Collaborative learning and critical pedagogy are widely recognized as "empowering" pedagogies for higher education. Yet, the practical implementation of both has a mixed record. The question, then, is: How could collaborative and critical pedagogies be empowered themselves? This paper makes a primarily theoretical case for discourse…

Schools across the United States are facing budgetary pressures on a scale not seen in generations. Times of fiscal exigency force policymakers and education practitioners to pay more attention to the return on various categories of public investment in education. The sizes of the classes in which students are educated are often a focus of these…

The study discussed in this dissertation identified and examined the factors that influence parent charter school choice. The study was conducted for a rural K-8 charter school in Delaware. The survey instrument used was a parent questionnaire which contained questions that examined the reasons for parent charter school choice, the features of…

In this paper, we analyze class size effects on college students exploiting data from a project offering special remedial courses in mathematics and language skills to freshmen enrolled at an Italian medium-sized public university. To estimate the effects of class size, we exploit the fact that students and teachers are virtually randomly assigned…

It is important to consider the question of whether teacher-, course-, and student-related factors affect student ratings of instructors in Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) in English Language Teaching (ELT). This paper reports on a statistical analysis of SET in two large EFL programmes at a university setting in the Sultanate of Oman. I…

Between 2011 and 2013 lawmakers in every state proposed, and often enacted, laws intended to impact codified state provisions related to teachers and teachers' unions (author calculation). These new laws either worked against union interests (e.g., by prohibiting collective bargaining) or they aligned with union positions (e.g. by providing…

This study examined participants' learning experiences in the context of a six-week massive open online course (MOOC) in journalism with five thousand students from 137 countries. Three research questions were asked: (1) Who are the students and why are they enrolled in this MOOC?, (2) How much time have the students spent in taking this MOOC…

In recent years, inquiry-based science instruction has become widely advocated in science education standards in many countries and, hence, in teacher preparation programmes. Nevertheless, in practice, one finds a wide variety of science instructional approaches. In South Africa, as in many countries, there is also a great disparity in school…

This nationwide study of 169 business communication instructors examines the following issues: (a) ideal and actual class sizes in business communication courses, (b) delivery modes of business communication courses, (c) types of written and oral assignments, and (d) topics covered and depth of coverage. Findings suggest that business…

Classroom experience is shaped by a number of factors. In this paper, we report a classroom observation study in China, illustrating regional variation in students' classroom learning experiences. Through comparing and contrasting observed classroom practices in three different regions in China (Chongqing, Hong Kong and Shanghai), the paper…

This mixed-methods study investigates the differences in demotivation between Chinese and Korean English teachers. A questionnaire on demotivation was conducted on 58 Chinese and 94 Korean in-service teachers to find out the dominant factors in teacher demotivation. Follow-up interviews with teachers were conducted to explore the reasons as to why…

Class size and student achievement have been debated for decades. The vast amount of research on this topic is either conflicting or inconclusive. There are large and small scale studies that support both sides of this dilemma (Achilles, Nye, Boyd-Zaharias, Fulton, & Cain, 1994; Glass & Smith, 1979; Slavin, 1989). Class size reduction is a…

Indiana is at the national forefront on private school choice. With the broadest eligibility guidelines among the country's 22 other school voucher programs, Indiana's Choice Scholarship Program has seen enrollment more than double each year since being enacted in 2011. Today, when compared with voucher programs in 12 other states, Indiana has the…

Large class size is one of the problems in the educational sector that developing nations have been grappling with. Ghana as a developing nation is no exception and has its own fair share of this problem at the pre-tertiary and tertiary levels of education. The sight of large class at the tertiary level is appalling and a headache to teachers at…

This paper is a reaction to the increasing high cost of higher education and the resulting inaccessibility for the millions of potential learners now seeking opportunities for quality higher education opportunities. The paper examines the cost centers associated with campus-based and online education systems and then suggests that disaggregation…