Many aspects of higher education must be reconceptualised for massive open online courses (MOOCs). Formative and summative assessment of qualitative work in particular requires novel approaches to cope with the numbers involved. Peer review has been proposed as one solution, and has been widely adopted by major MOOC providers, but there is…

Given increasing interest in evidence-based policy, there is growing attention to how well the results from rigorous program evaluations may inform policy decisions. However, little attention has been paid to documenting the characteristics of schools or districts that participate in rigorous educational evaluations, and how they compare to…

Problem statement: An individual's childhood years are pre-school period years when he/she makes progress in every aspect of development. Before getting to know his inner circle, the child starts to know himself/herself first. People's opinions about the child are highly important as long as these people are close to the child and valuable for…

Newly implemented state policy dealing with school finance created several consequences in a school district to include school configuration and restructuring of educational programs. This case describes how a new school finance law changes the entire dynamic of a school district and its newly appointed superintendent. The superintendent…

A recent institutional study at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay investigated the academic achievement of interlibrary loan (ILL) users as compared to non-ILL users. While this study provided important local insight into ILL use and the demographics of ILL users (class rank, major), it uncovered a rather minor overall GPA difference, 0.20 GPA…

The main objective of this study was to quantify the impact of failing to account for measurement error on school compositional effects. Multilevel structural equation models were incorporated to control for measurement error and/or sampling error. Study 1, a large sample of English primary students in Years 1 and 4, revealed a significantly…

Although a growing literature has documented the effectiveness of informal group work during class sessions, virtually no data exist on which students are collaborating. As a result, instructors rarely know whether students are self-sorting in ways that maximize learning. This article explores which undergraduate students worked together on each…

International achievement measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have traditionally reported a significant gap between non-migrant and immigrant student groups--a result that is often referred to as the "immigrant performance disadvantage". This article examines first- and second-generation immigrant…

This study explores various measures of the ethnic makeup in a classroom and their relationship with student outcomes. We examine whether measures of ethnic diversity are related to achievement (mathematics, reading) and feeling of belonging with one's peers over and above commonly investigated composition characteristics. Multilevel analyses were…

School composition is a topic that has gained increasing attention from researchers over the past few years, as it has been found that the socio-economic characteristics of students are associated with their achievement. However, most research has been cross-sectional and carried out in industrialised countries. In this study, we use parental…

Charter schools are public schools governed by an independent board of directors that come into existence through a contract with an authorized public chartering agency. Known as the "Illinois Charter School Biennial Report," this report provides law and policymakers, educators, and the general public with information regarding the state…

The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative assessment of what the nation's students know and can do in subjects such as mathematics, reading, science, and writing. The results of NAEP are released as The Nation's Report Card. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S.…

There are currently 2 principal models of publicly funded prekindergarten programs (pre-K): targeted pre-K, which is means-tested, and universal pre-K. These programs often differ in terms of the economic characteristics of the preschoolers enrolled. Studies have documented links between individual achievement in school-age children and the…

Previous studies of Latina/o well-being indicate that supportive family members, religion or spirituality, and cultural values (e.g., "familismo") aid in coping with adversities. The purpose of the present study was to examine the role of several factors (spirituality, hope, social support, and cultural values) in predicting resilience…

This research makes use of hierarchical linear modelling to investigate which teacher characteristics are significantly associated with student performance. Using data from the SACMEQ III study of 2007, an interesting and potentially important finding is that younger teachers are better able to improve the mean mathematics performance of their…