Participation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has continuously expanded: from 43 systems in 2000 to 65 systems in the 2012 cycle, with 71 signed up for PISA 2015. There also has been a growth in sub-national participation, expanding PISA's reach beyond the…

At first glance Sweden looks like a researcher's paradise with high levels of GDP investment in research and high scores on citation indexes, yet recent studies have suggested that Sweden might be losing its edge in groundbreaking research. This paper explores why that is happening by examining researchers' logics of decision-making at a large…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to know whether an intervention using an adaptation of the teaching games for understanding approach (named teaching races for understanding [TRfU]) led participants to improve skill execution, decision making, race performance, race involvement, race knowledge, enjoyment, intention to continue practicing…

This study explored the early development of expert athletes compared to a group of athletes that did not achieve an expert level of performance despite being involved in youth events with their national squads. In particular, the activities, training patterns, and psychosocial influences that characterized their paths in competitive sports were…

The last 40 years have seen great political attention paid to issues of inclusion in education, both from international organisations and also individual nations. This flexible concept has been adopted enthusiastically in education reforms concerned with increased standardisation of teaching and learning, decentralisation of education management,…

As economic competition becomes more global and knowledge-based, US states have independently pursued initiatives in research and development (R&D) and science and technology (S&T). Policy efforts often entwine government, universities, and industry, aiming to stimulate socially optimal levels of innovation and economic growth.…

While massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft are often accused of leading to excessive and harmful playing, the only gaming activity that is internationally recognized as a pathological disorder is excessive gambling. The present article seeks to establish empirical data on potential harmful online gaming through a…

Incentivized collaboration, schools that receive incentives such as public funding or additional resources if they join a network, has become quite popular in Europe and North America (e.g. England, Flanders, United States). We used a comparative case study design to explore why schools would enter such an incentivized network and what role…

This qualitative study explores the preparation and practice of school leaders in Taiwan based on indepth interviews and observations with six Taiwan school directors serving geographically diverse student populations. The journey leading to school leadership and the challenges that this representative group of educational leaders face are…

How to close the achievement gap in the classroom so that no student is left behind becomes one of the most important issues nowadays. This study aims to construct a collaborative and competitive game-based learning environment to improve English proficiencies and reduce the achievement gap for disadvantaged students. The Wireless Crossword…

This study proposed and implemented a system combining the advantages of both educational games and wireless handheld technology to promote the interactive English learning in the classroom setting. An interactive English vocabulary acquisition board game was designed with the system being implemented on handheld devices. Thirty sixth-grade…

The Obama administration's Race to the Top competitive grant program initiated an unprecedented wave of state teacher-evaluation reform across the country. To date, most of the scholarly analysis of this activity has focused on the design of the evaluation instruments or the implementation of the new evaluations by districts and schools. But…

This paper focuses on a generational change taking place in the Polish academic profession: a change in behaviors and attitudes between two groups of academics. One was socialized to academia under the communist regime (1945-1989) and the other entered the profession in the post-1989 transition period. Academics of all age groups are beginning to…

Candidates for public office in the United States frequently justify their positions on education policy priorities by stating the need to strengthen the nation's economic competitiveness against new global challengers. In this article, the authors investigate the consequences of this form of policy motivation for attitudes toward and support of…

This article contains an analysis of policies aimed at increasing the participation of adults in higher education (HE) in seven countries (NL, DK, SE, UK, BE Flanders, DE and the state of California in the USA). In order to maintain their economic competitiveness, many countries have developed policies to increase the participation of adults in…