pleasant. Highway gridlock, a fruitless search for a parking space or a brush with a thundering tractor-trailer can rattle all but the most Zen drivers. Things are about to get better. A new wave of innovation, led by carmakers and automotive-tech companies, is transforming the driving experience. Thanks largely to on-board computers, our vehicles are becoming smarter, nimbler, and safer and more fun. (Human drivers, unfortunately, will remain as erratic as ever.)Fully self-driving cars remain some years away. But new technology in the nex t five to 10 years will help Cars Park themselves, monitor the alertness of the driver and even communicate with each other to avoid collisions. Tomorrow’s cars may have self-parking cars, self-driving cars, long-range headlights, external airbags, learning system, connecting cars, and driver’s health (Brandon,G.). For decades, car infotainment meant just a radio. Then tape decks began appearing, eventually being joined by CD players. Now, Tape decks have disappeared as a factory option (the last car to come with a tape player was sold in 2010), and the CD is entering a slow but inexorable decline. They’re being replaced by smartphones and streaming media. Compared to even a few years ago, new cars are far more connected to the outside world. It’s a trend that’s only going to continue. The always-updating consumer electronics industry and the rapid rise of the smartphone have combined to condition consumers to an incredibly rapid pace  of development. People expect new devices every couple of years that are faster and more powerful, and they’re bringing those expectations out of the Apple or Android or Microsoft store and into the car dealership. As we covered recently, this has created a new set of challenges and opportunities for the automakers. First Parking may be the most tedious thing about driving. Parallel parking is an ordeal for many drivers, but with parking space limited in big cities, squeezing your car into a tiny space is a vital skill (Grabianowski,E.) Even for veteran urban dwellers, parallel parking can be a challenge. And nobody enjoys circling a crowded shopping-center parking lot, jockeying with other irritated drivers for the few open spaces. Fortunately, technology has an answer – cars that park themselves. Imagine finding the perfect parking spot, but instead of struggling to maneuver your car back and forth, you simply press a button, sit back, and relax. The same technology used in self-parking cars can be used for collision avoidance systems and ultimately, self-driving cars. Self-parking cars can also help to solve some of the parking and traffic problems in dense urban areas. Cameras and sensors mounted in car bumpers measure the distance between the car and surrounding obstacles, allowing a semi-automated system to turn the steering wheel, move and brake to navigate into spaces (Brandon,G.). Sometimes parking a car in a space is restricted by the driver’s skill at parallel parking. A self-parking car can fit into smaller spaces than most drivers can manage on their own. This makes it easier for people to find parking spaces, and allows the same number of cars to take up fewer spaces. When someone parallel parks, they often block a lane of traffic for at least a few seconds. If they have problems getting into the spot, this can last for several minutes and seriously disrupt traffic. Self-parking technology would prevent many of these mishaps. It can also save money, since you won’t have to worry about insurance claims for parking-related damage (Grabianowski,E.). Next up are cars that can park themselves at the push of a button. If you believe the hype, it would seem that self-driving cars are right around the corner. Google has been testing them for several years, and states like California and Nevada have authorized them for use on roads – although only with a human behind the wheel. Autonomous-driving features, such as systems that recognize hazards and brake on their own to avoid collisions, are already on the market. But the fantasy of a car that  automatically steers you to work while you read the morning paper or catch a few extras is still many years away. â€Å"Autonomous driving is not going to mean jump in the car, push a button, say ‘Take me to grandma’s house’ and go to sleep,’ † said James Bell, head of consumer affairs for GM. â€Å"That may come someday, but not soon.† For decades, most automobile headlights were fairly uncomplicated. They pointed fixedly ahead, with separate high beams for greater visibility on dark roads. Then came the more energy-efficient halogen and xenon lights and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Now, automakers are pioneering a generation of â€Å"smart† headlights that can automatically adjust their brightness or direction depending on conditions. And a coming wave of laser high beams promises to illuminate the road ahead for a third of a mile – twice the range of LED high-beam headlights – while using less energy. Audi and BMW are racing to be the first carmakers to offer laser lights in a production car: BMW in its i8 plug-in hybrid and Audi in a yet-to-be-named model (maybe the Quattro) by 2015. â€Å"We’ll be able to extend the range of headlights to (a distance of) six football fields,† said Filip Brabec, director of product management for Audi. That’s 600 yards, or more than thr ee north-south blocks in New York. Meanwhile, next-generation LEDs have sensors that can detect oncoming traffic and redirect the beams in such a way as not to blind other drivers. An onboard computer, linked with cameras, controls each of them to mask glare onto other vehicles while flooding the road with light. With such a system, drivers can keep their high beams on all the time instead of having to toggle back and forth. For decades, inflatable airbags have been protecting people in cars from the devastating jolt of collisions. There are airbags mounted in the dash, steering wheel, side panels, seats and even seat belt. Despite their varied locations, these airbags all have one thing in common: They’re inside the vehicle. But what if someone made airbags that inflated on the outside to help protect the car — and pedestrians — before the moment of impact? TRW Automotive, a maker of safety technologies, is developing a large airbag that would fit into rocker panels on the side of the vehicle, on the beam below the doors. A system of cameras and radar on  the car would detect when a collision was imminent and send a signal to the airbag, which would inflate outward and upward within 30 milliseconds. In this way, the side airbag would absorb some of the energy of the collision before the vehicle’s frame was struck. Crash tests have shown that the external airbags can reduce the impact on a vehicle’s interior – the inward crumpling of a car’s frame and doors – by up to 35%, said Emiliano Core, who is developing the airbag system along with Lothar Zink and other TRW engineers. http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/tech/cnn10-future-of-driving/ We humans are flawed drivers. We sometimes get behind the wheel while sleepy or even drunk, and we’re easily distracted, whether by our electronic devices or something pretty outside our window. In the gravest circumstances, we can even have a stroke or heart attack behind the wheel (Kelly,H). This is why researchers, app developers and car companies are developing technology to monitor flesh-and-blood drivers and help them avoid accidents. Advanced sensors in the passenger cabin can monitor a driver’s vitals such as heart rate, eye movements and brain activity to detect everything from sleepiness to a heart attack. Nissan is experimenting with an array of technology that detects drunken driving. A sensor in the transmission shift knob can measure the level of alcohol in a driver’s sweat, while the car’s navigation system can sound an alarm if it detects erratic driving, such as weaving a cross lanes (Kelly,H). http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/tech/cnn10-future-of-driving/ For several years now, we’ve been hearing about a near future in which all of our digital devices communicate with each other. Your fridge notices that you’re at the grocery store, for example, and sends a message to your phone saying you’re out of milk. Or your oven texts you when the pot roast is done. Now this so-called â€Å"Internet of things† is coming to the highway (Brandon Griggs). As cars grow more and more computerized, they will be able to trade messages about traffic, weather and road conditions. More urgently, they can broadcast their speed and direction and warn each other about potential safety hazards, such as when a nearby vehicle is drifting into your lane.†If I can get information from the car next to me that  they’re going to turn right, that would be great,† explains Maarten Sierhuis, director of Nissan’s research center in Silicon Valley. He imagines a day when information about almost all vehicles is stored in the cloud and accessible by all. â€Å"It would be like crowdsourcing the driving experience.† This technology is called vehicle-to-vehicle communications, or V2V for short, and it’s not far off. In the first test of its kind, almost 3,000 cars and trucks equipped with prototype V2V devices have been driving around Ann Arbor, Michigan, over the past year-and-a-half as part of a pilot program by the University of Michigan and the U.S. Department of Transportation (Brandon Griggs). Thanks to on-board computers that operate everything from the stereo and navigation to the brakes and accelerator, the era of â€Å"big data† is coming to the automobile (Peter Valdes-Dapena). Mercedes-Benz is developing a system that over time promises to learn your schedule, tastes and even your moods. For example, it knows that you leave the house every weekday at 7:30 a.m. to take your kids to school and that you like the cabin a toasty 75 degrees. Based on GPS and satellite data, it quickly learns your preferred routes and tracks real-time traffic problems, so it can suggest detours to help you save time (Peter Valdes-Dapena). http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/tech/cnn10-future-of-driving/ Here are some of my favorite implications. Reduced deaths, reduced accidents. Saving LOTS of Money and Time. Massive Fuel Savings. No New Roads, Less Traffic. No Ownership – Just â€Å"On-Demand† Usage. No Garages, No Driveways, No Parking. No Mandatory Car Insurance. At last, if self-driving cars are available in the market everyone will be exited and there will be lot of advantages. Some people may enjoy and love driving cars by themselves, for them this technology may or may not help. But lots of people will be beneficial. Old people and some handicapped people may definitely like this. By this future cars we can save time, money and accidents as well. This technology cars are going to be with us within next 5-10 years. References: Brandon,G. (n.d.). The CNN 10: Future of driving. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/tech/cnn10-future-of-driving/ Diamandis,P. (10-13-2014). Self-Driving cars are coming. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdiamandis/2014/10/13/self-driving-cars-are-coming/ Grabianowski,E. (n.d.). How self-parking cars work. Retrieved from: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regulatory-devices/self-parking-car.htm Jonathan,m. (06-3-2014). The past, present, and future of in-car infotainment. Retrieved from: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/06/the-past-present-and-future-of-in-car-infotainment/ Kelly,H. (n.d.). The CNN 10: Future of driving. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/tech/cnn10-future-of-driving/ Neiger,C. (n.d.). 5 Future car technologies that truly have a chance. Retrieved from: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/trends-innovations/5-future-car-technologies.htm Valdes-Dapena,P. (n.d.). The CNN 10: Future of driving. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/tech/cnn10-future-of-driving/

An alternative in language testing research

An alternative in language testing research Free Online Research Papers Validation in language testing in general and in cloze testing in particular has been mainly based on criterion-related validity in addition to construct and content validity. As the validity of the former validation technique in which tests are considered either valid or invalid based on their correlations with other supposedly valid criterion tests is seriously under question, the present study introduces a new qualitative technique for validation purposes. Researcher research, as it is called here, refers the researcher’s investigation of his/her own internal thought processes at the same time as he/she is taking a test. The idiosyncratic feature of this technique is that while researching others, the inferences of what is happening are only made indirectly and may therefore be wrong, using this technique, the researcher, being involved in the task, himself/herself directly experiences what others can only observe. Such a technique was applied to 11 cloze tests, constructed out of the researcher’s previous writings. The cloze-taking processes as experienced by the researcher reveal that different cloze items make different demands on the test-taker. Further applications of the technique and also implications for cloze validity as a measure of reading comprehension are discussed. ________________ Background Validity which refers to how far an instrument really measures what it is intended to is one of the characteristics of a good test, others being reliability and practicality. Traditionally validity has been discussed and researched in the forms of content validity, construct validity, and criterion-related validity including concurrent and predictive validity. Content validity refers to the degree a test measures a representative sample of the content area it is intended to measure. Construct validity deals with whether a testing instrument really measures the underlying construct the test is supposed to measure. The criterion-validity refers to the degree a test measures what another test measures either at the same time (concurrently) or at a later time (predictively). While the two former validity types have been used to study the validity of a test per se without comparing it to others, in criterion-related validity, one tests validity has been researched based on another measure . This latter kind of validation studies has prevailed language testing research, and as a result, newly constructed tests have been claimed to be either valid or invalid measures of the criterion tests used. In criterion-related validation research, the validity of a test has been established based on the degree of correlation between the new (experimental) test and the old (criterion) test. Namely, if the observed degree of correlation between two tests has been high and significant, the new test has been regarded as valid, and if the correlation has not been high enough, the test being validated 86 has been considered invalid. Based on such a validation procedure, the new test, if concluded as valid, could replace the older test and be used for exactly what that test had been or could be used. Such a validation procedure has been a norm in language testing research and has been practiced by many well-known testing researchers including Taylor (1957), Carroll at al. (1959), Bormuth (1967), Rankin Culhane (1969), Oller Conrad (1971), Oller (1973), Stubbs Tucker (1974), Irvine et al. (1974), Jonz (1976), Alderson (1979a, b), Hinofotis (1980), Shohamy (1983), Hanania Shikhani (1986), Illyin et al. (1987), Hale at al. (1989), Stansfield Hansen (1989), Chapelle Abraham (1990), Fotos (1991), and Greene (2001) to name a few. (For a review of these studies, see Sadeghi, 2002c). Serious doubts have been cast on this kind of validation in which one test has been proposed to substitute the other simply because they are moderately to highly correlated. The concern over the validity of criterion-validation stems from the fact that the statistical technique of correlation, which is the main statistical tool used in this kind of validation, has been devised and intended to show the degree of association between two variables, and that the presence of a high degree of relationship or even a perfect correlation coefficient between two variables is not intended to mean that they are of the same nature or that they are interchangeable. Although no such thing has been claimed in the underlying concept of correlation, the technique has been vastly used for this improper purpose, whereby based on high correlations between two tests, for example, cloze and reading tests, they have been concluded to be measuring the same thing, and thus being interchangeable. The arguments against this research trend in language testing have been put forward by Sadeghi (2002a, b, and c). The application of correlational techniques for validation purpose whereb y one test is suggested to be a valid measure of another, and therefore, to be able to replace that test is, however, possible only if three conditions are met: 1) The tests are of the same nature and character (for example, if both are tests of language proficiency with similar item types); 2) The tests are intended for the same purpose (both intended to measure language proficiency, for example); and 3) The degree of correlation and the variance overlap between two measures is near perfect, and if we need to lose no significant information by substituting one test for another, the correlation should be +1.00. (For further discussion, see Sadeghi, 2002c). As a result of his dissatisfaction with criterion-validation in language-testing and particularly in cloze testing where attempts of content-validation and construct validation have been in vain because it is not at all clear what cloze tests are measuring, the present researcher suggests a new validation technique, called ‘researcher research’, which is hoped to clarify more about what cloze tests are exactly doing and whether claims made on cloze tests as to what they measure are substantiated or not. ‘Researcher research’ refers to the active and conscious engagement of a researcher in the test-taking process and is a kind of research in which the researcher and the subject of the research both refer to the same individual. Instead of indirectly observing the test-taking process in others, the researcher becomes an insider and gains direct access to first-hand data by directly experiencing the problem under investigation. The application of the technique to a few cloze tests are presented below, and suggestions are made as to how the technique may be applied in other testing contexts. 87 Method Subjects. The only subject of this study was the researcher himself. Materials. The research and measurement tools used in this study were 11 cloze tests. The cloze tests, with the deletion rate of every 7th word, were made from the researcher’s previous writings which ranged from three months to one year old. Another person was instructed to make cloze tests form extracts that the researcher had already selected so as not to contain much quoted material. To allow what is called lead-in and lead-out, the first and the last sentences of each passage were left intact. The cloze tests constructed varied in length: while the shortest cloze test contained 34 items, the longest had 53 blanks. A sample of the cloze tests used in the study appears in the appendix. Procedure. After cloze tests were constructed, the researcher sat half of the tests in one session, and the other half in another session and made a note of the time used for each cloze test separately. After completing the blanks, cloze tests were scored using both exact-word scoring and acceptable-word scoring methods by the researcher himself. Although there is contradiction in research findings as to whether allowing acceptable-scoring makes significant differences to the results and mismatching conclusions seem to have been arrived in different studies, using acceptable-scoring, at least for non-native speakers of the language, seems to be fairer even if the differences are not large enough. Based on such a justification, the cloze tests used here were also scored using acceptable-scoring procedure. Findings Quantitative data. The following table represents the observed mean score in both exact- and acceptable-scoring for all of the tests used, and also the mean score that could be obtained if all items in all tests were answered correctly. Table 1: mean observed and expected score on cloze tests in exact- and acceptable-scoring Descriptive characteristic Scoring method Observed mean Expected mean Exact-scoring 34.36 43.18 Acceptable scoring 42.00 43.18 A comparison of the average for exact-scoring (observed mean) with the total possible average (expected mean) indicates that if exact-scoring only was to be allowed, and if cloze was to be regarded as a measure of reading comprehension, the results obtained would mean that the researcher was very far form understanding what he had himself written. As the table above shows, the scores have improved a lot with acceptable scoring. This was very much expected especially because the texts were the researchers own previous written samples, with the content and the written style of which the researcher was well familiar. To give more meaning to the quantitative data in the above table, the following findings should also be taken into account. 88 Acceptable answers that could be counted unacceptable. As the following examples show, some of the answers regarded as acceptable were acceptable taking the contextual clues in the text into account, but if the meaning intended by the original word was to be the criterion for acceptability, most of the items considered ‘acceptable’ here would have been counted as unacceptable and thus distancing the observed acceptable score mean even further form the expected score mean, lead us to the conclusion that even acceptable-score average may not be significantly high. Such a consideration will further reduce the chances of cloze being a proper measure of reading comprehension as far as statistics are concerned. Instances of such cases in which scores have been counted as ‘acceptable’ in the context in this study but could be counted as ‘unacceptable’ if the criterion for acceptability was stating the same information as expressed by the original word are the following: 1) Although the beginning of reading dates back to the invention of writing, and since †¦ [original: 5000; acceptable: many] years ago people have been dealing with reading (Orasanu Penny, 1986: 1), the real nature of reading remained uninvestigated until the mid 19-th century (Vernon, 1984: 48). 2) During this period of research on reading, different people (†¦ [original: psychologists; acceptable: i.e.,], linguists, psycholinguists, educators, second-language researchers, language teachers, etc.) have looked at the same entity from different angels. 3) †¦it is not clear at all what the cloze tests are intended to measure and that they turn out to measure different things based on †¦ [original: correlational; acceptable: different] analyses. 4) In real-life reading, the reader has a purpose and an interest in reading a passage, and because he/she chooses to read one text rather than the other, he/she has an idea of what the text is about and expects to find some †¦ [original: expected; acceptable: specific] information in the text. 5) There is no doubt in the fact that communication whether in spoken or written mode does not occur in a vacuum. The implication for the comprehension of the †¦ [original: communicated; acceptable: written] message is that all elements present in that particular event have their share in affecting the success of communication. 6) K. Brown (1994: 61) points out that different types of lexical sets can be chosen to transfer the meaning †¦[original: of; written: and/] or the perspective on the same event. As the above examples illustrate, an ‘acceptable’ answer may not convey the meaning originally intended and can therefore be regarded as ‘unacceptable’ if the comprehension of the original meaning is of interest. In such cases where the word is counted as acceptable, there seems to be a meaning loss, and something is conveyed either less or more than what was originally intended by the writer. And because it cannot be said that the writer has been unable to understand what he has originally written, it can be concluded that cloze procedure may not be an appropriate technique for this purpose, for measuring the comprehension of a written passage. 89 Acceptable answers that could not have been provided without the researcher’s familiarity with the content of the quoted material. Sometimes the different processes involved in cloze-taking (i.e., stopping and thinking about what the whole thing was about) led to giving acceptable answers and other times despite really engaging with the problem, the researcher was unable to make sense of what was originally meant. This latter case led to giving inappropriate and irrelevant answers, clearly showing the lack of comprehension in that part. Has it not been for the researchers familiarity with the content of his own writing, instances like these where the flow of reading was interrupted would have been even greater. Instances of the blanks which produced real challenge to the present researcher, leading to inappropriate answers or no answer and could therefore be interpreted as miscomprehension or the lack of comprehension are as follows: 1) One group sat the test in the normal way; with the other group however, after each subject gave his/her answer to an item, the correct word was revealed. Brown (1983: 247) called the first cloze-type †¦ [independent-item original word] cloze and the second type †¦ [dependent-item] cloze. In this item, had it not been for the researchers familiarity with what Brown had called such cloze-tests, he would have been unable to fill in the blank correctly. The problem in this case and the following one is more related to the fact that the omitted words are the original writers words being quoted: 2) Discourse-level knowledge has also been called ‘formal’ or †¦ [original: textual; written: content] schema (Singhal, 1998: 2). Similarly, in the following example, had it not been for the researchers familiarity with the original writer’s focus of study, the omitted word could not have been restored correctly: 3) Khaldieh (2001: 427), for example, working on reading comprehension of †¦[Arabic] as a foreign language, found that reading comprehension was a direct result of knowledge of vocabulary. Answers that were unacceptable and produced challenge leading to miscomprehension and/or incomprehension. In the following cases, obviously the researcher understood the text differently. Reflecting on the actual test-taking process, the researcher remembers how challenging it was to understand the relationships between sentences in these cases where miscomprehension was the result. Comprehension was achieved in other similar cases after much effort and challenge while the same texts would have provided no challenge in normal reading: 4) The implication of these lines for testing reading comprehension is that due attention should be given to selecting those kinds of texts for measurement purposes that are culturally unbiased. [original: Otherwise; written: However], our estimates of the reader’s comprehension may be incorrect because they will include results gained for testing the subjects understanding of L2 cultural knowledge rather than L2 linguistic knowledge. 5) That is to say, the content validity of the cloze procedure, whether it is supposed to measure reading ability, language proficiency, etc. is under question, because in neither case is a content area identified a priori from which a representative sample may be selected and †¦[original: whatever; written, the] sample is taken by the cloze procedure is just a random selection of a text or at best influenced by the test-constructors judgements of its suitability for the context he/she is working in. 90 6) Generally, context variable refers to all reader-, writer-, and†¦[original: text-external; written: text?] factors, such as environmental and situational elements, which may affect reading comprehension. The sign ‘?’ after the word written in the blank shows the reader’s doubt on what he has written and indicates that he had difficulty in getting at the intended meaning at that part. Answers considered unacceptable but which do not show the researcher’s inability in comprehension or lack of related grammatical knowledge. There were a few other instances which would be considered incorrect responses in both exact- and acceptable-scoring of cloze tests, meaning that comprehension had not taken place if cloze scores are accepted as evidence of showing comprehension. Reflecting on such cases, the researcher research process allows the researcher to note that such wrong or unacceptable answers are perhaps some type of mistakes, and he is not satisfied that he did not comprehend the part in which he made the mistake. A few such cases are as follows: 1) He also notes other scoring methods like form class scoring where any word coming from the same form class as the original word †¦[original: is; written: are] deleted. 2) Taylor (1956: 48) found a high negative correlation between exact scoring †¦[original: and; written: a] clozentropy scoring (r= -0.87), which was taken to mean that cloze scores are dependable estimates of negative entropy†¦ 3) Validity of a test †¦[original: means; written: refers] the degree to which a test actually measures what it is intended to measure. 4) Different camps have chosen to look at the same thing from different angles and have focused their attention on particular aspects of language. As a result language has been viewed †¦[original: as; written: a] a system by some and as an institution or a social act by others. These examples clearly prove that they are simply mistakes showing the test-taker’s slip of the pen or mind, and they do not show that he did not have relevant knowledge to answer correctly or that because he did not give correct answers, so he was not able to comprehend the relevant parts. Discussion The argument in this paper is that if cloze tests measured reading comprehension as a lot of studies based on correlational research claim, then it is expected that a person who is doing cloze tests based on his/her own writing should be able to complete all blanks with no errors, at least in acceptable scoring. Such an argument is based on the assumption that somebody who writes a text has an ability beyond comprehending what he/she writes because without proper comprehension one cannot produce a coherent piece of text. Based on this argument, it can be concluded that somebody who writes something is able to comprehend it completely because otherwise he/she would not have been to write the text. So it follows that if a cloze test can properly measure reading comprehension, it should not present any challenge to somebody who is doing a cloze based on what he/she has written. The fact that the scores of the cloze-taker in this study did not amount to the total possible score expected in neither exact-scoring nor acceptable-scoring gives us some quantitative evidence that cloze may not be testing 91 reading comprehension properly and that it may be testing something below and beyond mere comprehension. The validity of cloze procedure to measure reading comprehension in such a context is under question not only because the cloze-taker was unable to fill-in all the blanks correctly but also because of the other challenges it produced to the test-taker. Furthermore, not all the blanks which the cloze-taker completed successfully required real comprehension of the passage. Some were either parts of clichà © phrases or idioms; others were function words which required some grammatical knowledge only. Not all blanks, however, were like these. It should also be stressed that the familiarity of the texts to the researcher was a great help and he sometimes remembered a whole sentence before he saw it on the paper (and this is why it was decided to select texts written at least three months earlier so as to lessen the role of memory). Reflecting on test sessions, the researcher remembers that cloze did produce some challenge. First of all, the time for cloze-testing was about one and a half times longer than the time he spent on reading the texts in non-cloze format. In addition to the time-factor, while in the majority of cases in many of which either function words or words frequently used in his writings (such as reading, comprehension, cloze, procedure, measure, test, etc.) were needed to complete the blanks, cloze-taking involved no further challenge, resembling a normal-reading in which the flow of reading was not blocked, in a few other cases, the process of cloze-taking was really very different from that of normal reading. In other words, if the researcher read the original version of the text he had written, he would no doubt have understood every bit without his reading being blocked or the flow disturbed. While taking some cloze-tests, however, the researcher was stopped in some cases and needed to thi nk about what ideas were being talked about and what words should have been inserted into the blanks. Such cases blocked the flow of reading compared to the way the same text would be read with no blanks. Although it is accepted that if somebody is reading a text for the first time, his/her reading may not be so fluent, and he/she may need to stop and think to understand what he/she is reading before he/she can move forward, such a consideration seems unacceptable in this research context because the text was the readers own, which he had already read (and understood) several times. Reflecting on what it was that the researcher was doing when he was taking cloze-tests constructed from his own writing and comparing it with normal reading fallow him to conclude that cloze-tests as used in this study may not be proper testing instruments for measuring ones degree of reading comprehension. The researchers direct involvement in taking cloze-tests allows him to claim that cloze tests may measure some degree of superficial comprehension where the blanks are completed by structural words or frequently used content words. They do not seem to be able to appropriately measure high-level and overall comprehension as shown to the researcher through the researcher research process. The fact that proper comprehension is expected to take place only after reading a text in its complete and undeleted format, and that only after we have provided the reader such a chance, can we then talk about how we are going to assess his/her degree of comprehension of what he/she has read, force the researcher to conclude that cloze tests are unsuitable for assessing reading comprehension. The reason for this conclusion is 92 mainly that cloze tests put a double-task on the shoulder of the reader. Namely, they require the readers to reconstruct an incomplete passage, and reproduce something that has not been presented to them. No doubt this reproduction may be far away from the original text. Based on such a reproduction which needs as much thinking and intelligence as knowledge of language, concluding that the original text has been comprehended or not does not seem to be logical at all simply because the reader has been prevented from access to the total meaning from the very beginning. Requiring the reader to produce something that is partly unknown to him/her and then to comprehend it is a different thing from giving him/her the text in full and then asking him/her to read and understand something which has already been produced. It is not, however, implied here that all the meaning resides in the written text, but that some elements are missing in the negotiation of meaning between the reader and the text in cloze reading. Supporting this argument are the results from this study in which cloze-taking was found as a different process from normal reading and challenging at times. The application of a technique called researcher research here to the cloze tests in this study clarified to the researcher that concluding cloze tests as valid tests of reading comprehension simply based on score correlations with other tests of reading cannot be sustained. A similar finding was arrived based on both qualitative and quantitative data from 213 Iranian EFL students who took different forms of cloze tests as part of the researcher’s PhD project (Sadeghi, 2003). Conclusions and Suggestions The paper began with a short review of the dominant validation techniques used in the field of second/foreign language testing research. Casting doubt on the validity of the most widely used validation technique, i.e., criterion-validation, in which the technique of correlation is used for improper purposes, a new technique was introduced in which the validity of a testing instrument could be directly accounted for by the researcher. The technique called ‘researcher research’ was applied to a few cloze tests constructed out of the researcher’s previous writing samples. The conscious involvement of the researcher in the test-taking process allowed him to understand better what it was that was required for the successful completion of cloze items and how cloze reading could be compared to normal non-cloze reading. The findings indicated that contrary to normal reading in which the flow of reading is less interrupted, cloze-reading blocked the access to meaning in so me cases, producing serious challenge and leading to miscomprehension or the lack of comprehension in a few cases. In the majority of the instances where blanks produced no interruption and challenge, the deleted words were either function words needing a minimum degree of inter-sentential comprehension or content words which the researcher frequently used in his writing and could therefore be regarded as clichà ©d words for him. Based on the evidence produced through ‘researcher-research’, the cloze tests studied were regarded as testing something below and beyond mere reading comprehension. The validation technique presented here is not intended for use with cloze tests only. ‘Researcher research’ can guide the researcher in finding out whether other tests intended to measure reading and listening comprehension or to test knowledge of vocabulary and grammar appropriately serve what they are intended to. The evidence 93 such produced may be combined with other qualitative and quantitative data to support the validity of a test for a particular purpose. References Alderson, J. C. (1979a). The cloze procedure and proficiency in English as a foreign language. TESOL Quarterly, 13 (2), 291-228. Alderson, J. C. (1979b). Scoring procedures for use on cloze tests. In C. A. Yorio, K. Perkins, and J. Schachter (Eds), On TESOL ’79: The learner in focus (pp.193-205). Washington, D.C.: TESOL. Bormuth, J. R. (1967). Comparable cloze and multiple-choice comprehension test scores. Journal of Reading, 10, 291-299. Carroll, J. B., Carton, A. S., Wilds, C. (1959). An investigation of cloze items in the measurement of achievement in foreign languages. Cambridge, MA: Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Laboratory for Research in Instruction. (ERIC ED 021-513) Chapelle, C. A., Abraham, R. G. (1990). Cloze method: What difference does it make? Language Testing, 7 (2), 121-146. Fotos, S. S. (1991). The cloze test as an integrative measure of EFL proficiency: A substitute for essays on college entrance examinations? Language Learning, 41 (2), 313-336. Greene, B. B. (2001). Testing reading comprehension of theoretical discourse with cloze. Journal of Research in Reading, 24 (1), 82-98. Hale, G. A., Stansfield, C. W., Rock, D. A., Hicks, M. M., Butler, F. A., Oller, J. W. (1989). The relation of multiple-choice cloze items to the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Language Testing, 6 (1), 47-76. Hanania, E, Shikhani, M. (1986). Interrelationships among three tests of language proficiency: Standardized ESL, cloze and writing. TESOL Quarterly, 20 (1), 97-110. Hinofotis, F. B. (1980). Cloze an alternative method of ESL placement and proficiency testing. In , J. W. Oller and K. Perkins (Eds), Research in language testing (pp. 121-128). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Ilyin, D., Spurling, S., Seymour, S. (1987). Do learner variables affect cloze correlations? System, 15 (2),149-160. Irvine, P., Atai, P., Oller, J. W. (1974). Cloze, dictation, and the test of English as a foreign language. Language Learning, 24 (2), 245-252. Jonz, J. (1976). Improving on the basic egg: The M-C cloze. Language Learning, 26 (2), 255-265. Oller, J. W. (1973). Cloze tests of second language proficiency and what they measure. Language Learning, 23 (1), 105-118. Oller, J. W., Conrad, C. A. (1971). The cloze technique and ESL proficiency. Language Learning, 21 (2), 183-195. Rankin, E. F., Culhane, J. W. (1969). Comparable cloze and multiple-choice comprehension scores. Journal of Reading, 13, 193-198. Sadeghi, K. (2003). An investigation of cloze procedure as a measure of EFL reading comprehension with reference to educational context in Iran. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Norwich: University of East Anglia. Sadeghi, K. (2002a). The judgmental validity of cloze as a measure of reading comprehension. Paper presented at the 7th METU International ELT Convention, METU, Ankara, Turkey, 23-25 May. Sadeghi, K. (2002b). The criterion validity of cloze as a measure of EFL reading comprehension. Paper presented at BERA Research Student Symposium, The University of Exeter, Exeter, UK, 11-12 September. 94 Sadeghi, K. (2002c). Is correlation a valid statistical tool in second language research? Paper presented at the 12th European Second Language Association Conference (EUROSLA12), Basel University, Basel, Switzerland, 18-21 September. Shohamy, E. (1983). Interrater and intrarater reliability of the oral interview and concurrent validity with cloze procedure in Hebrew. In J. W. Oller (Ed.), Issues in Language testing research (pp. 229-236). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Stansfield, C., Hansen, H. (1983). Field dependence-independence as a variable in second language cloze test performance. TESOL Quarterly, 17 (1), 29-38. Stubbs, J. B., Tucker, G. R. (1974). The cloze test as a measure of English proficiency. Modern Language Journal, 58, 239-241. Taylor, W. L. (1957). ‘cloze’ readability scores as indices of individual differences in comprehension and aptitude. Journal of Applied Psychology, 41, 19-26. Karim Sadeghi holds a Ph.D. in TEFL/TESOL (Language Testing) from the University of East Anglia in the UK. He has several years of teaching EFL at various levels. After he finished his Ph.D. in August 2003, he returned to Iran and since then has been teaching and researching in Urmia University. 95 Appendix A: The sample cloze test used in the study There is no doubt in the fact that communication whether in spoken or written mode does not occur in a vacuum. (1)The implication for the comprehension of the (2)communicated message is that all elements present (3)in that particular event have their share (4)in affecting the success of communication, i.e., (5)the comprehension of the intended message. The (6)most obvious of all is the knowledge (7)of the linguistic elements involved such as (8)lexicon and syntax. Although some superficial comprehension (9)may take place in spoken language as (10)a result of contextual clues present, it (11)can be argued that without a certain (12)degree of linguistic competence the achievement of (13)proper comprehension will be out of reach. (14)Knowing the meanings of vocabulary items has (15)been regarded as the most important element (16)of linguistic competence. However, knowing word meaning (17)is no guarantee that comprehension will take (18)place and the knowledge of how words (19)are relate d to one another and how (20)sentences or utterances are related to one (21)another are crucial in shaping the outcome (22)of communication. The second important factor in (23)determining the success of communication is knowledge (24)of the context or situation in which (25)the communicative event is taking place. The (26)same sentence or utterance may have totally (27)different and unrelated and sometimes opposite meanings (28)if spoken or written in different situations. (29)Apart from immediate physical context, a knowledge (30)of the larger socio-cultural context in which (31)the message is being conveyed may also (32)shape the way a reader/listener approaches the (33)massage and will therefore lead to the (34)kind of comprehension and interpretation motivated by (35)that context. No doubt, the lack of knowledge of such contextual conditions may sometimes lead to misunderstanding of the message despite having no problem in decoding the linguistic elements present in the message. Research Papers on An alternative in language testing researchStandardized TestingResearch Process Part OneMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New EmployeesInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in CapitalEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UseGenetic EngineeringOpen Architechture a white paperThe Project Managment Office System

Arthur Miller essays

Arthur Miller essays An Analysis of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and The Price When people accept an ideal to live by it can be a glorious and noble thing unless they become so obsessed wi the the ideal that it becomes a yolk and they are unable to realize their dream.. This is especially true for two characters in Arthur Miller's plays Death of a Salesman and The Price. In these two plays Miller portays two lower-middle class men , Willie Loman and Victor Franz, respectivelly, who each live by an ideal that ultimately is self-defeating. Willie lived to pursue the American dream rather than living the American dream and Victor lived to serve and be decent rather than living a noble and decent life. They pursed their ideal rather than living it and thus they are unable to succeed. Willie Loman, in Death of a Salesman,, has lived his life in pursuit of the American dream. Traditionally the American dream meant oppurtunity and freedom for all, and Willie believed that. However, hard work could not ea rn him everything that he wanted or thoght he deserved. Willy judged himsel and those arround him by theit material accumulation, as is demanded by capitalism and the protestant work ethic. The ethic demands accumulation and work as signs of favor in the eyes of god. Thus in order to please god and himself he had to accumulate wealth and objects. The consumer oriented society in which Willy lives will not allow him to live the American Dream. Willy is fascinated by accumulating things. His desire fior goods makes him want objects that he neither needed nor could afford. Willy thinks that he needs to buy his wife a new refrigerator and new stockings even though she is content with what they have. As he tries to live the American dream he venerates those who have been successful at doing so, l ike Thomas Edison, B.F. Goodrich, and Ben, his succesful brother. Furetheremore he punished those who did not work towards that ideal or accomplish it ,such as Biff, ...

The roles of diverse schools in America Term Paper

The roles of diverse schools in America - Term Paper Example Educating children, belonging to different cultural backgrounds, is crucial and special efforts need to be carried out in order to educate them as their future and career is at stake. For the sake our discussion, I will shed some light on the roles of diverse schools in America. Role of any school in treating and educating children, belonging from different backgrounds, is of extreme importance. A country having many states, and is populated by people from different backgrounds, cannot overlook this aspect while educating children. Managing diversity requires serious and sincere efforts on part of schools. Children cannot feel motivated and encouraged until and unless they have a sense of worth in them. When they feel that they are considered important, even if they belong to minority groups, only then they strive hard towards achieving their targets. Thus, this thing takes us to the point that one of the roles of schools in America is to manage diversity. There are few underlying concepts that need to be addressed while talking about roles of diverse schools in America. At the start of 20th century, there occurred a gender gap in attainment of education, with women striving more towards acquiring higher education than men in US (Lopez, 2002). However, race and gender differences are not biological, rather they arise because of difference in perceptions, experiences and response of a particular minority group towards another. Statistics have shown that by 2007, this gender gap in attaining education reached to a level of 2.3 million with 9.6 million women and only 6.3 million men that were enrolled in college. However, incorporating the racial aspect it was observed that this trend of acquiring higher education was more common in â€Å"white† women than their male counterparts. Similarly, talking about African- American population, women were double the times the

Physical Education Observation Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Physical Education Observation - Coursework Example Girls would just do the best they could without much pressure. This sounds more like gender biasness but in her defense, she thought that boys’ games were more physical than that of girls. Therefore, boys would need more energy as well as tactics to improve their game. The coach had excellent instructional cues, for instance, when she wanted to remind a certain player to focus on the ball, see where it is moving towards, and when to intercept and catch it. She would tell them to focus on the game. Another observation on instructional cue was reminding the players to absorb the force of a thrown ball and catching without dropping it. Here she would tell them to create a soft home. The coach also had many positive feedbacks to both teams. This worked so positively to the kids as they felt motivated and excited for more exercises as well as competitive games. Through such feedbacks, the coach brought the team together and it looked united despite the diversity among every student. Due to these impacts, the coach did not receive any criticism from the players or other coaching staff because the team was developing so