This paper explores a system that attempts to maximize high school students' sense of choice when selecting elective subjects. We propose that individual schools can tailor the combinations of subjects they offer in order to maximize the number of prospective students who can study their preferred subjects, potentially increasing enrolment numbers…

Most research on the effects of participation in career and technical education (CTE) in high school has looked exclusively at labor market outcomes, overlooking potential educational benefits. In this study, we capitalize on rich statewide administrative data and a change in graduation requirements in Arkansas to understand how increased CTE…

The purpose of this study was to fit theoretical models of prediction to urban students' decisions to enroll and persist in music ensembles using academic achievement, socioeconomic status (SES), number of parents/guardians at home, mobility, ethnicity, and sex as explanatory variables. Through multinomial logistic regression, I built predictive…

This study used administrative data from Wisconsin Virtual School to identify patterns of student engagement in online courses (defined as the amount of time students were logged in to their course each week and how this varied over time). The study also examined whether the patterns were associated with course outcomes (defined as the percentage…

Student enrollment in online courses has increased in the past 15 years and continues to grow. However, little is known about students' education experiences or online course outcomes. These are areas of particular interest to the Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance, whose goal is to understand how to support student success in online…

The focus of this paper is a group of rural high school students and the factors that contributed to their participation in mathematics classes beyond those minimally required for high school graduation. The author follows Gutierrez (2002) in referring to participation as course taking, particularly in elective and advanced mathematics classes.…

In many countries there remain substantial sex differences in enrolments in elective science courses, despite concerted efforts in recent years to alleviate them. This paper explores the reasons for these differences by comparing models of male and female enrolment intentions in elective courses in biology, chemistry and physics. The models are…