Educational institutions and governing practices are increasingly augmented with digital database technologies that function as new kinds of policy instruments. This article surveys and maps the landscape of digital policy instrumentation in education and provides two detailed case studies of new digital data systems. The Learning Curve is a…

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of privacy principles related to learning analytics. Privacy issues for learning analytics include how personal data are collected and stored as well as how they are analyzed and presented to different stakeholders. A total of 330 university students participated in an exploratory study…

An essential element in teaching children to effectively comprehend text is the use of teacher-led think-alouds. The overarching objective of this study was to explore how to better prepare early career teachers to conduct think-alouds in their classrooms. Data from 31 teachers consisted of (1) questionnaires, (2) lesson plans, (3) lesson…

In just a short period, social media have altered many aspects of our daily lives, from how we form and maintain social relationships to how we discover, access, and share information online. Now social media are also affecting how we teach and learn. In this paper, we discuss methods that can help researchers and educators evaluate and understand…

This paper presents a dialogical tool for the advancement of learning analytics implementation for student retention in Higher Education institutions. The framework was developed as an outcome of a project commissioned and funded by the Australian Government's "Office for Learning and Teaching". The project took a mixed-method approach…

Conducting research can present a range of challenges for students because of the complex skills and knowledge required to have critical engagement with the entire research process. This paper looks at what was involved in shaping the research journey that I am currently undertaking at a Higher Education Institution (HEI). The focus is on research…

Creating a positive classroom learning environment is a complex but necessary task for all educators. By fully realizing the seven keys the author highlights, teachers can establish clearer expectations, enhance instruction and assessment practices, and foster quality relationships with students, thereby maximizing the potential of all students.…

In recent years, education data have become both more easily accessible and more important than ever to decisions about K-12 policies and practice. Under the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), states are required to publish data on how students, including English Learners (ELs), are performing in areas such as reading, math, and…

This article explores implementation of strategic enrollment management (SEM) at a two-year college and why SEM is critical to the long-term viability of an institution. This article also outlines the five initial steps needed to implement SEM, including identifying SEM leadership, building a SEM committee, developing a common understanding of…

Social practice theory addresses both theoretical and method/ological agendas. To date priority has been given to the former, with writing on the latter tending often to be an afterthought to theoretical expositions or fieldwork accounts. This article gives sustained attention to the method/ological corollaries of a social practice perspective. It…

This chapter discusses issues and challenges encountered in using large-scale data sets to study educational experiences and subsequent outcomes for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students. In this chapter, we argue that the linguistic and cultural diversity of Native peoples, coupled with the legal and political ways in which education…

How can attention to kinship enhance the qualitative study of public services, such as schooling and health promotion? This question underscores several qualitative studies in which the authors have been involved, each engaging what we call the 'family sample' method summarized here. Involving research in Europe, Africa, North and South Americas,…

The phenomenon of low fertility has been negatively impacted on the social structure of the educational environment in Taiwan. To increase the learning effectiveness of students became the most important issue for the Universities in Taiwan. Due to the subjective judgment of evaluators and the attributes of influenced factors are always fuzzy, it…

The use of analytic methods for extracting learning strategies from trace data has attracted considerable attention in the literature. However, there is a paucity of research examining any association between learning strategies extracted from trace data and responses to well-established self-report instruments and performance scores. This paper…

This chapter provides examples of innovative methods and tools to collect, analyze, and report both quantitative and qualitative data in student affairs assessment.