This volume centres the notion of "chance" in education as a key concept in contemporary education -- relating to aspects like accountability, datafication, or international large-scale assessments -- and discusses the impact that the historical desire to "tame" this notion has had on present-day educational policy and…

The rapid recent use of learning analytics (LA) in higher education, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic, allows the monitoring of users' behavior while learning. Using LA may promote students' learning outcomes but also intrude into their privacy. This study aimed to explore students' behaviour and perceptions towards privacy and data…

Despite the growing number of researches about performance-based accountability (PBA) in education, there is still scarce evidence on the mediating role of subjective variables (e.g., perceived pressure and alignment to PBA mandates) in the enactment of PBA in socially disadvantaged contexts. This is paradoxical because marginalized schools are…

This book offers concrete examples of how data can be used by faculty, staff, and program leaders to improve their collective work as teacher educators. Strong external accountability mandates often lead to tensions that undermine local morale and motivation. This volume focuses on the practical work of navigating these tensions so that valuable…

This book examines the idea of educational accountability in higher education, which has become a new secular gospel. But do accountability policies actually make colleges better? What if educational accountability tools don't actually measure what they're supposed to? What if accountability data isn't valid, or worse, what if it's meaningless?…

Online program managers (OPMs) are third-party companies that work with colleges and universities to develop, launch, and deliver online learning. Despite the prevalence of these companies in higher education, cost details are often buried or asserted with legal protections as trade secrets or business models unavailable for public review.3…

Many school educators struggle to reconcile the onslaught of mandatory and competing, top-down policies. Educators must merge policies into a singular plan that reflects the local stakeholders' goals and values. Given the federal and state accountability movement, schools are forced to build capacity around the use of on-site data and research…

This case study identifies college outcomes data transparency and accountability beliefs held by policy-makers, higher education associations, advocacy groups, think tanks, and other actors in the federal higher education policy domain, as well as how these beliefs have changed since the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in 2008.…

This technical assistance paper provides policy and guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. The Florida assessment policies and guidelines presented in this technical assessment paper are appropriate for state and federal reporting. Therefore, guidance and procedures regarding the selection…

Everyone who uses student information has a responsibility to maintain students' privacy and the security of their data. Ensuring student data privacy is about so much more than complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). While privacy must be top of mind when thinking about collecting and using personally identifiable…

The Partnership for College Completion (PCC) was founded to "advance equity in higher education" by supporting colleges and universities to improve college completion for Black, Latinx, and Pell-eligible students--those groups that experience persistent disparities in completion. Simultaneously, PCC engages in state policy reform to…

This qualitative case study examines how board members make sense of federal accountability policies and how their sensemaking shapes their use of assessment data as a policy instrument. Deviating from previous work on practitioner sensemaking, the participants' interpretations of assessments did not align with their ensuing use of the data.…

This volume brings together experts on various aspects of education to address many of the emerging issues and problems that affect how data are being used or misused in educational contexts. Readers will learn about the importance of using data effectively, responsibly, and ethically to fully understand how cognitive fallacies occur and how they…

In recent decades, there has been a growing body of research that highlights local education authorities (LEA) as potential contributors to support school capacity building and result development. Despite this, there are few empirical studies that have explored what effects different strategies and policy actions from the LEAs actual have over…

Research interest in educational governance has increased in recent years with the rise to prominence of transnational organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the importance attached to international comparison of educational systems. However, rarely do educational researchers consider the…