Measuring the success of 'Playing for Success'

'Playing for Success' is a national initiative to establish Study Support Centres in professional football clubs, intended to support underachieving young people at key stages 2 and 3. The second year of the evaluation involved collection of data from pupils in 12 such Centres. Instruments were administered before and after attendance at the Centres, and measurements taken relating to literacy and numeracy, as well as attitude scales and self-assessments of ICT skills. Data were also obtained from a small 'control' group. Multilevel analysis of the results has given insights into the areas where the initiative appears to have had positive effects, and the other factors which may be associated with such effects.     

Variables involved in personal, social and school adjustment in a sample of preschool-aged children from different cultural backgrounds

The continuing incorporation of immigrant populations into the Spanish educational system poses an important challenge in that all participants must cooperate toward creating the best possible adaptation process at the academic level as well as on the personal and social levels. A number of different factors appear to influence children’s adjustment during the preschool stage, and these factors are especially relevant since many studies have shown that this is a key period for the prevention of future difficulties. The present study examines the variables involved in the adaptation of a group of preschool-aged children from different cultural backgrounds in Spain. The results indicate that preschoolers, regardless of their background, have similar performance and learning potential, with language proficiency being the factor that most clearly affects the other variables investigated. It was also found that children’s attitudes toward learning were related to the presence of behavioral difficulties and with the quality and type of parental child-rearing practices. These practices appear to be related to a number of difficulties immigrant children may experience on personal and social levels.     

Surviving,not Thriving: Leas since the Education Reform Act of 1988

Local Education Authorities (LEAs) have been features of the administrative landscape of England and Wales for a century. For most of this period, their role, as central government's key partners in the operation of the national education system, expanded. However, intense criticisms of educational organisation and standards, during the 1970s, led to re-assessment of, and ultimately to major reductions in, their responsibilities, during the 1980s and 1990s. This article surveys the changed and changing role of LEAs, and the debate that has surrounded it, during their hundred years of existence, with particular reference to the period since the 1988 Education Reform Act. The concluding part of the article focuses on current developments under the New Labour government, which has assigned a definite but limited range of functions to LEAs. It is argued in this article that, as the 'intermediate level' of LEA administration has been relegated to a marginal role, little purpose would be served by implementing recent proposals for a radical restructuring of the local educational administration.     

Innovation and business survival: A long-term approach

This paper explores the influence of innovation on the probability of survival of two hundred top British firms founded throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To this end, we have collected the firms’ significant innovations and classified them by Schumpeterian types, patented and non-patented and domestic and imported. The number of patents registered by the firms throughout their lifetime ?a rough measure of their incremental innovation activity– has also been recorded. In addition, twelve control variables ?five characteristics of the firms and seven of their business leaders– have been included. Both log-normal and gamma duration models have been used in the analysis. They have been estimated, firstly for the whole set of firms and, secondly, for the manufacturing and the service firms separately to control for industry differences. The results of the log-normal and gamma estimations are highly coincident, with some nuances. The significant innovations ?particularly new processes, non-patented and domestic ones– have been found to positively influence the probability of business survival. The number of patent applications seems to increase the survival probability of the manufacturing firms, but not of the service ones. Among the control variables, the firm’s size, its international dimension, and the age of the business leader at entry seem to be the most influential ones on business survival, although there are some differences between manufacturing and services. The main results are robust to the division of the sample by entry period.     

Understanding higher education access: Inequalities and early learning in low and lower-middle-income countries

Globally, access to higher education has increased, but inequalities by socio-economic background remain. This article explores the relationship between early schooling opportunities (and learning) and progression into higher education in four low and middle-income countries. We analyse data from the Young Lives longitudinal study, following cohorts of young people from age 5 to 22 in four country settings: Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and India. We reveal wide variability in higher education participation between the four countries, with a common pattern of a very strong association between early learning and later higher education participation, even after allowing for a range of demographic characteristics. Whilst early learning is important in predicting later higher education participation, we also find that significant barriers to higher education participation remain for low socio-economic status groups, even if they initially show good levels of learning. We track the trajectories of children who have initial good levels of learning, and hence arguably the potential to progress to higher education, and assess the extent to which socio-economic background plays a mediating role in these trajectories. Pupils with initially good levels of learning at primary school age, but who are from poor backgrounds, fall back in terms of their relative attainment during secondary schooling years. This implies that socio-economic status continues to be a barrier to educational attainment throughout these children’s lives. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy initiatives aimed at narrowing inequalities in higher education access in poorer countries.     

Towards a model for the assessment of student boredom and boredom proneness in the UK higher education context

Recently identified as an academic ‘achievement emotion’, boredom has long been implicated as a factor contributing adversely to student attainment across a diverse range of formal educational settings. Despite this, the study of boredom, particularly among students in higher education, remains a relatively neglected and underdeveloped field. In this article, and following a systematic review of the research literature, we present details of a new research instrument and diagnostic tool derived from Farmer and Sundberg’s Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS), specifically intended to assess or measure the recurring propensity or habitual disposition of students to becoming bored particularly within the UK higher education context (e.g. further education, university college and university provision). Referred to here as the BPS-UKHE, to distinguish it from its predecessor, the statistical validity and reliability as well as educational relevance and meaningfulness of the BPS-UKHE is established, confirming its multidimensional nature with subscales (Tedium, Time, Challenge, Concentration and Patience) reflecting boredom’s acknowledged cognitive, affective, motivational and behavioural components. Full-scale, five-factor and three-factor ‘short-form’ solutions are offered, the immediate utility of which in identifying students more prone to boredom than others and gauging emotional response is demonstrated. The BPS-UKHE has application in many areas and is considered a valuable tool in relation to the UK student engagement agenda, its scales and potential, as well as theoretical underpinning, available for empirical use and critical comment.     

Barriers to Excellence Our Children at Risk

E&E reviews books, special journal issues, films, television specials, etc. related to educational equity and excellence. While reviews are solicited, proposals are welcome.     

A theory of change for student-led academic integrity

Breaches in academic integrity are a pervasive and enduring international concern to the overall quality of higher education. Despite students being the group most affected by academic integrity policies, organisational culture is such that students tend to be passive recipients of change initiatives, rather than the drivers. To deliver a paradigm change, a theory of change framework was designed, implemented and applied to explore the viability of a student-led academic integrity society. To achieve this, a national research project involving three stages of data collection (surveys, interviews and focus groups) was conducted to obtain the perspectives of students and student representatives. The key outcome of the project has been the recent launch of an academic integrity student society, a novel initiative outside the United States of America. The theory of change framework presented here seeks to offer guidance to other institutions contemplating the viability of student-led change to academic integrity and the establishment of academic integrity student societies, in particular.     

The path to mobile shopping compatibility

The mobile technology involves an unexplored world of doing business and consumer behavioral change that constitutes a revolution in the application of technologies to marketing. A key factor in the adoption of mobile commerce is the compatibility that the consumer perceives with his/her life. Given that the research on compatibility with mobile purchases made so far treats it as an antecedent of adoption, this pioneer research studies the influencing role of two more personal factors (self-efficacy and innovativeness) and two factors more related to the shopping (involvement and perceived entertainment). The model was tested using PLS with information from 583 Mexican mobile buyers. Our results show a positive effect of innovativeness, involvement and perceived entertainment on compatibility. On the contrary, self-efficacy does not seem to influence the perception of compatibility of mobile shopping with consumer life. This work has important implications for the practice of professionals dedicated to mobile commerce.