The PISA project has steadily increased its influence on the educational discourse and educational policies in the now 70 participating countries. The educational debate has become global, and the race to improve PISA-rankings has become high priority in many countries. For governments the PISA-test is a high-stake test. Governments are blamed for…

The Higher Education Policy Institute and Higher Education Academy (HEPI-HEA) "Student Academic Experience Survey" has been running since 2006 and is now a fixture in the policy landscape. Its focus on what students get, how hard they work, and what they think of their experience makes it even more useful at a time of high fees and…

Online charter schools--also known as virtual charters or cyber charters--are publicly funded schools of choice that eschew physical school buildings and use technology to deliver education to students in their own homes. These schools typically provide students with computers, software, and network-based resources, while also providing access to…

Designing and executing a new upper level political science course preparation can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with some of the challenges in the context of teaching-oriented institutions of higher learning. In this paper, I conduct an examination of both the challenges and the opportunities that can be afforded by environmental…

We examine a program that enabled Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) in Kenya to hire novice teachers on short-term contracts, reducing class sizes in grade one from 82 to 44 on average. PTA teachers earned approximately one-quarter as much as teachers operating under central government civil-service institutions but were absent one day per week…

Prior research has established the potential for achievement gains from attending smaller classes. However, large statewide class-size reduction (CSR) policies have not been found to consistently realize such gains. A leading explanation for the disappointing performance of CSR policies is that schools are forced to hire additional teachers of…

This brief summarizes findings on class size from over 25 years of work on the Tennessee Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) randomized, longitudinal experiment, and other Class-Size Reduction (CSR) studies throughout the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Sweden, Great Britain, and elsewhere. The brief concludes with recommendations. The…

Universities of technology (UoTs) achieve developmental impact through differentiated curricula, allowing graduates to undertake mid-level occupations in the workplace. This mandate differs from that at traditional universities in six respects: diploma-level entrants, labour market focus, workplace-oriented learning, applied research and…

Across the world, university teachers are increasingly being required to engage with diversity in the classes they teach. Using the data from a large Economics 1 class at a South African university, this attempts to understand the effects of diversity on chances of success and how assessment can impact on this. By demonstrating how theory can be…

This study investigated the influence of three types of variables (teachers' backgrounds, the current teaching situation and characteristics of students with disabilities) on Taiwanese first-grade teachers' perceptions of inclusive education. A mail survey was conducted with all first-grade teachers in a metropolitan city in central Taiwan. After…

The present paper attempts to deal with the present scenario of teaching English for Undergraduate students at AMU. The researcher has tried to analyze the needs, materials and the teaching trends as well as learning strategies of the students, at the Undergraduate level. It also illuminates the difference in study skills between groups of…

This study investigated factors negatively affect English language speaking skills in Saudi colleges for girls in the South in terms of: a) Instructors. b) Students. c) Curriculum and textbook. d) English Language teaching methods and exercises. e) Teaching and learning environment. To collect data for the study, a questionnaire papers were…

This paper argues that the dominant form of distance learning that is common in most e-learning systems rests on a set of learning devices and environments that may be outdated from the student's perspective, namely because it is not supportive of learner empowerment and does not facilitate the efforts of self-directed learners. For this study we…

The aim of this action research project was to improve student learning by encouraging more "time on task" and to improve self-assessment and feedback through the introduction of weekly online tests in a Year 2 lecture module in biological sciences. Initially voluntary online tests were offered to students and those who participated…

With the growing market for online courses in California and the United States, institutions must better understand how the faculty-student dynamic, defined as the interactions between faculty and students in the online environment, impacts student engagement and success. The purpose of this study was an in-depth exploration of faculty…