School leaders struggle in their efforts to implement standards-based grading reforms in large part because they fail to address the inconsistency in grading practices among individual teachers. This article describes three crucial steps necessary to gain greater consistency in teachers' grading practices: (1) Reaching consensus on a purpose…

Debates about appropriate, fair and effective ways of assessing research and researchers have raged through the scientific community for decades, recently mostly concerned with discussing the merits and limitations of metric-based, quantitative assessments versus peer review-based, qualitative alternatives. Ample attention has been paid to formal…

Small sample sizes pose a severe threat to convergence and accuracy of between-group level parameter estimates in multilevel structural equation modeling (SEM). However, in certain situations, such as pilot studies or when populations are inherently small, increasing samples sizes is not feasible. As a remedy, we propose a two-stage regularized…

This study aims to provide an overview of the distribution of the Spanish scientific workforce focusing on differences in authorship position by gender, academic age, number of authors, and research field. The results show some degree of parity in younger age cohorts and areas such as biomedicine, but little participation of females in the oldest…

This research addresses two important developments in the academic field: First, universities are transforming into organisational actors, gaining more responsibilities and capacities for strategic action, and second, competition has reached a new level. An important driver of competition and universities' development towards strategic actorhood…

Identifying wordlike units in language is typically done by applying a battery of criteria, though how to weight these criteria with respect to one another is currently unknown. We address this question by investigating whether certain criteria are also used as cues for learning an artificial language--if they are, then perhaps they can be relied…

External validity is an important parameter that needs to be considered for decision making in health research, but no widely accepted measurement tool for the assessment of external validity of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) exists. One of the most limiting factors for creating such a tool is probably the substantial heterogeneity and lack…

Published studies of intervention effects probably report effect sizes that are larger than the true effect size. There are probably many reasons for this, but one can be thought of as a "winner's curse." In this essay, I discuss evidence from two recent studies that highlight how evidence clearinghouses might inadvertently expose…

Background: A systematic review is a secondary research method that follows a predetermined protocol to identify, synthesize, and assess the quality of primary studies that meet pre-established eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question (Higgins & Green, 2011; Higgins & Thomas, 2019). It uses systematic and transparent…

Instrumental variables is a popular approach for causal inference in education when randomization of treatment is not feasible. Using a first-year college program as a running example, this article reviews the five assumptions that must be met to successfully use instrumental variables to estimate a causal effect with observational data: SUTVA,…

Feedback is considered of great relevance for supporting student learning. It is therefore the focus of a significant body of theoretical work and is included in many observation frameworks for measuring teaching quality. However, little is currently known about the extent to which the theoretical and empirical knowledge of feedback from the…

Many colleges and universities now require faculty search committees to use rubrics when evaluating faculty job candidates, as proponents believe these "decision-support tools" can reduce the impact of bias in candidate evaluation. That is, rubrics are intended to ensure that candidates are evaluated more fairly, which is then thought to…

This empirical study investigates the impact of structured digital lessons integrated with success criteria-based self-assessment strategies on sixth-grade students' achievement and motivation in mathematics. The study is situated within the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), aligning with the "We the UAE 2031" vision that…

Background/purpose: As core educational spaces, higher education institutions emphasize a holistic approach to academic promotion, valuing research, teaching, and service equally. However, promotion criteria often reflect institutional expectations that may not match academics' professional identity preferences. This study contributes to…

Though the ACRL "Framework" holds metacognition as crucial to exercising information literacy, its emphasis was reduced from prominence in early drafts to a single mention in the final document. At the same time, few of the frequently-taught sets of source evaluation criteria include a step for self-awareness. This raises the question:…