We analyse the origin and development of an Experimental Design course which has been taught in several faculties of the Universidad de la Republica and other institutions in Uruguay, over a 10-year period. At the end of the course, students were assessed by carrying out individual work projects on real-life problems, which was innovative for…

The last three decades have been marked by significant expansion of music education within higher education, the outcomes of which can be seen in the increased numbers of students studying music and in the diversity of activity and purpose within music courses. This article interrogates the relationship between stylistic diversity and music…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze critically the most important methods that are used in the evaluation of human resource development (HRD). Design/methodology/approach: The approach is to ask two questions: What are the methods available to define the impact of HRD in the economy? How can we evaluate the evaluations that have been…

Objective: The goal of this study is to advance an approach to the assessment of the quality of studies considered for inclusion in systematic reviews of the effects of social-care interventions. Method: To achieve this objective, quality is defined in relation to the widely accepted validity typology; prominent approaches to study quality…

This paper analyses and compares the measurement of indicators and variables in the construction of education index in Human Development Index (HDI) at the global, national and 18 sub-national human development reports in India since 1990. The results show non-comparability of measurement of the education indicators and variables. This implies…

Placement exams are high-stakes assessments that determine many students' college trajectories. More than half of entering students at community colleges are placed into developmental education in at least one subject, based primarily on scores from these assessments, yet recent research fails to find evidence that placement into remediation…

The Texas Projection Measure (TPM) has grown out of the state's need to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). An examination of the state's method of predicting 8th grade mathematics scores reveals that several factors have been ignored in the process of developing the model, including assumptions in its underlying statistical…

The formula is simple: Highly effective teachers equal student academic success. Yet, the physics of American education is anything but. Thus, the question facing education reformers is how can teacher effectiveness be accurately measured in order to improve the teacher workforce? Given the demand for objective, quantitative measures of teacher…

A diploma mill is commonly recognized as an entity that will award a degree for substandard academic work. However, there is no universal agreement among different higher education institutions as to what constitutes minimum standard academic work or minimum knowledge and skills required of graduates. The author states that many of the negative…

A study by Mullen and Tallent-Runnels (2006) found significance in the differences between online and traditional students' reports of instructors' academic support, instructors' demands, and students' satisfaction. They also recognized that the limitation to their study was their demographic data. In an original report funded by the Alfred P.…

There is little doubt as to the importance of creativity for both economic and social progress and of the need for educational systems to enhance and nurture it. However, are educational systems promoting creativity? The general feeling is that it is, in fact, being "killed" in schools. The educational systems were designed for a…

Variation in policies virtual schools use to calculate course completion and retention rates impacts the comparability of these quality metrics. This study surveyed 159 U.S. virtual schools examining the variability in trial period and course completion policies--two policies that affect course completion rates. Of the 86 respondents, almost 70%…

The number of leadership education and development programs has increased substantially over the past few decades. However, deliberate assessment strategies aimed at understanding actual student development have not kept pace. The primary reason for this limitation likely involves the challenges that are associated with this type of assessment.…

As more institutions of higher education engage in the practice of leadership education, the effective assessment of these efforts lags behind due to a variety of factors. Without an intentional assessment plan, leadership educators are liable to make one or more of several common errors in assessing their programs and activities. This article…

The purpose of this paper is to inform the community about teacher appraisal methods in the School District of Philadelphia, outline the difficulties of the current system, and suggest approaches that would strengthen the teacher appraisal process. The authors gathered their information over three months in mid-2009 from multiple sources:…