Community colleges play a critical role in helping people connect to careers in the United States. After the Great Recession, community colleges emerged as the workforce and economic development institution that could fill the gaps left by traditional higher education for shorter, non-degree career education while also meeting the needs of local…

This action research takes place at a small, New England public school system in Hopkinton, MA, and was designed to build the capacity of educators by utilizing a cycle of inquiry to improve Data-Driven Decision Making. The action steps of this study established a building-based Student Learning Team at Hopkinton Middle School which, in…

This study sought to better understand present-day relationships between institutional and programmatic characteristics and their impact on student outcomes at postsecondary career and technical schools. This is critical given: (a) the existence of a significant middle-skills gap impacting the U.S. economy; (b) a lack of research and guidance for…

This qualitative, phenomenological case study was to determine the impact the state accountability system has on school improvement practices for schools that have been designated under the statewide system of support. Nine district and school level leaders were interviewed from one suburban school district designated as…

Internationally, assessment and the use of diagnostic data are recognized as critical capabilities for teachers. This is not a recent development, with assessment recognized for some decades as playing a significant role in informing learning and learners.This paper will examine whether teachers and members of the school leadership team utilize…

An industrial revolution based on digital technologies and data is rapidly transforming most human activities. In the case of higher education, research on learning analytics has experienced significant expansion and evolution in only a few years. However, there is still a dearth of literature on analytics tools designed to support student…

Monetary sanctions, also known as legal financial obligations (LFOs), are a highly consequential yet underexplored element of the criminal legal system. LFOs consist of fines, fees, costs, restitution, surcharges, and other financial penalties that are imposed on individuals when they encounter the criminal legal system. Drawing on data from a…

This case study shares the lessons learned from the data collection phase of my research project, specifically the use of online interviews with stimulus material. My research explores secondary school teachers' perceptions of and experiences with moral education in the United Kingdom and uses current government policies regarding the moral…

In some studies, participants are assigned ethnographic or communicative tasks, such as field-work observation, life-story interviews, and photography. These studies usually involve in-person interaction, both for the participants doing the task and for the researchers in engaging with participants throughout the research process. Our study was…

The equity-efficiency tradeoff and cumulative return theories predict larger returns to school spending in areas with higher previous investment in children. Equity -- not efficiency -- is therefore used to justify progressive school funding: spending more in communities with fewer financial resources. Yet it remains unclear how returns to school…

This chapter aims to answer some of the questions that emerge when carrying out educational ethnography in a blended learning environment. The authors first outline how Virtual Ethnography (VE) has been developed and applied by other researchers. Then, to better illustrate the approach, they describe a doctoral research project that implemented…

Background/Context: Researchers have amassed considerable evidence on the use of student performance data (e.g., benchmark and standardized state tests) to inform educational improvement, but few have examined the use of nonacademic indicators (e.g., indicators of social and emotional well-being) available to educators, and whether the factors…

Through this paper, we explore "unbundling," the separation of various aspects of education, resources, teaching and assessment (Ossiannilsson et al., 2015) and "rebundling," where these activities are "recombined into new configurations with little loss of functionality" (Ge et al., 2004, p. 1). We chart the…

College students have a better chance of succeeding in school when they receive high-quality advising. High-quality advising, when characterized by frequent communications between advisers and students, early outreach to students showing signs of academic or nonacademic struggles, and personalized guidance that addresses individual student needs,…

When the "AEM Quality Indicators with Critical Components for Higher Education: Institutes of Higher Education" (ED613012) was updated, a series of interviews were conducted with experts in colleges, universities, and related associations with knowledge and experience in system- or campus-wide accessibility. Additionally, a literature…