Economic returns to education: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and Where We Are Going—Some brief pointers

The estimation of the economic return to education has perhaps been one of the predominant areas of analysis in applied economics for over 50 years. In this short note we consider some of the recent directions taken by the literature, and also some of the blockages faced by both science and policymakers in pushing forward some key issues. This serves by way of introduction to a set of papers for a special issue of the Economics of Education Review.     

Does school time matter?—On the impact of compulsory education age on school dropout

A straightforward way to prevent students from leaving education without a higher secondary diploma is increasing the compulsory education age. The idea is that, by staying longer in school, more students eventually obtain a higher secondary diploma. This paper examines the impact of a one-year increase in compulsory school-age on dropping out of secondary education by a difference-in-differences analysis. For this, we exploit a recent compulsory education policy reform in the Netherlands. After controlling for confounding factors and observable covariates, we find that the one year increase in compulsory school-age reduces dropout by 2.5 percentage points. The effect, however, is entirely situated in the group non-liable to the policy reform. We observe that native Dutch vocational students, mostly without retention in grade, but also without a higher secondary diploma at hand, more often left school in the immediate period before the policy reform. Given the economic revival at that time, this may reflect anticipation of labor market opportunities.     

Is traditional teaching really all that bad? A within-student between-subject approach

Recent studies conclude that teachers are important for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually determines effective teaching. This study directly peers into the black box of educational production by investigating the relationship between lecture style teaching and student achievement. Based on matched student-teacher data for the US, the estimation strategy exploits between-subject variation to control for unobserved student traits. Results indicate that traditional lecture style teaching is associated with significantly higher student achievement. No support for detrimental effects of lecture style teaching can be found even when evaluating possible selection biases due to unobservable teacher characteristics.     

Immigration and student achievement: Evidence from Switzerland

This paper investigates empirically whether immigrant students in Switzerland perform poorly compared to their native counterparts and provides some explanations. Using a national sample of the 2000 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) database, we first analyze the impact of immigrant status on pupils’ achievement. We find a negative and significant impact of immigrant status on test scores in reading, mathematics and science literacy, even after controlling for a set of characteristics. We then decompose the observed reading score gap between Swiss and immigrant students to identify whether gaps in endowments explain test score differences along the distribution. Lower endowments explain most of the achievement gap in reading between Swiss and second-generation immigrants. However, lower returns explain around one quarter of the achievement gap between Swiss and first-generation immigrants for the weakest pupils.     

基于5C目标下大学英语课堂教学的思考

在经济全球化的今天,综合性外语能力对于日益频繁的国际交流与竞争的重要性是显而易见的.我国应把握大学英语课堂教学这一关键环节,适应国际环境,切实提高英语教学的实效性.美国在20世纪末提出的关于学习外语的基本理论<21世纪外语学习标准>被评价为体现了当代最新的语言习得理论,其主要内涵--"5C"标准,对我国的大学英语课堂教...     

大学生英汉翻译中的文化移情能力及培养

文化移情能力是翻译能力系统中最重要的内容之一,已经成为影响翻译质量和效果的关键因素。分析了文化移情的内涵,探讨了译者在英汉翻译过程中对英语文本作者和汉语读者的两次文化移情过程,提出加强母语文化教育、掌握英汉文化差异、克服民族文化偏见、提高换位思考能力等是提高大学生英汉翻译中的文化移情能力的有效途径。     

实时虚拟参考咨询服务新尝试——清华大学图书馆智能聊天机器人

实时虚拟参考咨询服务在图书馆服务中发挥着积极且重要的作用。清华大学图书馆基于开源软件A.L.I.C.E.开发出实时智能聊天机器人"小图",提供参考咨询、图书搜索、自我学习等多种服务,并将其推广至社交网络,取得良好的效果。     

学术论文审稿意见书V1.0软件的研发

针对目前各种审稿方法存在的问题,研究开发出学术论文审稿意见书V1.0软件。该绿色软件无须注册而直接运行,专用数据格式文件处理保存其各项数据,尤其是稿件评价自动得分、审稿意见、鼠标数字签名等保存后不可修改。该软件简单、易操作,自主性、普适性、保密性、真实性强,适于所有期刊编辑部审稿之用。     

刘湛恩与“沪江模式”下的图书馆

刘湛恩烈士是我国近代杰出的爱国主义教育家、上海沪江大学首任华人校长。他确立了教会大学中国化的沪江模式。其对沪江大学卓有成效的贡献,亦体现在沪江模式下的图书馆建设上。刘湛恩其人、其事,实属值得后人纪念,沪江大学图书馆以及今日的上海理工大学图书馆被命名为湛恩纪念图书馆,其意义即在于此。