This study examines whether unobserved factors substantially bias education evaluations that rely on the Conditional Independence Assumption. We add 14 new within-study comparisons to the literature, all from primary schools in England. Across these 14 studies, we generate 42 estimates of selection bias using a simple approach to observational…

Divergence is not a new phenomenon in RE in England and Wales. A diverse range of aims and approaches have been promoted since RE provision became compulsory in 1944. Approaches include the phenomenological, interpretative, and dialogic with current debates centring around the benefits and challenges of a 'worldviews approach'. There have been a…

Schools in England are required to have an anti-bullying policy. A revised 42-item scoring scheme was used to report a content analysis of 200 anti-bullying policies. On average, school policies had 61% of items. Chi-square comparisons found an increase in policy coverage from 2008 to 2022, notably for mentioning cyber bullying and many types of…

This qualitative research study explores the ways that academic librarians in England undertake and perceive classification and cataloging work to engage in wider decolonization initiatives. The research consisted of semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis was used to identify key themes. The study found that the participant librarians…

In this study, we examine how mobility and on-going changes in sociocultural contexts impact family language policy (FLP) in the UK. Using a questionnaire and involving 470 transnational families across the UK, our study provides a descriptive analysis of different family language practices in England and establishes how attitudes influence the…

In summer 2021, as exams could not take place, GCSE, AS and A level grades in England were awarded by teachers, in accordance with relatively broad official guidance. This guidance stressed that grades had to be based on evidence of candidate work, though what this was, how much was needed or where/when it should come from were not tightly…

Home BAME students are under-represented on postgraduate courses in England, especially at elite universities, however, there has been little research on why this should be. This research starts to fill this gap, arguing that gatekeepers to postgraduate courses at some of the most elite universities contribute to maintaining white supremacy.…

People frequently receive performance feedback that describes how well they achieved in the past, and how they could improve in future. In educational contexts, future-oriented (directive) feedback is often argued to be more valuable to learners than past-oriented (evaluative) feedback; critically, prior research led us to predict that it should…

Aim(s): Naive realism is the false conviction that one perceives and responds to the world objectively or 'as it is' rather than subjectively through the lens of personal motives, experiences and expectations. The teaching of naïve realism to adults has evidenced increased perspective taking. The current research aimed to evaluate if this approach…

Previous studies have shown that test anxiety is related to attention bias. It is not clear, however, whether a congruent test-threat manipulation is required to elicit this bias or whether the bias is a result of automatic or conscious processes. In the present study we used a mood induction procedure to examine attention bias in test anxious…

This paper identifies a nascent trend in several countries regarding increased collection, public availability and use of destination data for graduates of secondary education, with policy ambitions to support pupil-level decision-making and drive provider-level accountability. This trend mirrors the previous development of such data for higher…

Omitted prior achievement bias is pervasive in international assessment studies and precludes causal inference. For example, reported negative associations between student-oriented teaching strategies and student performance are against expectations and might actually reflect omitted prior achievement bias. Namely, that these teaching strategies…

This study investigates knowledge structures and scientific communication using bibliometric methods to explore scientific knowledge production and dissemination. The aim is to develop knowledge about this growing field by investigating studies using international large-scale assessment (ILSA) data, with a specific focus on those using Programme…

A response model that is able to detect guessing behaviors and produce unbiased estimates in low-stake conditions using timing information is proposed. The model is a special case of the grade of membership model in which responses are modeled as partial members of a class that is affected by motivation and a class that responds only according to…

Since 1992, the UK Government has published so-called "school league tables" summarising the average General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) "attainment" and "progress" made by pupils in each state-funded secondary school in England. While the headline measure of school attainment has remained the percentage…