The preceding chapters of this monograph have served to situate the study of physical education teacher education recruitment and retention within relevant literature and theory. This chapter outlines the sequential explanatory design methods, whereby participants in an online survey were selected using stratified random sampling to participate in…

There are several factors that contribute to the shrinking supply of teachers. Fewer individuals are pursuing teaching as a career; in the United States, for example, teacher education enrollments plunged 35% between 2009 and 2014 (Berry & Shields, 2017). In direct relation to the decrease in students entering preservice teaching, fewer…

The "Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME" instructional video game is a robust research environment (institutional review board approved) for investigating learning, affect, and the CyGaMEs Metaphorics approach to instructional video game design, embedded assessment, and informatics analysis and reporting. CyGaMEs applies analogical…

Persistence to graduation begins with engaging the incoming class even before they have made a deposit. Saint Joseph's University developed a framework for combatting the admissions summer melt following a summer where 20% of the deposits were withdrawn. By employing tactics to monitor student engagement throughout the summer and connecting with…

We contribute to debate about causal inferences in educational research in two ways. First, we quantify how much bias there must be in an estimate to invalidate an inference. Second, we utilize Rubin's causal model to interpret the bias necessary to invalidate an inference in terms of sample replacement. We apply our analysis to an inference…

This study examined the early college success of students who graduated from an Indiana high school in 2010 and enrolled immediately in a public two-year or four-year college in Indiana. The study team identified data elements in Indiana's Student Information System that predicted the early college success of this cohort of students. Half of…

The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation in 2007 requiring that the State Board of Education produce an assessment on the effectiveness of teacher training programs. The law requires that the report include data on the performance of each program's graduates in the following areas: placement and retention rates, Praxis II results, and…

Within a 25-year period, the dramatic changes from college education as a "private good" that serves a predominantly white male student population to college education as a "public good"--where almost 90% of high school students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds aspire to attend college--has forced higher education to face a…

This article sought to identify factors related to high school completion rates and college enrollment among Hispanic students. Hispanic students were found to have high attrition rates in institutions of higher education. Implications for the development and implementation of retention programs for Hispanic high school students, such as…

Value added measures (VAM) uses changes in student test scores to determine how much "value" an individual teacher has "added" to student growth during the school year. Some policymakers, school districts, and educational advocates have applauded VAM as a straightforward measure of teacher effectiveness: the better a teacher,…

One of the goals in the Commission's Performance Assessment Framework for higher education is that all high school students in California receive an education that gives them the opportunity to enter a college or university. There are many possible measures that could be used to gauge preparation for higher education. These include SAT scores,…

One of the most valued approaches to identify course prerequisites relies on statistical techniques, typically requiring institutional-research support. Yet these techniques are often inadequate for prerequisite identification purposes. A discussion of the reasons for the inappropriateness of these techniques is presented. A review of common…

In 2007, the physical education program at Sunnyside Middle School in Lafayette, Indiana, was in constant flux. Teacher turnover occurred annually, facilities were subpar, the curriculum was outdated, opportunities for professional development were rare, and most importantly, students lacked maximum movement opportunities in physical education. In…

The purpose of this article is to discuss four assumptions commonly held in relation to persistence and or attrition rates at institutions of post secondary education: that persistence is positive, that persistence is an indicator of a program's ability to satisfy student need, that persistence is lower in distance education programs and that…

The article examined the perceptions of educators regarding their concerns and fears about the current state of education in South Africa. The target population for the study comprised of all the educators enrolled for the B.Ed. (Hons.) programme in Educational Management at the Central University of Technology, Free State in 2008. This group of…