Sound educational policy recommendations require valid estimates of causal effects, but observational studies in physics education research sometimes have loosely specified causal hypotheses. The connections between the observational data and the explicit or implicit causal conclusions are sometimes misstated. The link between the causal…

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates existing racial inequities, the spotlight shines on Minnesota's gaps in income, health care, housing, and college completion rates. Most notably, COVID-19 is significantly impacting K-12 education. Forced to evacuate school buildings and shift to teaching and learning online, this is a necessary…

The recent popularity of models that capture the dynamic coevolution of both network structure and behavior has driven the need for summary indices to assess the adequacy of these models to reproduce dynamic properties of scientific or practical importance. Whereas there are several existing indices for assessing the ability of the model to…

It has often been lamented that girls are more likely not to attend or to drop-out (for example, because of gender preference by the parents, insecurity, pregnancy, amongst many other postulated factors) or that their achievement even if they stay in school is worse than boys. For the former, UNESCO introduced the Gender Parity Index (GPI), which…

This 2016 fact sheet profiles the status of Latino males in higher education, providing information on population, college enrollment, and educational attainment. While college enrollment among Latino males continues to increase, they still lag behind Latino females in college enrollment--a disparity that increases as the level of higher education…

What delivery modality is most effective in teaching undergraduate, political science research methods? Using systematically collected data from two academic terms and employing a quasi-experimental design, this paper explores variation in learning outcomes between face-to-face and distance-hybrid course offerings. Variation in the dependent…

In Fall 2019 I taught the course "Race and Gender: The Politics of Intersection" and spent the semester to discussing how intersectionality functioned within the Asian Pacific American (APA) communities in the United States and in the larger global context. In the course, we discussed various aspects of intersectionality including how…

The information technology (IT) workforce serves many vital functions in higher education, supporting campus computing needs ranging from advanced research and business and administrative operations to student learning and technology needs. As IT becomes an increasingly important part of the success of higher education, it is equally important to…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide research project involving schools and students in over 79 countries. It is run by the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], takes place every three years, and is designed to examine how 15-year-olds can apply what they have learned in school to real…

The report provides an overview of Aboriginal learners (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples) in British Columbia, Canada. Section 1 examines the data on transitions from K-12 to the post-secondary system. Section 2 discusses recent trends in the B.C. public post-secondary system including headcount, full-time equivalents and credentials.…

In this brief, authors Kent Scovill and Corinna Jenkins Tucker describe Coös youths' mentor relationships using data from the Carsey Institute's Coös Youth Study collected in 2007. They report that, in 2007, a majority of Coös youth in seventh and eleventh grade (60.2 percent) report having a mentor. In addition, 68 percent of Coös youths' mentors…

Much of the current skepticism about the financial payoff of higher education emerges from recent media focus on young college graduates struggling to enter a weak labor market. This brief highlights some of the complexities underlying discussions of the return to the investment in postsecondary education and describes some of the variation in…

Since 1973, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has gathered information about student achievement in mathematics. Results of these periodic assessments, produced in print and web-based formats, provide valuable information to a wide variety of audiences. They inform citizens about the nature of students' comprehension of the…

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is the only multilateral partnership and fund dedicated exclusively to education in the world's poorest countries. The partnership includes developing country partners, donor countries, multilateral agencies, civil society, teachers, philanthropic foundations and the private sector. GPE brings together…

The Australian PhD is a relatively recent phenomenon, the first three being awarded in 1948. Before that, most Australian scholars typically went to Britain (predominantly) or the USA to undertake their doctoral studies. The aim of this research note is to provide a brief statistical history of the Australian PhD, noting changes over time between…