The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a multicycle survey of adult skills and competencies sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The survey examines a range of basic skills in the information age and assesses these adult skills consistently across participating…

The ability of universities and colleges to predict the success of admitted students continues to be a key concern of higher education officials. Apart from a desire to see students have successful academic careers, there is also the fiscal reality of greater tuition revenues providing needed support for university budgets. Using administrative…

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a multicycle survey of adult skills and competencies sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The survey examines a range of basic skills in the information age and assesses these adult skills consistently across participating…

This study explored whether a predictive model of student loan default could be developed with data from an institution's three-year cohort default rate report. The study used borrower data provided by a large two-year community college. Independent variables under investigation included total undergraduate Stafford student loan debt, total number…

This report describes statistical analyses performed on data collected in the Spring of 2015 from the pilot study of proposed revised and new items in the IDEA Student Ratings of Instruction (SRI) system. Described are the methods employed, results obtained, and decisions made in selecting items for the updated instruments. The procedures occurred…

The College Board formed a research consortium with four-year colleges and universities to build a national higher education database with the primary goal of validating the revised SAT®, which consists of three sections: critical reading (SAT-CR), mathematics (SAT-M), and writing (SAT-W), for use in college admission. A study by Mattern and…

The technical appendices presented in this document correspond to the synthesis report, "'Who Stays and Who Leaves?' Findings from a Three-Part Study of Teacher Turnover in NYC Middle Schools." The appendices include: (1) Description of Data Source and Samples; (2) Methods; and (3) Who Are the Middle School Teachers in NYC? [The…

Retention means repeating one or more courses in high school, rather than a full grade. Over 3,500 high school students were retained in 2011-12 in Wake County Public School (WCPSS), with the largest numbers in grades 9 and 10. Some students enter high school below grade level. In 2011-12, half the WCPSS high schools had greater than 30% of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to objectively assess levels of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) of Chinese city children and youth aged 9 to 17 years old using accelerometers and to examine their differences by gender, age, grade, and weight status. Method: The PA and SB of 2,163 students in 4th grade through 11th grade…

Although the recent wave of mortgage foreclosures has clearly been accompanied by economic hardship, relatively little research has examined how foreclosures affect the academic performance of students. This paper investigates the relationship between mortgage foreclosures and the academic performance of students using a unique dataset that…

The College Board formed a research consortium with four-year colleges and universities to build a national higher education database with the primary goal of validating the SAT® for use in college admission. The first sample included first-time, first-year students entering college in fall 2006, with 110 institutions providing students'…

This report presents the findings from a replication of the analyses from the report, "Is Performance on the SAT Related to College Retention?" (Mattern & Patterson, 2009). The tables presented herein are based on the 2007 sample and the findings are largely the same as those presented in the original report, and show SAT scores are…

Unlike in elementary school, high-school teacher effects may be confounded with both selection to tracks and unobserved track-level treatments. I document sizable confounding track effects, and show that traditional tests for the existence of teacher effects are likely biased. After accounting for these biases, high-school algebra and English…

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) assessed the English literacy skills of a nationally representative sample of 18,500 U.S. adults (age 16 and older) residing in private households. NAAL is the first national assessment of adult literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). The NAAL and NALS produced direct…

This paper aims to provide metro, state, and national policy makers with a better sense of the specific problems facing metropolitan labor markets. First, the analysis examines trends in the demand for educated labor and how a gap between education supply and demand is related to unemployment. Next, it attempts to distinguish between cyclical and…