Interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has lately received attention in research due to a gap between the number of STEM students and the needs of the labour market. As interest seems to be one of the most important factors in deciding what to study, we focus in the present study on how STEM-interested students weigh…

In order to lower dropout rates and stimulate student success in higher education, the Dutch government implemented a new law demanding that every higher education institute offer a matching activity to applying students. This article evaluates how students and teachers experience this matching activity. Data were collected in a Dutch university…

In this study, the relationship between differentiated instruction, as an element of data-based decision making, and student achievement was examined. Classroom observations (n = 144) were used to measure teachers' differentiated instruction practices and to predict the mathematical achievement of 2nd- and 5th-grade students (n = 953). The…

Data-based decision making (DBDM) is an important element of educational policy in many countries, as it is assumed that student achievement will improve if teachers worked in a data-based way. However, studies that evaluate rigorously the effects of DBDM on student achievement are scarce. In this study, the effects of an intensive…

During educational change, managers can contribute positively to the professional's sense of coping ability. The question remains as to whether the managers of lecturers can also influence the perception of lecturers on newly formulated organizational aims. Recently, the changes in many European institutes of higher professional education (HPE)…

Although data-based decision making can lead to improved student achievement, data are often not used effectively in schools. This paper therefore focuses on conditions for effective data use. We studied the extent to which school organizational characteristics, data characteristics, user characteristics, and collaboration influenced data use for…

In many decision making tasks negative feedback is probabilistic and, as a consequence, may be given when the decision is actually correct. This feedback can be referred to as nonrepresentative negative feedback. In the current study, we investigated developmental and gender related differences in such switching after nonrepresentative negative…

The training of tactical decision making increasingly occurs through serious computer games. A challenging aspect of designing such games is the modelling of human emotions. Two studies were performed to investigate the relation between fidelity and human emotion recognition in virtual human characters. Study 1 compared five versions of a virtual…

The current study presents a novel experimental design to examine how "real-life" peer relationships modulate altruistic punishment of bullies and compensation of victims after "observed" ostracism. Twenty-four participants (age 20) were invited to an experimental session in groups of three classmates and two unfamiliar peers,…

Background/Context: Similar to the United States, government efforts to improve education in the Netherlands are focused on innovation and the development of collaborative structures to support the generation of new knowledge. However, empirical evidence of the relationship between social linkages and innovation in education is scarce. Objective:…

While measurement precision is relatively easy to establish for single tests and assessments, it is much more difficult to determine for decision making with multiple tests on different subjects. This latter is the situation in the system of final examinations for secondary education in the Netherlands and is used as an example in this paper. This…

Objective: To investigate dietary constructs that affect the discrepancy between intentioned and actual snack choice. Design: Participants indicated their intentioned snack choice from a set of 4 snacks (2 healthful, 2 unhealthful). One week later, they actually chose a snack from the same set. Within 1 week after the actual choice, they completed…

Worldwide teachers are faced with the task of continuously facilitating and implementing educational reform that has been designed without their participation. This exclusion of the key agents, who must mediate between the change agenda and actual change in the classroom, from the planning and decision-making processes, is detrimental to…

Differences between traditional linear regression and a Bayesian approach to classification are discussed. Classification consists of assigning subjects to one of several available treatments on the basis of their test scores when the success of each treatment is measured by a different criterion. Formulating this problem as an empirical Bayes…

This paper describes a quantitative method to investigate the enrollment motives of students, and reports on the application of the method at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). The paper discusses environmental, educational/organizational, and image factors influencing a student's choice of a particular university. A quantitative…