This paper describes a plausible values imputation approach for deriving population estimates on several language proficiency domains. The approach harnessed a multi-dimensional item response analysis combining student responses, rater judgements and student background variables. The target population comprised lower grade primary school students enrolled in the Hong Kong schooling system. The raters were local teachers of English employed within the sampled target schools. The consideration of student background variables in conjunction with student responses and rater judgements facilitated the process of "conditioning" (Reckase, 2002). The primary objective of this research was to impute plausible values for students where no data was provided or where rater data was deemed suspect. By necessity, a secondary objective of this study was to establish rules for justly excluding particular data on the basis of questionable validity. Surveys such as TIMSS, PISA and NAEP have used such "plausible value" methodologies to account for incomplete test designs and person non-response (Beaton & Johnson, 1990; Yamamoto & Kulick, 2000; Adams & Wu, 2002). The point of difference in this study was the use of item response theory (in particular plausible values imputation) to identify and correct for invalid rater judgements in a large-scale educational survey.
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Civic education has been idealized and assigned the mission of preparing critical thinking, responsible, participating, multidimensional citizens. But on the other hand, civic education is also charged with the responsibility of moralizing the citizens into characters like punctuality, obedience, docility, deference . It is also used to serve the function of nationalistic education: Instilling the sense of national identity , loyalty to the nation state and patriotism.
Many Asian countries have strong elements of nationalistic education in their civic education . In 1996, one year before the return of sovereignty of Hong Kong to Chinas, a new official Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools (1996), proposing a curriculum framework with equal emphasis on human rights education, education for democracy, education for rule of law, nationalistic education, global education and education for critical thinking was introduced by the Education Department, which is to be implemented in schools starting from September of 1996. After 1 July, 1997, there was a very strong pressure from the society, asking for more nationalistic education and more schools were taking the initiative to implement nationalistic education.
Does the the mission of civic education : preparing critical thinking, responsible, participating, multidimensional citizens, contradict with that of nationalistic education : instilling the sense of national identity , loyalty to the nation state and patriotism ? This paper attempts to construct a framework to study (1) whether there are contradiction and (2)whether the practice of nationalistic education in schools is different from that of civic education.
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