[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Qualitative Methods in PER: A Critical Examination.] Epistemic beliefs about physics are most often investigated using quantitative instruments that reflect binary conceptualizations of those beliefs. This study reports from a qualitative study which used continua to represent the epistemic beliefs…

With the goal of working towards decolonizing educational practices, this article considers the Indigenous medicine wheel as inspiration for a cyclical model for learning and assessment. Many current assessment practices highlight individual achievement rather than ongoing and relational learning. This article suggests using a "Learning…

Instructors seeking to add active learning elements to their courses encounter an "evaluation challenge" when trying to assign grades to discussion-based activities that do not produce a final product. By creating a way to incorporate evaluation into hard-to-observe activities, the protocol presented here can help instructors make active…

There is a widespread consensus about the need for accreditation systems for evaluating post-graduate medical education programs, but accreditation systems differ substantially across countries. A cross-country comparison of accreditation systems could provide valuable input into policy development processes. We reviewed the accreditation systems…

Colonial contexts continue to shape the experiences of Indigenous students, especially in special education, even as educators work to respond to Indigenous perspectives. In this article we first apply a decolonizing critique to consider how colonialism affects special education programming, then survey Indigenous and decolonizing scholarship to…

Assessing societal impacts of research is more difficult than assessing advances in knowledge. Methods to evaluate research impact on policy processes and outcomes are especially underdeveloped, and are needed to optimize the influence of research on policy for addressing complex issues such as chronic diseases. Contribution analysis (CA), a…

The high degree of interest that higher education systems around the world have in employability has driven the profound development of industry-university cooperative education. Canada's industry-university co-op education system has served as a model for global cooperative education, and its accreditation system guarantees the high quality of…

Biased sampling occurs frequently in economics, epidemiology, and medical studies either by design or due to data collecting mechanism. Failing to take into account the sampling bias usually leads to incorrect inference. We propose a unified estimation procedure and a computationally fast resampling method to make statistical inference for…

Middle- and high-school students' attitudes towards online peer-assessment were described and examined in this study. One hundred and eighty-four (184) students answered a 16-item questionnaire about their experiences with an online peer-assessment tool called peerScholar. Overall, students in Canada converged with those in other countries with…

The Portfolio-Based Language Assessment (PBLA) literature explicitly states the suitability of using PBLA in English as an additional language (EAL) learning contexts. An underlying assumption is that it is also suitable for adult learners. This paper tests this assumption by comparing PBLA against the assumptions and principles of andragogy--a…

In this paper, I argue for more and better learning metrics in higher education, eventually through an international, comparative assessment of students' learning outcomes. Better learning measures may help to improve transparency in the system by addressing the information asymmetry problem. If not addressed adequately, the lack of transparency…

In this article, we establish direct links between language policy on the one hand and assessment in multilingual contexts on the other hand. We illustrate the bi-directional relationship with the examples of the USA, Canada, and the Basque Country. That comparison is placed in the context of the changing views about the use of languages in…

The January 2015 American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) "60 Second Survey" asked respondents to indicate their institutions' international student recruiting practices. As with other 60 Second Surveys, the survey was distributed through the FluidSurveys platform to all AACRAO members. After…

Romania's education system has made impressive strides over the past two decades, with an increasing share of students mastering the basic competencies that they need for life and work. But these average improvements mask significant disparities in learning outcomes and attainment, with an increasing share of students leaving education early…

Little research has examined seasonal differences in physical activity (PA) levels among children. Proxy reports of PA were completed by 1,715 parents on their children in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Total PA (TPA) minutes were calculated, and each participant was classified as active, somewhat active, or inactive. Logistic regression models were…