Several instruments have been developed to gauge student perceptions of their classroom environment as greater attention has been given to the relationship between student achievement and student perceptions. One widely used instrument to assess those perceptions is the Classroom Environment Scale (CES), a 90-item measure for secondary level…

It comes as no surprise that the prices being charged for college tuition are out of control. Stories about the staggering price of tuition are commonplace in popular media. Although the supposed explanations for this phenomenon are attributed to issues such as financial aid, lack of government support, and the state of the economy, none seem to…

"Internationalisation" is generally defined as increasing cross-border activities amidst persistence of borders, while "globalisation" refers to similar activities concurrent to an erosion of borders. Study mobility is viewed as the most visible component in this framework in Europe with ERASMUS as the largest scheme of…

With the advent of the post-industrial 21st century knowledge-based economy and the demands of global competitiveness, Canada's community colleges are under increased pressure to extend their historical mandates (of career-related education and regional economic development) by incorporating "research", especially "applied…

Students readily see kindness as a mark of the good teacher. Yet the concept of kindness is singularly silent in accounts of teaching excellence, student satisfaction or professional values. It seems to have little place in a world driven by competitive individualism. In this article, the author discusses kindness, which extends beyond the private…

Higher education traffics in reputations. To thrive as an institution means keeping up with competitors while setting yourself apart. But as good as colleges have become at building brands, the game is shifting to social media, where there is perpetual motion and little control. Data from the Center for Marketing Research at the University of…

School education in Germany is under the responsibility of the federal states and as a consequence average grades differ widely across regions. Since school leavers apply nationwide for admission to university, regional provenance may thus matter a lot for the success probability in the admission process. Using a comprehensive dataset of the…

This article presents the findings of a single case study of the United States Open University (USOU), including factors affecting its demise and success. Interviews were conducted with administrators, board members, associate faculty, and staff who played a major role in the planning and operation of the USOU, and pertinent documents were…

Since launching in 1999, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, has grown from a band of 21 overcaffeinated friends, as founder Chris Baty calls them, to the more than 119,000 hopeful writers who joined in 2008. While most participants simply want to finish, 36 novels begun through NaNoWriMo have been published, according to its Web site,…

The binomial distribution is used to predict the winner of the 49th International Shooting Sport Federation World Championship in double trap shooting held in 2006 in Zagreb, Croatia. The outcome of the competition was definitely unexpected.

The goals of today's school athletic programs are vastly different from the original intentions of the administrators who established the first interscholastic athletic teams. For athletics to be anything more than a drain on school and taxpayer resources, these programs must undergo serious changes.

Spurred by concerns about an inadequately sized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce, there has been a growing interest in out-of-school time (OST) science activities as a means to foster STEM career interest. This study examines the association between OST science activities and STEM career interest in university…

It has long been recognized that engineers need a variety of skills, including technical and social, to succeed professionally. Attempts to include social skills (i.e., communication, teamwork, and leadership) in engineering education are relatively recent (i.e., within the last decade). Thus, the current study investigates whether social goals…

This article first draws together a range of published statistics to analyse trends in participation in higher education in the UK over recent years. That provides evidence of the shifting profile in the student population and sets a context for examining emerging evidence of the impact of recent government policy decisions on control of student…

Recent trends toward globalization have engendered interest in comparative educational systems, pointing toward more fundamental change beyond the current focus upon accountability measures. This phenomenological study considered the effect of extrinsic motivators on the intrinsic motivation of academically gifted students in Germany and the…