In this article, we address the issue of participation in adult education building on the cultural capital framework. This theoretical framework suggests that (educational) practices are affected by one's social background and, more precisely, by the cultural resources handed down in the family context. To examine the validity of this theoretical…

From an international review of 109 school effectiveness research studies, only 6 could be seen as theory driven. As the border between substantive conceptual models of educational effectiveness and theory-based models is not always very sharp, this number might be increased to 11 by including those studies that are based on models that make…

Starting from a person-environment fit framework, this study investigates whether ethnic congruence--the percentage of co-ethnics in a school--relates to school misconduct and whether congruence effects differ between ethnic minority and majority students. Moreover, we investigate whether eventual associations are mediated by friendship…

One possible way of evaluating set curricula is to examine the consistency of study programmes with students' psycho-cognitive development. Three theories were used to evaluate matching between developmental theories and content proposed in the mathematics programmes (geometry section) for primary and the beginning of secondary education. These…

Few studies with respect to grade retention and school-disruptive behavior have focused on adolescence. Moreover, previous retention research has ignored multilevel issues. This study aims to fill these research lacunae by addressing the role of grade retention in adolescent students' school misconduct. Furthermore, we explore the role of the…

Changing the order of items between alternate test forms to prevent copying and to enhance test security is a common practice in achievement testing. However, these changes in item order may affect item and test characteristics. Several procedures have been proposed for studying these item-order effects. The present study explores the use of…

A contrast category effect on categorization occurs when the decision to apply a category term to an entity not only involves a comparison between the entity and the target category but is also influenced by a comparison of the entity with 1 or more alternative categories from the same domain as the target. Establishing a contrast category effect…

The article proposes a family of item-response models that allow the separate and independent specification of three orthogonal components: item attribute, person covariate, and local item dependence. Special interest lies in extending the linear logistic test model, which is commonly used to measure item attributes, to tests with embedded item…

This paper presents the conclusions of a study, carried out in collaboration with schools in six European countries, which focused on tomorrow's physical learning environments. The study, which stemmed from a project entitled Forum for the Future and which was funded by the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE), was designed to contribute to…

The fulfillment of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as postulated within self-determination theory was hypothesized to play an energizing role in identity formation, conceptualized as multiple dimensions of exploration and commitment. Two studies among high school and college students (N = 714) were conducted…

This study introduces an approach for modeling multidimensional response data with construct-relevant group and domain factors. The item level parameter estimation process is extended to incorporate the refined effects of test dimension and group factors. Differences in item performances over groups are evaluated, distinguishing two levels of…

Used the multicomponent latent trait model (MTLM) (S. Embretson, 1980, 1984) for 3 different synonym tasks completed by 212 and 257 Belgian secondary school students. Developed a heuristic evaluation procedure that tested features of the model and provided an explanation for why the MTLM did not fit the data. (SLD)

Development and use of the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) and its instruments in the Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), and the United Kingdom are reviewed, with emphasis on the validity of the developmental theory behind it. The CBAM appears to make it possible to offer schools assistance in dealing with change. (SLD)

This document contains 51 papers from a conference devoted to the theme of exploring spaces in adult education. The following are among the papers included: "Exploring Everyday Spaces: Women's Transitions from Welfare to Paid Work and Education" (Cynthia Lee Andruske); "Lost in Space? Re-valuing the Impact of Education…