There has been a substantial increase in recent years in the interest in using digital games for language learning. This coincides with the explosive growth in multiplayer online gaming and with the proliferation of mobile games for smart phones. It also reflects the growing recognition among educators of the importance of extramural, informal…

The Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) was asked to review current information on how states are preparing principals to supervise and support early childhood teachers in schools and districts. This document summarizes what is known about principal licensing requirements and professional development in early childhood pedagogy and…

There is a growing belief that students can provide valuable feedback on a teacher's performance in the classroom. Student perception surveys are increasingly seen as a low-cost and reliable tool for gathering data and feedback on the quality of teaching in individual classrooms. However, incorporating student surveys into formal, high-stakes…

The "NCTQ Teacher Prep Review" evaluates the quality of programs that provide preservice preparation of public school teachers. This appendix describes the scope, methodology, timeline, staff, and standards involved in the production of "Teacher Prep Review 2014." Data collection, validation, and analysis for the report are…

Business Intelligence is a major expenditure in many organizations and necessary for competitive advantage. These expenditures do not result in maximum benefits for the organization if the information obtained from the Business Intelligence System (BIS) is not used in the management decision-making process. This quantitative research study used an…

K-12 education resources are often allocated non-strategically, with schools spending time and money on activities that have little relationship to student outcomes. Most of these decisions take place within districts, rooted in the processes of setting schedules, staffing levels, and assignments, and creating final budgets. Local Education…

State licensure polices are meant to provide teacher preparation programs with direction about the skills teachers need to be qualified to teach, including skills to use data. This roadmap discusses the 10 key data use skills that states can include in a licensure policy with a quality focus on effective data use.

It is not known to what extent the pre-employment teacher selection instrument scores used by a Tennessee school district correlate to teachers' post-employment quality after their first year of service. Two research questions guided the study on the Correlation Between a Teacher Selection Instrument and Teacher Quality in Tennessee: (1) To what…

The 'Young People from a Public Care Background: Pathways to Education in Europe' project was funded by the European Commission under Framework Programme 7 and coordinated from the United Kingdom. It brought together a multidisciplinary team of social scientists from five European Union member states representing different welfare regime…

Grounded theory methodology allows researchers to generate theories that answer research questions that existing theories do not adequately explain. This methodology involves the use of the constant comparative method in an iterative cycle of data collection and analysis. To understand the data and make decisions that drive the cycle forward, the…

In my PhD research, I explore the reflective schooling experiences of recently graduated First Nations students in New Brunswick (Canada) provincial schools. Improving educational experiences and academic outcomes for First Nations students is currently considered a priority across Canada; however, most previous research focuses on quantitative…

This research project case is a recount of my personal experience in conducting a study on web-enhanced learning within Cambodian higher education. The research forms the basis of my PhD in Education, and the aim of the study is to examine the application of web-based technologies to support teaching and learning practices by using design-based…

Asset mapping is a relatively new data collection strategy to identify services, staff capacity, programs, resources, values, and other protective factors in a geographic area that can be juxtaposed to risk factors when initiating community planning. A substance abuse prevention course for undergraduates added an assignment of assessing community…

We describe the use of Apple's iPod touch/iPhone, acting as the pendulum bob, as a means of measuring pendulum period, making use of the device's three-axis digital accelerometer and the freely available SPARKvue app from PASCO scientific. The method can be readily incorporated into an introductory physics laboratory experiment.…

The authors open this article with a description of an incident that happened in 1992, when 28,800 rubber bath toys (i.e., ducks, frogs, turtles, and beavers) fell off a cargo ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In 2009, these rubber bath toys were still washing ashore on beaches all around the world. This science instruction can be used with…