The purpose of the Research and Mapping for MCEECDYA Project: Student Academic Engagement was to examine the characteristics of schools with a low Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) from all jurisdictions that were identified to be making a difference to student academic and to identify the key drivers and characteristics of…

In 2006, six community and technical colleges in Washington State joined the innovative national reform initiative called Achieving the Dream (ATD). This report describes the progress each college made in implementing ATD's "culture of evidence" principles for institutional improvement, examines strategies implemented by the colleges to…

The current main world university rankings broadly group the leading research universities of nations. Australia's Go8 universities are generally within the top 250 ranked universities, with several institutions in the top 50-100 on some measures. This recognition is commendable, however imperfect the individual rankings may be. Use is made of…

In the present study, an examination is conducted in three school districts of how data are used to improve classroom practice. In doing so, we explore the effects that attitudes toward data, principal leadership, and computer data systems have on how data are used to affect classroom practice. Findings indicate that educators are ambivalent about…

With the need to meet a set of higher accountability standards such as Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards and the AYP benchmarks of the NCLB Act, for example, school principals are faced with the knowledge that they play a vital role in school effectiveness as well as teacher retention, parent participation, and…

This research study investigated the assessment practices of five different undergraduate business programs. It examines the learning outcomes required for the business programs and their linkages with general education outcomes. Specific assessment methods, the results from assessments, and how business program faculty use assessment findings to…

The International Reading Association's Position Statement on Young Adolescents' Literacy Learning states, "It is during the middle years of schooling that most students refine their reading preferences, become sophisticated readers of informational text, and lay the groundwork for the lifelong reading habit." As the National Assessment of…

School districts across the country have adopted interim and benchmark assessments in response to NCLB pressures to raise student achievement, despite the lack of a research base. Thus, it is especially important that well-conceived, empirical studies of the effects of such programs be carried out. Various theoretical frames can help understand…

As is the case with other fields, there is motivation for studying the impact that the body of evaluation theory literature has within and outside the field. The authors used journal articles written by theorists included on the evaluation theory tree by Alkin and Christie (2004; Christie & Alkin, 2008) and published in the Web of Science, an…

The purpose of this study is to describe what data preschools in a mid-sized city in the Northeast collect, how they use that data, and the challenges they face. The study focuses on three types of data: early learning outcomes, dosage (i.e., the amount of exposure to early childhood education), and classroom quality. The report further…

This "Stated Briefly" report is a companion piece that summarizes the results of another report of the same name. This study explores how seven early childhood education programs in a mid-sized city in the Northeast region are collecting and using data, how they would like to use data, how they could use the data that they have, and the…

As state policymakers strive to ensure that every student is taught by an effective teacher and is ready for college and 21st-century careers, they must also make drastic budget cuts. States cannot do more with less without collecting and using quality data to determine which programs and policies increase student achievement and the state's…

This article discusses whether the very act of accessing online students' experiences of teaching may itself foster students' sense of belonging to a learning community. The article reports and reflects on the application of Brookfield's critical incident questionnaire (CIQ) in postgraduate courses delivered online in 2008-2010 through the…

At the end of secondary education in The Netherlands, students have to pass a final examination, consisting of an internal school-based assessment and an external national assessment. According to the Dutch inspectorate, to ensure the quality of final examinations, the discrepancy between both assessments must be less than 0.5 points (on a scale…

This Eurydice report contains more than 30 detailed structural indicators, up-to-date figures, definitions, country notes and a short analysis of recent key policy developments and reforms in five areas: early childhood education and care, achievement in basic skills, early leaving from education and training, higher education and graduate…