With a goal of better understanding the online discourse within the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) context, this paper presents an open source visualisation dashboard developed to identify and classify emergent discussion topics (or themes). As an extension to the authors' previous work in identifying key topics from MOOC discussion contents,…

While Educational Data Mining research has traditionally emphasized the practical aspects of learner modeling, such as predictive modeling, estimating students knowledge, and informing adaptive instruction, in the current study, we argue that Educational Data Mining can also be used to test and improve our fundamental theories of human learning.…

In this commentary, Peter Smith questions how well we follow up after school shootings in order to diagnose causes and enhance future prevention. Sommer, Leuschner, and Scheithauer (2014) have assembled data from 126 cases available in the English and German research literature and suggested important risk categories. Notably, there are a large…

There are many different aspects of statistics. Statistics involves mathematics, computing, and applications to almost every field of endeavour. Each aspect provides an opportunity to spark someone's interest in the subject. In this paper we discuss some ethical aspects of statistics, and describe how an introduction to ethics has been…

This study examined if there was a relationship between the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of students and their decisions to enroll and persist in General Education Development (GED) programs in the State of Alabama. The Learning Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SQR-L), a 13 question Likert scale questionnaire, was used to survey students for…

This case study reflects on the main method of data collection, the "Biographical Narrative Interview Method," I applied in my doctoral research, which critically analysed the influence of social class on graduate employment trajectories. It will evaluate the specific mechanics of the method and forms or approaches within the…

Since 1997, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a major source of information on the Head Start program and the preschool children ages 3 to 5 who attend the program. As part of its management of Head Start, the federal government divides Head Start programs into 12 regions. Regions XI and XII are not based on…

Investing in community college workforce training is a central part of the Biden administration's agenda for improving the lives of American families. Now more than ever, as the nation's economy enters a post-pandemic period of significant organizational and technological change, community colleges are well-situated to help millions of low-income…

Although school failure and school improvement are complex challenges that look different in different contexts, patterns and trends associated with schools in distress are emerging. This brief describes the characteristics of schools when they show signs of early distress from the perspectives of school leaders and governing board members. The…

The Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010 defines major management challenges as programs or management functions that are vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, and where a failure to perform well could seriously affect the ability of the U.S. Department of Education (Department) to achieve its mission or…

Effectively measuring short-term impact, particularly a change in knowledge resulting from Extension programming, can prove to be challenging. Clicker-based technology, when used properly, is one alternative that may allow educators to better evaluate this aspect of the logic model. While the potential interface between clicker technology and…

Despite bipartisan support in Washington, DC, which dates back to the mid-1990s, the "what works" approach has yet to gain broad support among policymakers and practitioners. One way to build such support is to increase the usefulness of program impact evaluations for these groups. We describe three ways to make impact evaluations more…

This article addresses how methodological approaches relying on video can be included in literacy research to capture changing literacies. In addition to arguing why literacy is best studied in context, we provide empirical examples of how small, head-mounted video cameras have been used in two different research projects that share a common aim:…

Learning Analytics constitutes a key tool for supporting Learning Design and teacher-led inquiry into student learning. In this paper, we demonstrate how a Social Learning Analytics toolkit can combine social network analysis and content analysis for supporting a global and formal teacher inquiry. This toolkit not only supports teachers in…

This qualitative study of 3-to-5-year-old children's hiding places and experiences is framed around the importance of recognizing children as active agents in creating their own culture and places in the world. Through the use of interactive data collection strategies collected at school and in children's homes, including book discussions,…