This paper presents a simple, cost-effective and robust atomic force microscope (AFM), which has been purposely designed and built for use as a teaching aid in undergraduate controls labs. The guiding design principle is to have all components be open and visible to the students, so the inner functioning of the microscope has been made clear to…

Gel electrophoresis is one of the most important tools used in molecular biology and has facilitated the entire field of genetic engineering by enabling the separation of nucleic acids and proteins. However, commercial electrophoresis kits can cost up to $800 for each setup, which is cost prohibitive for most classroom budgets. This article…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

The challenging of assessing formal and informal online learning at scale includes various issues. Many universities who are now promoting "Massive Online Open Courses" (MOOC), for instance, focus on relatively informal assessment of participant competence, which is not highly "quality assured". This paper reports best…

This NFER report has been produced for the Education Endowment Foundation and its evaluation of a speaking and listening intervention combining two programmes: the Vocabulary Enrichment Intervention Programme (VEIP) and the narrative Intervention Programme (NIP). The intervention was used with pupils who needed extra support to improve their…

Catch Up® Literacy is a structured one-to-one literacy intervention for pupils between the ages of 6 and 14 who are struggling to learn to read. It teaches pupils to blend phonemes (combine letter sounds into words), segment phonemes (separate words into letter sounds), and memorise particular words so they can be understood without needing to use…

Education is a human right. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognize the essential role education plays in human and social development. As stated in article 26 of the Declaration, "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental…

Due to a diminishing level of available funds, school leaders are faced with difficult decisions associated with reducing budget expenditures. The only way to prevent losing more programs and services is to reduce spending. An area which is quickly gaining popularity in reducing expenditures is outsourcing. Many schools have turned to outside…

Legislation in 1998 provided enrollment funding for UNC distance education. This report documents the growth of UNC distance education programs and their role in meeting the high priority education and economic development needs of the State. As highlighted in the Executive Summary and documented throughout this report, state enrollment funding…

Concerns about the influence of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries on continuing medical education (CME) have been voiced frequently over the past decade. Reliance on industry funding increases the potential for bias. Industry-supported CME often emphasizes conditions that can be treated with newer drugs or devices rather than those…

Teacher and principal surveys are among the most common data collection techniques employed in education research. Yet there is remarkably little research on survey methods in education, or about the most cost-effective way to raise response rates among teachers and principals. In an effort to explore various methods for increasing survey response…

Making furniture decisions can involve many factors, and they vary from institution to institution. For fixtures, furnishings and equipment, comparing initial cost with the cost of ownership over a life cycle can be more challenging. It may be the functionality of the furnishings that provides the greatest return on investment. In this article,…

This study aims to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a long-term workplace health promotion programme on physical activity (PA) and nutrition. In total, 924 participants enrolled in a 2-year cluster randomized controlled trial, with departments (n = 74) within companies (n = 6) as the unit of randomization. The intervention was compared with a…

The two big events in higher education during 2010 were the implementation of the Equality Act, and the introduction of a new dispensation on fees and funding. The former is intended to promote equality, the latter is premised on the need for economy. In this article, the author focuses on the effect of the latter on the former. He considers this…

As community colleges face increasingly tight budgets and calls for a renewed focus on improving student outcomes in the form of graduation rates, colleges must address the concept of access. How much access to higher education can they continue to provide low-skilled students in adult education and similar programs? One way to ensure access to…