Background: Students' instructional experiences--that is, their experiences working with subject matter during classroom instruction--are a major determinant of how they learn. Given the importance of classroom instruction, valid, generalizable evidence is needed by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners. Over the past two decades, a wealth…

This report examines a decade's worth of research on school vouchers and concludes that vouchers have had no clear positive effect on student academic achievement, and mixed outcomes for students overall. Effects on graduation rates, parental satisfaction, public school achievement and cost to taxpayers are discussed. The report also notes that…

Educational inequalities are evident even before children start school. Some educational achievement gaps widen out as individuals progress further through the education sequence and into the labour market, especially those connected to disadvantaged students. Thus, there is a significant need for careful evaluation of educational policies that…

One of the major series of reviews in elementary and secondary education is the Best Evidence Encyclopedia, or the BEE. Up to now, findings for systematic reviews have largely been restricted to the reviews themselves, with few cases in which lessons learned across many reviews using similar methods can be synthesized. The completion of the Best…

This study examines 103 meta-analyses related to educational achievement published over 10 years to produce a meta-synthesis. Various characteristics of the meta-analyses are summarized to produce a methodological profile of research, and effect sizes are synthesized to assess an educational productivity model. (SLD)

H. M. Cooper (1988) has developed a taxonomy that classified literature reviews based on six characteristics: (1) focus of attention; (2) goal of the synthesis; (3) perspective on the literature; (4) coverage of the literature; (5) organization of the perspective; and (6) intended audience. One hundred and three meta-analyses identified from the…

This paper compares the effects of desegregation on black achievement with the effects of other factors in the process of school learning that have recently been synthesized. The first section of the paper discusses techniques and guidelines for research synthesis, including meta-analysis. The second section presents a summary of the statistical…

A total of 232 studies on the effects of participation in vocational education that were reported from 1968 through 1979 were analyzed. The studies were classified into more rigorous, less rigorous, and national studies, and were summarized within these groups. Studies of secondary and postsecondary programs were reviewed separately. Focus on the…