Filio Constantinou

Constantinou, F. (2024). Troubleshooting in emergency education settings: What types of strategies did schools employ during the COVID-19 pandemic and what can they tell us about schools’ adaptability, values and crisis-readiness? Research Matters: A Cambridge University Press & Assessment publication, 38, 6-27. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.111626

With crises such as epidemics, wars, wildfires, earthquakes, and hurricanes becoming increasingly more common in various parts of the world, it is crucial that schools become crisis-ready. Crisis-readiness lies partly in the ability of schools to deliver “emergency education” (i.e., education in crisis situations) promptly and effectively. To support the delivery of emergency education, this study sought to document and examine the strategies employed by schools during a crisis, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic. Through analysing data collected from interviews with teachers based in different parts of Europe, the study identified a series of micro-level strategies used by schools to address the challenges posed by the pandemic. These micro-level strategies were subsequently analysed to develop a typology of overarching mechanisms, or macro-level strategies. As discussed in the article, apart from providing a useful starting point for any teachers required to deliver emergency education in the future, these emergency strategies also offer valuable insights into schools’ adaptability, values, and crisis-readiness. As such, they could prove very informative for both educational policy and practice.

• Foreword Tim Oates
• Editorial Victoria Crisp
• Troubleshooting in emergency education settings: What types of strategies did schools employ during the COVID-19 pandemic and what can they tell us about schools’ adaptability, values and crisis-readiness?Filio Constantinou
• How long should a high stakes test be?Tom Benton
• Core Maths: Who takes it, what do they take it with, and does it improve performance in other subjects?Tim Gill
• Does typing or handwriting exam responses make any difference? Evidence from the literatureSanti Lestari
• Comparing music recordings using Pairwise Comparative Judgement: Exploring the judge experienceLucy Chambers, Emma Walland and Jo Ireland
• Research NewsLisa Bowett

Constantinou, F. (2024, September 8–12). Synchronous hybrid teaching: a more flexible and inclusive mode of school instruction? [Paper presentation]. Joint conference of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and the World Education Research Association (WERA), University of Manchester, UK.

Constantinou, F. (2024). ‘If you have a question that doesn’t work, then it’s clearly going to upset candidates’: what gives rise to errors in examination papers? Oxford Review of Education

Constantinou, F. (2023, November 1–4). Can examination papers always be error-free? An exploratory investigation into the conditions that can give rise to errors in assessment instruments. [Paper presentation]. Annual conference of the Association for Educational Assessment – Europe (AEA-Europe), Malta. https://2023.aea-europe.net/

Constantinou, F. (2023). Synchronous hybrid teaching: how easy is it for schools to implement? Research Matters: A Cambridge University Press & Assessment publication, 36, 75–87. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.101746

‘Synchronous hybrid teaching’ (SHT), defined as the concurrent delivery of online and in-person teaching, is an instructional mode employed by many schools during the COVID-19 pandemic to minimise learning loss for students who had to self-isolate at home. Since then, there have been calls for SHT to be retained as an instructional strategy post-pandemic to enable students who would otherwise miss school (e.g., students with certain mobility issues, health conditions and/or family circumstances) to still attend classes. To explore the feasibility of this proposal, this qualitative study drew upon the SHT experiences of primary and secondary teachers in different parts of Europe. The findings indicate that SHT is a demanding mode of instruction, one involving four different types of challenges: co-ordination challenges, administrative challenges, interaction challenges, and engagement challenges. More importantly, they demonstrate that SHT can struggle to consistently provide on-site and remote students with comparable learning opportunities and experiences. Through exposing the challenges involved in SHT, the study identifies directions for improving the quality of SHT in the future. It also calls for SHT employed during the pandemic to be referred to as ‘emergency SHT’ rather than merely as ‘SHT’.

• Foreword Tim Oates
• Editorial Tom Bramley
• The prevalence and relevance of Natural History assessments in the school curriculum, 1858–2000: a study of the Assessment ArchivesGillian Cooke
• The impact of GCSE maths reform on progression to mathematics post-16Carmen Vidal Rodeiro, Joanna Williamson
• An example of redeveloping checklists to support assessors who check draft exam papers for errorsSylvia Vitello, Victoria Crisp, Jo Ireland
• An analysis of the relationship between Secondary Checkpoint and IGCSE resultsTim Gill
• Synchronous hybrid teaching: how easy is it for schools to implement?Filio Constantinou
• Research NewsLisa Bowett

Constantinou, F. (2023, September 12-14). Turning a curse into a blessing: teachers’ reflections on how education has benefited from the COVID-19 disruption. [Paper presentation]. Annual conference of the British Educational Research Association (BERA), Aston University, UK.

Carroll, M., & Constantinou, F. (2022). Learning loss in the Covid-19 pandemic: teachers’ views on the nature and extent of loss. Research Matters: A Cambridge University Press & Assessment publication, 34, 6–25.

The Covid-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruption to education around the world. As education systems gradually return to normal, there is a push to understand effects of the disruption. A major impact on students is “learning loss”, in which attainment and progress may have fallen behind expected levels. Various efforts have been made to quantify learning loss, but to better understand it, further work, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, is required.

Here, we sought to record teachers’ views on how far behind (or ahead) their students were compared to a “typical” year, and to gather their opinions about what had been lost (or gained). To do this, we surveyed teachers in schools that work with Cambridge CEM. We received over 400 responses, spread across 38 countries and 198 schools, thus giving a broad sample of experiences.

A majority of respondents felt their students were behind expectations. 1–2 months behind was the most common estimate, but some respondents made much larger estimates of loss, while a sizeable minority thought that their students were on track or even ahead of expectations. Descriptions of the areas of loss indicated that fundamental literacy and numeracy skills had been affected, as had practical skills and general study skills. Responses also described variable impacts, both within and between groups of students. Effects of Covid-related disruption on education are ongoing and may be felt for some time still to come. By exploring the nature and extent of learning loss in students, it is hoped that it will be possible to better understand, and hopefully mitigate, these longer-term impacts.

• Foreword Tim Oates
• Editorial Tom Bramley
• Learning loss in the Covid-19 pandemic: teachers’ views on the nature and extent of loss Matthew Carroll, Filio Constantinou
• Which assessment is harder? Some limits of statistical linking Tom Benton, Joanna Williamson
• Progress in the first year at school Chris Jellis
• What are "recovery curricula" and what do they include? A literature review Martin Johnson
• What's in a name? Are surnames derived from trades and occupations associated with lower GCSE scores? Joanna Williamson, Tom Bramley
• Research News Lisa Bowett

• Foreword Tim Oates, CBE
• Editorial Tom Bramley
• Accessibility in GCSE Science exams – Students' perspectives Victoria Crisp and Sylwia Macinska
• Using corpus linguistic tools to identify instances of low linguistic accessibility in tests David Beauchamp, Filio Constantinou
• A framework for describing comparability between alternative assessments Stuart Shaw, Victoria Crisp, Sarah Hughes
• Comparing small-sample equating with Angoff judgement for linking cut-scores on two tests Tom Bramley
• How useful is comparative judgement of item difficulty for standard maintaining? Tom Benton
• Research News Anouk Peigne

Beauchamp, D. and Constantinou, F. (2020). Using corpus linguistics tools to identify instances of low linguistic accessibility in tests. Research Matters: A Cambridge Assessment publication, 29, 10-16.

Assessment is a useful process as it provides various stakeholders (e.g., teachers, parents, government, employers) with information about students' competence in a particular subject area. However, for the information generated by assessment to be useful, it needs to support valid inferences. One factor that can undermine the validity of inferences from assessment outcomes is the language of the assessment material. For example, the use of excessively complex grammar and difficult vocabulary in the formulation of test questions may prevent students from displaying their true knowledge and skills (e.g., students who are not native speakers of the target language). In an attempt to support teachers and test developers in designing linguistically accessible assessment material, this study explored practical ways of investigating the linguistic complexity of test questions both at the level of vocabulary (lexical complexity) and grammar (syntactic complexity). The study compiled three corpora of examination questions and undertook automated lexical and syntactic analyses of these questions using software packages that are typically employed in the field of corpus linguistics.

Crisp, V., Johnson, M. and Constantinou, F. (2019) A question of quality: Conceptualisations of quality in the context of educational test questions. Research in Education, 105 (1), 18-41.

• Variations in aspects of writing in 16+ English examinations between 1980 and 2014 Gill Elliott, Sylvia Green, Filio Constantinou, Sylvia Vitello, Lucy Chambers, Nicky Rushton, Jo Ireland, Jessica Bowyer, David Beauchamp