The first of a three-volume final report, this portion presents an overview of the entire study, which was conducted to assess the effectiveness of secondary and postsecondary cooperative education programs in the nation's hundred largest cities and to analyze the postprogram experiences of participants and nonparticipants. (Volume 2 is a detailed…

I investigate the nexus of gender, student ability, and post-baccalaureate (PB) program quality. This is the first general empirical study of graduate and professional educational investment to consider inter-field differences in quality and gender composition. A primary goal of this dissertation is to establish whether admissions policy can…

This study explores two specific cases of institutional mergers in the field of higher education. The two cases took place in China in the 1990s. One of the cases might be labeled a vertical merger and the other a horizontal merger. The former simply implies a merger between higher education institutions with equal status and the same level of…

Back in 1992, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded grants to five curriculum development teams and charged them with the task of starting over. Five years later, each of the development teams had produced an innovative and "integrated" curriculum. All represented notable departures from the commonly encountered, calculus-driven high…

Chicago's Renaissance 2010 seeks to create 100 new and autonomous schools by 2010. These new schools are expected to increase choice for parents and students, enact innovative practices, and help create a portfolio of schools designed to make the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) more diversified, responsive, and effective. Renaissance Schools Fund…

This article describes how two instructors used assessment data to improve an undergraduate course, Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom. This entailed revising the core assignment for the course--the creation of a thematic unit of instruction--and developing a scoring guide to assess teacher candidates' performance. Data collected…

This case study describes the philosophy underlying the delivery of online programs and courses at the University of Illinois-Springfield. The strategies used to implement the UIS model and the measures used to validate its success are outlined. These factors are reviewed in the context of the Sloan-C Five Pillars for quality learning environments.

This paper evaluates the labour market effects of the introduction of the polytechnic education system in Finland. The polytechnic reform gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics. Since the timing of the reform differed across schools, we can compare the performance of polytechnic graduates to the performance of…

Background/Context: Nationally, almost a quarter of charter school students attend a school managed by a for-profit education management organization (EMO). EMOs have full executive authority over the operation and management of schools, including curriculum and instruction decisions. Because charter schools are funded with public dollars, critics…

This study examined the impact of an intervention designed to promote inquiry-based instruction among early childhood/elementary preservice teachers in Earth science. Preservice teachers participated in training sessions and community-based internships to deepen Earth science content knowledge and develop inquiry-based practices. Analyses of Earth…

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of a word study literacy approach on the spelling ability and self-efficacy of adults in a county jail. Forty-four inmates participated in the word study intervention that provided them with hands-on learning. The word study intervention was conducted in four separate sessions (September,…

This study aims to begin to uncover the detailed ways that pre-service elementary teachers examine and understand mathematics teaching, the grain size at which they do so, and what constitutes evidence of teaching mathematics for understanding for pre-service mathematics teachers. Thus, the central research questions for this study are: (a) What…

From the assumption that matching a student's learning style with the learning method best suited for the student, it follows that developing courses that correlate learning method with learning style would be more successful for students. Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute (TVI) in New Mexico has attempted to provide students with more…

A study was conducted at Stark Technical College (STC) to determine whether high risk students who participated in STC's developmental program experienced a higher degree of academic success than similar high risk students who did not participate in the program. High risk students entering STC in fall 1980 were identified on the basis of composite…

The Dillingham (Alaska) Foreign Study Program Evaluation covers 3 school years (1970-71 through 1972-73). The program was an innovative direction for rural education in expanding the students' (predominantly Native American) experience during their senior year in high school, and offering early entrance into college. The Center for Northern…