The National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools (2012, 2023) (NSBECS) was first developed and is now updated to complement, support, and reach beyond academic and curricula standards to provide schools a roadmap to faith-based education that is governed with integrity and academically, spiritually, and…

This study aimed to examine the relationship between student engagement and student retention of adult learners at community colleges. The relationship between student retention and the five Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) student engagement benchmarks (active and collaborative learning, student effort, academic challenge,…

The paper explores curriculum design and drivers of ethics in universities and the professional accounting bodies in Ghana. Data were collected through individual face-to-face interviews. The study revealed that ethics in the curricula of universities and professional bodies are integrated within and across subjects and within all levels of…

The purposes of the research were to: (1) create a scientific creativity measure for high school students; (2) examine the quality of the science creativity scale of the created test; (3) establish a benchmark for scientific creativity scores for high school students; and (4) study a scientific creativity level of students in the senior high…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the issues and challenges associated with examining PhD theses in the modern, rapidly changing academic world. The PhD degree has been described as the "pinnacle of academic qualifications", but it is under threat in terms of the quality of supervision and the outcome of examinations. By…

Since its implementation in 2004, the Canadian English Language Benchmark Assessment for Nurses (CELBAN) has been accepted as evidence of language ability for licensure of internationally educated nurses (IENs) in Canada. This article focuses on the complexities of sustaining an occupation-specific assessment over time. The authors reference the…

The present study attempts to identify difficulties that Japanese students encounter with metadiscursive nouns in writing second language (L2) argumentation essays. Metadiscursive nouns are abstract and unspecific nouns which can serve as cohesive markers by retrieving their meanings in the text where they occur. Using a selected number of nouns…

Purpose: This study examines the effect of age and task complexity on the macrostructure of story production in preschool- and school-age Kuwaiti Arabic--speaking children. It also compares the children's production of core and complementary macrostructure story elements. Method: A descriptive, cross-sectional research design was used to explore…

A decade ago, states across the nation adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in an effort to raise the academic bar for their students. This has provoked countless political battles since then--including an especially intense one in Florida. That fight culminated in Governor Ron DeSantis vowing to eliminate and replace the Common Core,…

The "Test of Financial Literacy" (TFL) was created to measure the financial knowledge of high school students. Its content is based on the standards and benchmarks stated in the "National Standards for Financial Literacy" (Council for Economic Education 2013). The test development process involved extensive item writing and…

The purpose of this ex post facto study was to determine differences in the level of student engagement in (a) students attending community colleges that participated in the Achieving the Dream (AtD) in 2011 and 2012 and (b) students attending community colleges that did not participate in AtD in 2011 and 2012. The Community College Survey of…

This paper examines a procedure measuring student competencies in numeracy using school-based assessments, and demonstrates how the procedure informs the school system on quality improvement. The sample consisted of 7648 students, attending three different types of urban schools including government, formal private and low cost private in poor…

In this article, preProgress in Reading Literacy Study (prePIRLS) 2011 data is used to compare the performance of different language of instruction groupings (English, Afrikaans and African languages) in primary schools on the more complex, higher-order reading comprehension items tested in a large-scale international test. PrePIRLS 2011…

This report looks at the progress of the ACT®-tested 2019 US high school graduating class relative to college and career readiness. The data in this report are based on nearly 1.8 million graduates--52% of the students in the 2019 national graduating class--who took the ACT at some time from grade 10 to 12. The ACT was taken by the majority of…