This dissertation analyzes the effects of the educational programs for students who need special care in secondary and postsecondary school. These educational programs present serious endogeneity problems to a researcher estimating their causal effects, because most of students tried to avoid these programs. I extend the current literature in the…

Understanding the sources of variance in speaking assessment is important in Japan where society's high demand for English speaking skills is growing. Three challenges threaten fair assessment of speaking. First, in Japanese university speaking courses, teachers are typically the only raters, but teachers' knowledge of their students may unfairly…

In the United States, community colleges serve nearly half of the 18 million students enrolled in postsecondary education. However, it has only been the last decade or so where these public, two-year institutions have claimed substantial attention from the research community. This dissertation consists of three essays that focus on aspects of the…

This study implemented a two phase concurrent mixed-methods design to generate a greater understanding of how elementary schools with increased autonomy in fiscal decision making allocated their money, how their site-based decisions affected allocative efficiency, and how increased autonomy affected site-based decision making when compared with a…

The purpose of this qualitative, narrative study was to investigate the perceptions of successful small-school superintendents in regard to maintaining or improving district efficiency and financial status. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with seven purposefully selected small-school superintendents. Findings suggest that in their efforts…

Beth Kanter is working hard to get the word out about how best to get the word out. Kanter is CEO of Zoetica, which provides word-of-mouth communication services to nonprofits and socially conscious companies; a decade-long blogger on the topic of social media and nonprofits; and a popular conference speaker and trainer. She is also co-author of…

The usefulness of multidimensional adaptive testing (MAT) for the assessment of student literacy in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) was examined within a real data simulation study. The responses of N = 14,624 students who participated in the PISA assessments of the years 2000, 2003, and 2006 in Germany were used to…

The challenges facing American higher education today require transformative action. Amid a global economic crisis that has greatly diminished resources available to colleges and universities, the demands from legislators and the public to improve affordability, increase completion rates, and become more accountable grow more insistent each day.…

This study provides evidence that peer marking can be a reliable tool for assessing laboratory reports in large cohorts. It was conducted over a 4-yr period with first-year undergraduates ([asymptotically equivalent to]180 students/cohort) taking a mammalian physiology course, but the procedure adopted would be applicable to any other…

Third, fifth, and seventh graders selected the best strategy (rounding up or rounding down) for estimating answers to two-digit addition problems. Executive function measures were collected for each individual. Data showed that (a) children's skill at both strategy selection and execution improved with age and (b) increased efficiency in executive…

A report from a progressive think tank measuring the "educational productivity" of more than 9,000 school districts around the country says that districts getting the most for their money tend to spend more on teachers and less on administration, partner with their communities to save money, and have school boards willing to make…

Any moves towards substantive equality in education must negotiate the contradictions between equality and efficiency. Equality of education comes about through both the widening of opportunity and the maintenance of educational quality, but in the context of limited resources, educational policy rarely serves both ends simultaneously. Regardless…

To meet its future challenges in financing higher education, Egypt has no option but to search for alternative funding arrangements. This article considers the question of how to do so, keeping in mind the need to ensure equitable access to good quality education for those who cannot afford it. To this end, the article begins by assessing public…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how knowledge transfer between individuals influences performance in product development (PD) organizations and whether this influence is contingent to the degree of novelty in the PD work. Design/methodology/approach: A set of hypotheses describing the relationships between knowledge transfer by codification…

The federal government provides billions of dollars in assistance each year to students and families through federal student aid programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and through tax expenditures, such as credits and deductions. GAO was asked to (1) describe the size and distribution of Title IV student aid and tax…