Expanding schooling opportunities for 4-year-olds

We use a novel quasi-experimental strategy to estimate the effect of expanding early schooling enrollment possibilities on early achievement. It exploits two features of the school system in The Netherlands. The first is rolling admissions; children are allowed to start school immediately after their 4th birthday instead of at the beginning of the school year. The second is that children having their birthday before, during and after the summer holiday are placed in the same class. These features generate sufficient exogenous variation in children’s enrollment opportunities to identify its effects on test scores. Making available one additional month of time in school increases language scores of disadvantaged pupils by 6 percent of a standard deviation and their math scores by 5 percent of a standard deviation. For non-disadvantaged pupils we find no effect.     

Multi-postpath-based lookahead multiconstraint QoS routing

Multiconstraint QoS (quality of service) routing is an essential mechanism for QoS-guaranteed services. Unfortunately, the multiconstraint QoS routing problem is NP-complete. In this paper, we propose a heuristic multiconstraint QoS routing scheme, MPLMR (multi-postpath-based lookahead multiconstraint routing). MPLMR is a routing scheme using an extended shortest-path algorithm. As in previous schemes such as TAMCRA and H_MCOP, MPLMR stores a limited number of subpaths between the source node and each intermediate node, and extends these subpaths toward the destination node. However, MPLMR uses an improved “lookahead” method to estimate the path length of the full path to which each subpath is extended. MPLMR then selects and stores the subpaths that have higher likelihood than other subpaths to be extended to feasible paths. We show via simulation that MPLMR has a smaller probability of missing a feasible path than competing schemes in the literature.     

Why Do Achievement Measures Underpredict Female Academic Performance?

In the context of college admissions, the current study examined whether differential prediction of first‐year grade point average (FYGPA) by gender could be explained by an omitted variable problem—namely, academic discipline, or the amount of effort a student puts into schoolwork and the degree to which a student sees him/herself as hardworking and conscientious. Based on nearly 10,000 college students, the current study found that differences in intercepts by gender were reduced by 45% with the inclusion of academic discipline in a model that already included high school grade point average (HSGPA) and ACT Composite score. Moreover, academic discipline resulted in an additional 4% of variance accounted for in FYGPA. Gender differences in slopes were not statistically significant (p > .001) regardless if academic discipline was included in the model. The findings highlight the utility of taking a more holistic approach when making college admission decisions. Namely, the inclusion of noncognitive measures has benefits that are twofold: increased predictive validity and reduced differential prediction.     

Mental health and subjective well-being of staff in a secondary school for adolescents with severe and profound multiple learning difficulties

The main purpose of this study was to explore the mental health and subjective well-being of staff working with adolescents with severe and profound multiple learning difficulties. The participants were 19 teachers and 25 teaching assistants working in an inner London, local authority, specialist day provision. A demographic questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Positive Affect Scale, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale were used as data collection tools. The inferential statistical tools used were t-tests and correlational analyses. The study brought to light a high number of borderline and abnormal anxiety scores among all staff. The study also found a significant difference in the resilience scores of teachers and teaching assistants, with teaching assistants scoring higher on the resilience scale. The results, alongside findings from previous research, call for better mental health support for teachers and staff working in the field of special educational needs and disabilities. The study highlights the emotional toll on educators, and the need for mitigation strategies that promote good mental health outcomes for both teachers and students.     

Attenuation of blocking with the omission of a delayed US

Two experiments used rats in a CER paradigm to examine the relationship between static-cue conditioning and the attenuation of blocking with a US-omission procedure. Experiment 1 showed that the attenuation of blocking was correlated with static-cue conditioning. Experiment 2 showed that manipulations that normally enhance static-cue conditioning resulted in the attenuation of blocking effect. The implications of these results for current theories of Pavlovian conditioning are discussed.     

Evaluation der Erziehungswissenschaft

Auch die Erziehungswissenschaft ist gegenw?rtig mit wissenschaftspolitischen Erwartungen an Wettbewerb, Qualit?tssicherung und Evaluation konfrontiert. Der Beitrag analysiert Forschungsleistungen der Erziehungswissenschaft und nutzt dazu Daten des vom Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE) durchgeführten und in der Zeitschrift STERN ver?ffentlichten fachspezifischen Hochschulrankings. Er befasst sich zun?chst knapp mit der Kritik an diesen Hochschulrankings und reanalysiert dann die Daten im Blick auf Publikationen, Projektfinanzierung und Drittmitteleinwerbungen, auch im Vergleich zu anderen Disziplinen. Die Befunde zeigen eine relativ hohe Inklusionsbereitschaft unterschiedlicher Wissensformen, die nicht nur die evaluative, sondern auch die fachlich spezifische Definition und Bewertung von ‘Qualit?t’ erziehungswissenschaftlicher Forschung erschwert. Der Beitrag pl?diert für eine aktive und konstruktive Beteiligung der Erziehungswissenschaft an der Weiterentwicklung standardisierter, wissenschaftlich begründeter und zugleich auch wissenschaftspolitisch anschlussf?higer Indikatoren.