There is an increasing requirement in higher education (HE) worldwide to deliver excellence. Benchmarking is widely used for this purpose, but methodological approaches to the creation of benchmark metrics vary greatly. Approaches require selection of factors for inclusion and subsequent calculation of benchmarks for comparison. We describe an…

Identifying schools that are beating the odds--schools that are exceeding academic performance expectations, given the composition of their student body--can lead to promising practices that other schools serving similar populations can implement. Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands used data on high-poverty high schools in…

This paper discusses methods for benchmarking vocational education and training colleges and presents results from a number of models. It is conceptually difficult to benchmark vocational colleges. The colleges typically offer a wide range of course programmes, and the students come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We solve the…

This work asks one simple question: "how reliable is the method used by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) to estimate projected rates of VET program completion?" In other words, how well do early projections align with actual completion rates some years later? Completion rates are simple to calculate with a…

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands conducted this study using data on public high schools in Puerto Rico from national and territory databases to compare methods for identifying beating-the-odds schools. Schools were identified by two methods, a status method that ranked high-poverty schools based on their current observed…

Increased federal attention to student completion metrics and uncertain financial forecasts have heightened the tenor of student retention conversations. Improved institutional retention rates will lead to higher completion rates and relieve some funding concerns. To accomplish these improvements, institutions have invested in analytics to better…

Prior learning assessment (PLA) is the process of evaluating learning, regardless of when or where the learning occurred, and, if the learning is at the college level, awarding college credit to the possessor of that learning. This article provides an overview of the PLA program at a large public U.S. institution and presents the findings of the…

This study gathered, analyzed, and compared perspectives of students who were honors-eligible but never began the program, students who began in honors and discontinued their enrollment, and those who were persisting in honors. Broadly speaking (and not surprisingly), the responses of students persisting in honors reflected the most positive…

The nation has achieved an 82.3 percent high school graduation rate--a record high. Graduation rates rose for all student subgroups, and the number of low-graduation-rate high schools and students enrolled in them dropped again, indicating that progress has had far-reaching benefits for all students. This report is the first to analyze 2014…

Enrollment in online courses has outpaced overall university enrollment for the past several years. The growth of online courses does not appear to be slowing. The purpose of this study was to compare course completion and student academic performance between online and traditional courses. Archival data from the host university student records…

Every educator's quest is to help students learn in the environment that will allow them to obtain and retain the information presented to them. In the new age of technology, more students are able to choose the environment in which they learn. This study is a quantitative comparative study of the academic performance between online and…

This publication presents estimates of apprentice and trainee activity in Australia for the December quarter 2009. The figures in this publication are derived from the National Apprentice and Trainee Collection no.63 (March 2010 estimates). There were 414 900 apprentices and trainees in-training as at 31 December 2009, a decrease of 0.6% from the…

This study compared differences in diploma and graduation dropout rates among students with and without disabilities, analyzed differences in various graduation-types by disabilities, and offered recommendations to improve graduation rates through evidence-based practices. The geographic catchment area of this study was limited to twelve Southern…

The Concurrent Courses Initiative (CCI), funded by The James Irvine Foundation from 2008 until 2011, comprised eight secondary/postsecondary partnerships across California that offered dual enrollment programs with supplemental student supports. The goal of the CCI was to expand access to supportive, career-focused dual enrollment for students…

After decades of focusing on expansion and access, California's institutions of higher education are now being handed a more difficult charge: to dramatically increase the number of college graduates with diminishing state funding. There is a growing consensus that the United States needs to ratchet up its production of college graduates to turn…