The Effect of Schools and Classes on Noncognitive Outcomes

This article reports on the effects of individual background characteristics, classes, and schools on 4 noncognitive outcomes at the end of the 1st cycle secondary education in Flanders. The outcomes are: the degree to which the student feels at home in the school environment, the extent to which the student does his/her best for the school work, the academic self-concept, and the social integration in the class. Firstly, the raw class and school effects are estimated. Secondly, a broad set of background variables is introduced to isolate the net class and school effects. Thirdly, class and school composition variables are introduced. Finally, the additional predictive power of a number of other student, class, and school characteristics is documented.     

Integration of Psychology,Economics and Information Technology in an Engineering Curriculum

Engineers often work together with professionals from entirely different areas. Therefore, it is important for the engineers to understand enough of these other areas, where technology is used, to obtain good results. To this aim a term has been developed within the civil engineering curriculum in information technology at Linköpings universitet, where the students work and study together with students from the psychology and economics education programs. The information technology and economics students build companies together and perform a project. The psychology students act as consultants for the different companies. Subjects from six departments are integrated into the project. The students work and study together for different parts of the project, although the learning goals differ between the different programs. The cooperation in the project leads to a transfer of information and knowledge between the students. Experience also suggests that the students obta in a better motivation and an integrated view of technology and the other areas as a result of the integrated project. The learning method also promotes cooperation and understanding between different professional cultures.     

Improving comprehension online: effects of deep vocabulary instruction with bilingual and monolingual fifth graders

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of an Internet-delivered universally designed depth of vocabulary intervention that targeted both English-speaking and Spanish–English-speaking students. Two hundred forty students, 49% of whom were Spanish–English bilinguals, participated in the 16-week intervention. Intervention students read eight multimedia texts with embedded instruction on 40 words and reading strategy support. Students could access all texts and activities in Spanish and English. In comparison to a control group, there were significant intervention effects on a standardized measure of vocabulary knowledge, but effects were non-significant for comprehension. Similarly, significant effects on researcher-developed measures of vocabulary depth were detected, but not for a researcher-developed measure of breadth.     

Effect of Secondary Schools on Academic Choices and on Success in Higher Education

Follow-up data from a group of final-grade students of the 65 schools that participated in the Flemish Longitudinal Research in Secondary Education project (Van Damme, De Fraine, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2002) were collected to study the long-term effects of the secondary school on the educational choice when leaving secondary education and on subsequent outcomes in higher education. Multilevel logistic regression models showed significant long-term effects of secondary schools on both outcome variables. Indications are found that the effects are mediated by the achievement level of the students at the end of secondary education. An important additional finding was that grade repetition has negative long-term consequences after leaving secondary education, which raises questions about a justified policy regarding students that are at risk of academic failure.