Do educational vouchers reduce inequality and inefficiency in education?

Policy debates around the topic of educational vouchers as an approach to improve the public educational system are still ongoing and a consensus on the potential benefits or drawbacks has not been reached yet. This paper models the distributional processes entailed by two alternative educational voucher systems, universal and target vouchers, by using an agent-based model of a highly heterogeneous school district. Using this approach allows to track which students actually switch schools and thereby evaluate peer effects. At the same it is possible to model an endogenous reaction of public schools in order to assess their reaction to increased competition. The results indicate an ambiguous effect of universal vouchers on low-income students. The introduction has a negative peer effect on students in low-performing schools due to “cream skimming”, i.e. highly motivated students leaving the schools. In contrast, students who switch to better schools observe a positive effect. The negative effects are partly alleviated by low- performing schools improving their educational services as a response to a decline in enrollment. When examining target vouchers which are a function of student ability, the paper shows that they allow the school district to benefit from the increased competition while avoiding the deterioration of the peer group.     

Adolescent students’ grit: Do parents’ grit and educational expectations matter?

Despite the widespread enthusiasm towards grit, little attention has been paid to how stable grit remains over time and what contextual factors can predict longitudinal changes in grit. The present study investigated adolescent students’ grit and its change over one year. We employed nationally representative longitudinal data from a sample of Korean adolescent students (N = 2,590) and their parents (N = 2,590). Specifically, we evaluated the temporal stability of student grit, parent grit and educational expectations as determinants of student grit, and the relative importance of student grit in predicting academic achievement compared to academic self-concept. Results of autoregressive cross-lagged modeling revealed that grit was fairly stable over one year. In addition, parents’ grit and educational expectations for students’ educational attainment emerged as significant predictors of longitudinal changes in students’ grit. Finally, when students’ academic self-concept was controlled, students’ grit was not predictive of their academic achievement. Implications and areas of future research are presented and discussed.     

Quality over quantity?: Mentoring relationships and purpose development among college students

A growing number of studies have demonstrated that purpose in life is associated with positive outcomes among adolescents and young adults. The college years represent an important period of both personal and professional growth, including purpose in life. Supportive relationships may play a critical role in the identification and pursuit of purpose. Relationships with mentors, for example, have been linked with purpose among adolescents. The present study examined whether mentoring relationships were linked with purpose among college students (N = 194) from three institutions across the United States. Both aspects of quality (relational health) and quantity (i.e., number of mentors) were examined as predictors of purpose. Students who had at least one mentor reported higher levels of purpose compared to students with no mentors. Among students with at least one mentor, quality of mentoring was significantly associated with a greater commitment to purpose, while the number of mentors was not associated with commitment to purpose. Results are discussed in the context of practical applications regarding student success and purpose formation in higher education settings.     

Do gender and physical attractiveness affect college grades?

In this study, data on grades awarded for bachelor and master theses at a large Polish university were used to identify possible discrimination on gender or physical attractiveness. The focus is on the gap between the grades awarded by the advisor (who knows the student personally) and the referee (who typically does not, so that gender is less salient and attractiveness is not observable). This provides an excellent control for actual quality of the work, which is often problematic in previous literature. Observations on nearly 15,000 students are available, of which some 2600 also have their physical attractiveness rated and are included in the analysis. It can thus be checked if the advisor–referee grade gap depends on students’ gender and attractiveness, also in interaction with their genders. Based on stereotypes discussed in the literature one can hypothesise that females are treated relatively favourably by advisors (and males by referees). Likewise, it can be expected that physically attractive individuals’ advisors award them relatively high grades. Overall, we observe some evidence that females indeed get relatively high grades from advisors and no evidence of influence of physical attractiveness.     

Do instructional interventions influence college students’ critical thinking skills? A meta-analysis

Promoting students’ critical thinking skills is an important task of higher education. Colleges and universities have designed various instructional interventions to enhance students’ critical thinking skills. Empirical studies have yielded inconsistent results in terms of the effects of such interventions. This meta-analysis presents a synthesis of empirical studies designed to promote measurable changes in students’ critical thinking skills using instructional interventions. Findings demonstrated statistically significant but small average effect size and evidence of heterogeneity among studies. Hierarchical linear model was adopted to explore potential predictors of the variance across effect sizes. Results showed that student discipline and treatment length explained part of the variability among treatment effects. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

Teaching Latinx students: Do teacher ethnicity and bilingualism matter?

Prior research has indicated that both mainstream (e.g., positive classroom behavior management) and culturally responsive teaching practices (e.g., cultural socialization in the classroom and promoting parent involvement), as well as teacher-student ethnic match, are associated with greater academic achievement for students of color. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher-student ethnic match and culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy as predictors of self-reported teaching practices used with Latinx students. The present study used a sample of 236 teachers (38.6% Spanish-speaking Latinx) of Latinx students in New York City public schools. We found that bilingual Latinx teachers reported using more effective mainstream and culturally responsive teaching practices compared to non-Latinx teachers (who did not speak Spanish). Using structural equation modeling, we found support for a model in which greater reported use of effective teaching practices by bilingual Latinx teachers is mediated by their greater culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy. Taken together, the findings suggest that greater confidence with culturally responsive teaching among Spanish-speaking Latinx teachers contributes to improved classroom environments for Latinx students.     

Welfare regimes and educational inequality: a cross‐national exploration

Research on welfare state regimes and research on educational policy share a common concern for the reduction of social inequality. On one hand, welfare state research is typically designed within a comparative approach where scholars investigate similarities and differences in social institutions across selected countries. On the other hand, the basic model of educational policy research is usually country specific and seldom identifies why and how we are to understand cross‐national differences pertaining to social inequality. The goal of the research is to bridge these two areas by testing socio‐economic gradients and educational outcomes among 15 industrialised countries (using 2003 PISA data) from a welfare state perspective. Results support Esping‐Andersen's ‘three worlds’ typology in that the level of between‐school educational inequality is the highest in conservative welfare states and is the lowest in social‐democratic countries.     

The operation of grade retention and educational inequality: who gets retained in Macao and why?

While the existence of a class, gender, or ethnic gap in educational attainment is well documented for many societies, how the practice of grade retention contributes to these patterns of educational inequality has been inadequately addressed. Given that grade retention is commonly practised in Macao, Macao is used as a case for illustration. Using data from PISA 2009 and a qualitative research project, we seek to demonstrate how inadequate state regulation could make possible the manipulation of grade retention institutionally and individually in Macao. This, in turn, illustrates how the specific contextualized structural operation of grade retention could serve as a mechanism for social differentiation and thus play a role in contributing to the observed educational inequality.     

Learning fractions with and without educational technology: What matters for high-achieving and low-achieving students?

Instructional design research promotes interactive and adaptive scaffolds as features of educational technology. Mathematics education research can guide elaborated fractions curricula to develop basic fraction concepts while challenging the natural number bias. Thus, we developed theory-grounded interactive material for learning fractions providing scaffolds in an eBook. Evaluating both, curriculum and scaffolds, we split 745 high-achieving and 260 low-achieving 6th graders into three groups: Scaffolded Curriculum group (using the eBook on iPads), Curriculum group (using a paper copy of our developed material), and Traditional group (using conventional textbooks). Generalized linear mixed models revealed diverse positive effects on the achievement of students in the experimental conditions: Results showed that high-achieving students did benefit from the curriculum, regardless of whether it was presented with or without scaffolds, while for low-achieving students using scaffolds was decisive. This suggests that interactive and adaptive scaffolds can support students in learning mathematical concepts, especially for low-achieving students.     

Connecting college and work: examining the relationship between students’ college employment experiences and their professional and career attitudes

This study examined the relationship between U.S. students’ employment experiences during college/university and their fourth-year professional career attitudes as defined by the Wabash National Study Professional Success Scale, including obtaining recognition from one’s colleagues for contributions to their field of expertise, having administrative responsibility for the work of others, working in a prestigious occupation, making a lot of money and becoming successful in a business of one’s own. This study considered three types of employment experiences (on-campus work; off-campus work; and completing an internship practicum, field experience, co-op or clinical assignment), as well as the number of hours spent engaged in on-campus and off-campus employment, and whether these measures of student employment were associated with students’ fourth-year professional career attitudes. Results suggest that on-campus work experiences, off-campus work experiences; and completing an internship practicum, field experience, co-op or clinical assignment, as well as the number of hours of employment during college have the potential to influence students’ fourth-year professional career attitudes.     

An examination of Hispanic college enrollment and graduation: Has the Texas Closing the Gaps plan been successful?

The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the Texas “Closing the Gaps by 2015” plan to increase Hispanic enrollment into and graduation from institutions of higher education. This study uses Interrupted Time Series with Comparison Group to analyze 26 years of student cohorts in Texas universities. Controlling for historical enrollment and graduation growth as well as population growth, the results show that Hispanic college enrollment significantly increased as a result of the plan, but graduation did not. Several recommendations are offered for those states that wish to emulate Texas policies of increasing college enrollment and graduation of Hispanics.     

Educational performance or educational inequality: what can we learn from PISA about France and England?

This article evaluates PISA 2000 as a resource for providing information on educational attainment and inequality, focusing on France and England. Going beyond pupils' performance, it assesses levels of educational inequality by examining distributions of scores and the relationship between socio‐economic status and performance. This review raises methodological issues which could hamper the comparison of performance. The prioritising of ‘skills for life’ over curriculum‐based questions, together with PISA's sampling on the basis of pupils' age rather than their class/grade, works to the advantage of the English performance. The issue of low response rates in England is also raised and care is urged with regard to ranking the performance of France and England on the basis of these results. The article concludes that as a tool for comparing average performance PISA has drawbacks, but for assessing levels of inequality it is a useful resource.     

Private transfers and college students’ decision to work

We estimate the impact of external financial support on the labor supply of students during their tertiary education. Using a dynamic labor supply model and accounting for the endogeneity of income from private transfers, we find a significantly lower likelihood of being employed for transfer recipients. Our results suggest that private transfers lead to a shift in students’ time allocation, lowering their hours devoted to working and increasing their time devoted to studying. We find evidence for a psychological component of receiving transfers through an increase in the perceived risk of failure in academic studies.     

Latinx students’ experiences with college access and preparation at college preparatory charter schools

Charter schools that target underserved communities, including Latinxs, have proliferated in the U.S., claiming a unique, more autonomous and successful alternative to traditional public schools, often with a promise of increased postsecondary access and preparation. However, there is conflicting evidence regarding their effectiveness on academic outcomes, prompting additional research on charter schools. This study examined the college access and preparation experiences of 14 Latinxs attending college preparatory charter schools within one school system in Texas. Findings highlight how schools assisted students in preparing for college, but challenges in accessing college knowledge and assistance still existed, particularly for undocumented students.     

Peers with special educational needs and students’ absences

In the United States, the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) specifies that students with disabilities should be educated in the “least restrictive environment,” yet little is known about how successfully schools have been able to apply appropriate supports, practices and resources so that all students benefit from inclusion. Using a quasi-experimental method and a longitudinal data-set provided by the Florida Department of Education that spans an eight-year panel from 2001 through 2009, this paper analyses the relationship between the density and diversity of peers with special educational needs and general education students’ absence rates in grades three through eight. Results show that a one standard deviation increase in the measure of special education peers is associated with an increase in general education students’ absences of .03 to .43 more days per year, depending on the empirical specification chosen. This represents as much as a five percent increase in the average student’s annual absences. Implications are discussed.     

When do students ask why? Examining the precursors and outcomes of causal search among first-year college students

It has been theorized that students are most likely to ask why following unexpected, negative, and/or important events (Weiner, 1985); however, the unique contribution of these precursors to causal search and the resultant cognitions, emotions, and behaviors remain largely unclear. In the current study we examined causal search regarding test outcomes among 371 first-year college students. Responses to hypothetical scenarios indicated that unexpected events, and unexpected/negative events in combination, would elicit the most causal search. Based on performance on an actual test, precursors measured prior to the test indicated negative test outcomes elicited the greatest causal search. Alternatively, precursors measured following the test indicated a similar pattern to the scenarios. In each instance, event importance was also found to positively predict casual search. Overall, the results suggest that the exclusion of relevant precursors, self-serving biases, and divergent methodologies may have resulted in the discrepancies of previous research on causal search precursors. Finally, students who engaged in more causal search made more ability, test difficulty, and luck attributions, fewer effort attributions, experienced less pride and more shame, guilt, regret, and anger, and received poorer grades. The internal/uncontrollable attributional pattern suggests that first-year college students who are at-risk of de-motivating cognitions, emotions, and behaviors could be supported with cognitive interventions such as attributional retraining.     

Do timing and reference frame of feedback influence high-stakes educational outcomes?

In a field experiment with fifth and sixth graders in secondary schools, students received feedback about their rank level or the change in their rank in math either a few days or immediately before the school year’s final math exam. Early feedback overall enhances exam performance while late feedback worsens it. We find this pattern to hold for level feedback in general and for change feedback when negative. Heterogeneity analyses suggest the effects are mostly driven by boys, who also negatively update ability beliefs in response to feedback.     

GCE performance of FE and sixth‐form college students

This study set out to examine and identify differences in GCE O/A‐level performance of a sample of further education and sixth‐form college students, employing selected biographical, intellectual and dispositional measures. The sample comprised 356 two‐year, full‐time students who entered further education and sixth‐form colleges immediately after completing their fifth‐form work in schools. The results show that taking account of students’ dispositional characteristics significantly increases the explained variation in attainment beyond that accounted for by intellectual ability and previous examination performance. Also indicated are significant differences in the factors associated with examination success; these are shown to be related to students who attend different types of institution. The findings would appear to have implications for current policies concerned with the educational provision for students in the 16‐19 age range.