In 2005 the Hungarian school-leaving examination system underwent a significant transformation. In case of history the aim was to give a greater role to the development of students' knowledge acquisition and source analysis skills by more focusing on students' work with historical sources in classes. However, it was clear that the achievement of…

At the 2016 Commission in Birmingham, I reported on a Quality Music Education Framework that Dr Emily Wilson and I had developed for the Victorian Department of Education, which was to become a framework for the delivery of "quality" music education across the State of Victoria for the school years, Foundation to Year 10. In this address…

This brief evaluates the causal effect of attending Las Americas Middle School on newcomer students' early high school outcomes. Using administrative data from the Houston Independent School District (HISD) spanning the 2007-2008 through 2018-2019 school years, the study examined the academic performance, course-taking patterns, and school…

Liberia faces many challenges in its rebuilding process, including building a pipeline of reliable and productive human capital. Though science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers have gained global popularity, the underrepresentation of women in STEM careers is a concerning trend that requires a data-driven explanation and prompt…

In multisite experiments, we can quantify treatment effect variation with the cross-site treatment effect variance. However, there is no standard method for estimating cross-site treatment effect variance in multisite regression discontinuity designs (RDD). This research rectifies this gap in the literature by systematically exploring and…

The Cambridge Digital Mocks Service offers on-screen assessments created by transferring paper-based (PB) exams into a digital test platform. This feasibility project considered the validity of extending the Digital Mocks Service to maths and science qualifications, thinking about (1) the outcomes that are likely when maths and science items are…

In Ireland, the high-stakes Leaving Certificate Examination at the end of upper secondary education was abruptly cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, "calculated grades" were introduced, necessitating for the first time the involvement of secondary school teachers in the assessment of their own students for…

Socio-demographic background and school-level factors are influential on an individual's educational outcomes. However, limited research has had the ability to examine the impact of a pupil's socio-demographic profile and school-level factors, whilst accounting for the multidimensional structure of socio-economic status. Using data that combined…

This report looks at the provision of GCSE subjects in England in 2021. Provision in a GCSE subject is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. This may not cover all of the actual 'provision' since schools might offer to provide a subject, but none of their students wants to study it. This…

This report is focused on the uptake of A level subjects in England in 2022. Uptake in an A level subject is defined as the number or percentage of students at the end of Key Stage 5 (who have entered for at least one AS or A level) taking the subject. This report was produced using publicly available data from the Department for Education's (DfE)…

This report looks at the provision of A level subjects in England in 2022. Provision in a subject is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. This report was produced using publicly available data from the Department for Education's (DfE) "Find and compare schools in England" service.…

This report looks at the provision of GCSE subjects in England in 2022. This report was produced using publicly available data from the Department for Education's (DfE) "Find and compare schools in England" service. The dataset consisted of Key Stage 4 (KS4) results in all subjects provided by each school in England. Other school…

This research was guided by a problem of practice experienced by an EdD program, which transitioned to a fully online modality during the pandemic and rapidly grew in enrollment. The problem evaluated was ensuring the redesigned program milestones -- capstone and comprehensive exam -- are feasible given the size of the program. The current study…

This sequential mixed-methods study investigates washback on learning in a high-stakes school exit examination by examining learner perceptions and reported behaviours in relation to learners' beliefs and language learning experience, the role of other stakeholders in the washback mechanism, and socio-educational forces. The focus is the graded…

Variability in education systems is a given. Variability has at once positive and negative implications for the main goal of education which is accelerating learning across diverse contexts and for all learners. In this article, we explain and employ a tight-loose framing to understand the scope for variability within an education system. A…