In recent years there has been an increase in literature which has explored the insider/outsider position through ethnic identities. However, there remains a neglect of religious identities, even though it could be argued that religious identities have become increasingly important through being prominent in international issues such as the 'war…

Etymologically, the word 'sarcasm' is derived from the Greek "sarkazein," meaning "to speak bitterly or sneer", or, more literally, "to tear flesh" ("sarcasm," 2014). Sarcasm, then, is far from a benign feature of language, and there appears to be an inherent acerbity, or even a note of provocation, located…

The emergence of social networks and social media has resulted in exponential increase in the amount of data that link diverse types of richly structured digital objects e.g., individuals, articles, images, videos, music, etc. Such data are naturally represented as heterogeneous networks with multiple types of objects e.g., actors, video,…

Describing the variation in test scores between and within school districts is critical for: (1) for policy-related and descriptive work that investigates the sorting of students among districts and the differential effectiveness of those districts; and (2) for methodological work planning future experiments or interventions. Intraclass…

This paper, presented at the 2016 [National Association for Research in Science Teaching] NARST Annual International Conference, summarizes the work to date of the Knowledge Assets to Support the Science Instruction of Elementary Teachers (ASSET) project. ASSET is exploring a method for collecting and synthesizing pedagogical content knowledge…

Cedefop has been conducting monitoring of the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) implementation since 2010; this report covers developments from mid-2013 till 2015. It is based on national responses provided by the ECVET users' group from 28 EU Member States and four EFTA countries. The report examines whether…

Since the initial authorizing legislation for Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1986, the scope and complexity of data collected by Part C programs have significantly increased. Formal governance establishes responsibility for Part C data and enables program staff to improve the effectiveness of data processes and…

This study aims to investigate the effect of methods to deal with missing data on item difficulty estimations under different test length conditions and sampling sizes. In this line, a data set including 10, 20 and 40 items with 100 and 5000 sampling size was prepared. Deletion process was applied at the rates of 5%, 10% and 20% under conditions…

In this book the authors explain how to build, and over time improve, the elements of an observation system that equips all observers to identify and develop effective teaching. It is based on the collective knowledge of key partners in the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project--which carried out one of the largest-ever studies of classroom…

Beginning researchers get an overview of qualitative research through a concise look at the practice of conducting research and the theory and debates that keep qualitative inquiry vibrant. Ideal for introducing the novice researcher to the theory and practice of qualitative research, this text opens students to the diverse possibilities within…

Note-taking is a complex task that involves simultaneously listening, observing, reading, coding, and recording information for future recall and learning. Note-taking is intrinsic to academia and has been a tool used by students in the schoolhouse from elementary school through college as a way to store information for future recall. Research…

This paper proposes a new technique for analysing the behaviour of students on an online course. This work considers a range of social learning behaviours supported in our recently designed and implemented collaborative learning system which supports students giving and receiving feedback on each other's developing work and practice. The course…

To create a satisfying social learning experience, an emerging challenge in educational data mining is to automatically assign students into effective learning teams. In this paper, we utilize discourse data mining as the foundation for an online team-formation procedure. The procedure features a deliberation process prior to team assignment,…

In this paper, we analyze a two-level latent variable model for longitudinal data from the National Growth of Health Study where surrogate outcomes or biomarkers and covariates are subject to missingness at any of the levels. A conventional method for efficient handling of missing data is to reexpress the desired model as a joint distribution of…

This research to practice brief provides a research summary for the study "Using Data to Alter Instructional Practice: The Mediating Role of Coaches and Professional Learning Communities." The study investigated whether the use of coaches or professional learning communities (PLCs) had an impact on how educators used data to change…