Arts Council England (ACE) commissioned NFER to undertake the national evaluation of the In Harmony social and music education programme 2012-2015. In Harmony is funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and ACE, and is currently being piloted in six areas. The evaluation is investigating the range and extent of impacts on children, families,…

Within universities there is often still an implicit assumption that the doctorate is preparation for an academic career. Yet for over a decade there has been evidence in a number of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries that there are increasing numbers of students undertaking a doctorate and that larger…

This publication presents estimates of apprentice and trainee activity in Australia for the December quarter 2009. The figures in this publication are derived from the National Apprentice and Trainee Collection no.63 (March 2010 estimates). There were 414 900 apprentices and trainees in-training as at 31 December 2009, a decrease of 0.6% from the…

The core work of the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools consists of four stages: identifying practices of highly effective high schools, designing interventions and transfer of practices, evaluating the intervention's implementation and effects, and evaluating implementation at scale. The purpose of this report is to describe the…

This study compared differences in diploma and graduation dropout rates among students with and without disabilities, analyzed differences in various graduation-types by disabilities, and offered recommendations to improve graduation rates through evidence-based practices. The geographic catchment area of this study was limited to twelve Southern…

Purpose: The main aim of this paper is to test the ways in which the role of high-technology services (HTS) in the economy of European Union (EU) member countries changes and the extent to which the development of HTS depends on the quality of human resources. Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts comparative and cluster analysis of…

This study compares the succession of urban principals working under negotiated collective bargaining agreements and conferred "memorandums of understanding" with particular school boards in three of Ohio's major cities: Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo. Relying on the following information: tenure, licensure status, professional…

The paper aims to contribute to the assessment of the contextual relevance of various educational policies through an analysis of three aspects of the performance profiles of European countries: participation, the quality of learning outcomes and the equity of learning outcomes. Comparative analysis of international student achievement assessment…

Medical students encountering patients with unfamiliar, unconventional sexual practices may have attitudes that can affect open communication during sexual history-taking. We measured changes in first-year US medical student attitudes toward 22 non-traditional sexual behaviors before and after exposure to human sexuality instruction. An…

The Nation's Report Card[TM] informs the public about the academic achievement of elementary and secondary students in the United States. Report cards communicate the findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a continuing and nationally representative measure of achievement in various subjects over time. The 2008 NAEP…

With federal legislation now requiring schools to report graduation rates, high school dropouts are receiving renewed attention from educators, policymakers, and researchers. Recent research has indicated a relationship between the number of course credits that students accrue each school year and students' high school completion status…

This report provides the Nebraska Legislature with comparative statistics to monitor and evaluate progress toward achieving "three key priorities" for Nebraska's postsecondary education system: (1) Increase the number of students who enter postsecondary education in Nebraska; (2) Increase the percentage of students who enroll and…

This study responds to a request from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to analyze National Board certification among high school teachers in understudied subject areas and locales to help fill gaps in the research literature. The authors also were asked to use multiple indicators of performance. The research team selected two…

This report serves as a quick reference guide for elected officials to compare key education policies and data in their states to the rest of the nation. The first section highlights major state policies for all 50 states in both table and chart formats (see Summary Charts ). The second section provides key state data, such as per-student spending…

Compared to traditional classification methods, developing a peer group using the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems (IPEDS) data allows institutions to add comparative dimensions, to update the peer group, and to track changes at peer institutions over time. Peer selection and…