Measuring Up

Measuring Up
Author: Daniel Koretz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2009-09-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674254988

How do you judge the quality of a school, a district, a teacher, a student? By the test scores, of course. Yet for all the talk, what educational tests can and can’t tell you, and how scores can be misunderstood and misused, remains a mystery to most. The complexities of testing are routinely ignored, either because they are unrecognized, or because they may be—well, complicated. Inspired by a popular Harvard course for students without an extensive mathematics background, Measuring Up demystifies educational testing—from MCAS to SAT to WAIS, with all the alphabet soup in between. Bringing statistical terms down to earth, Daniel Koretz takes readers through the most fundamental issues that arise in educational testing and shows how they apply to some of the most controversial issues in education today, from high-stakes testing to special education. He walks readers through everyday examples to show what tests do well, what their limits are, how easily tests and scores can be oversold or misunderstood, and how they can be used sensibly to help discover how much kids have learned.

Measuring Up in Higher Education

Measuring Up in Higher Education
Author: Anthony Welch
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2021-06-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9811579210

This book examines the quality assessment movement in academic scholarship, as globalization prompts a search for global measures of university services and output. It gauges productivity in terms of universal publication metrics, and considers ranking and research productivity from a comparative perspective. The book considers the use of the “impact factor” as a gauge of publication value, noting that this less important in countries lacking central government appropriations to universities and to research. It argues that pressure to publish in certain journals, and to research topics of interest to English language readers, has been felt differentially in English-language systems, compared to others, but also that performance pressures fall more on younger, more juniour, contract staff, than on senior and tenured professors. It problematizes international comparisons of quality, and analyses the benefits of a zone of ideas and metrics in a common language – promoting international mobility, efficiency, collaboration - but also the costs which are rarely borne equally across countries, languages and cultures. The book provides a strong, evidence-based contribution to major debates in contemporary higher education reforms and the measurement of academic output.

Improving Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education

Improving Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2013-01-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309257743

Higher education is a linchpin of the American economy and society: teaching and research at colleges and universities contribute significantly to the nation's economic activity, both directly and through their impact on future growth; federal and state governments support teaching and research with billions of taxpayers' dollars; and individuals, communities, and the nation gain from the learning and innovation that occur in higher education. In the current environment of increasing tuition and shrinking public funds, a sense of urgency has emerged to better track the performance of colleges and universities in the hope that their costs can be contained without compromising quality or accessibility. Improving Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education presents an analytically well-defined concept of productivity in higher education and recommends empirically valid and operationally practical guidelines for measuring it. In addition to its obvious policy and research value, improved measures of productivity may generate insights that potentially lead to enhanced departmental, institutional, or system educational processes. Improving Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education constructs valid productivity measures to supplement the body of information used to guide resource allocation decisions at the system, state, and national levels and to assist policymakers who must assess investments in higher education against other compelling demands on scarce resources. By portraying the productive process in detail, this report will allow stakeholders to better understand the complexities of-and potential approaches to-measuring institution, system and national-level performance in higher education.

Innovative Practices for Higher Education Assessment and Measurement

Innovative Practices for Higher Education Assessment and Measurement
Author: Cano, Elena
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2016-07-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1522505326

Both educators and their students are involved in the process of assessment – all parties are expected to meet and exceed expectations in the face of competing conditions. New practices are being developed to enhance students’ participation, especially in their own assessment, be it though peer-review, reflective assessment, the introduction of new technologies, or other novel solutions. Though widely researched, few have measured these innovations’ effectiveness in terms of satisfaction, perceived learning, or performance improvements. Innovative Practices for Higher Education Assessment and Measurement bridges the gap between political discourse, theoretical approach, and teaching practices in terms of assessment in higher education. Bringing new insights and presenting novel strategies, this publication brings forth a new perception of the importance of assessment and offers a set of successful, innovative practices. This book is ideal for educators, administrators, policy makers, and students of education.

Cases on Active Blended Learning in Higher Education

Cases on Active Blended Learning in Higher Education
Author: Padilla Rodriguez, Brenda Cecilia
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2021-02-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1799878589

Active blended learning (ABL) is a pedagogical approach that combines sensemaking activities with focused interactions in appropriate learning settings. ABL has become a great learning tool as it is easily accessible online, with digitally rich environments, close peer and tutor interactions, and accommodations per individual learner needs. It encompasses a variety of concepts, methods, and techniques, such as collaborative learning, experiential learning, problem-based learning, team-based learning, and flipped classrooms. ABL is a tool used by educators to develop learner autonomy, engaging students in knowledge construction, reflection, and critique. In the current educational climate, there is a strong case for the implementation of ABL. Cases on Active Blended Learning in Higher Education explores strategies and methods to implement ABL in higher education. It will provide insights into teaching practice by describing the experiences and reflections of academics from around the world. The chapters analyze enablers, barriers to engagement, outcomes, implications, and recommendations to benefit from ABL in different contexts, as well as associated concepts and models. While highlighting topics such as personalized university courses, remote service learning, team-based learning, and universal design, this book is ideal for in-service and preservice teachers, administrators, instructional designers, teacher educators, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in pedagogical approaches aligned to ABL and how this works in higher education institutions.

Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education

Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education
Author: Nathan D. Grawe
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1421424134

"The economics of American higher education are driven by one key factor--the availability of students willing to pay tuition--and many related factors that determine what schools they attend. By digging into the data, economist Nathan Grawe has created probability models for predicting college attendance. What he sees are alarming events on the horizon that every college and university needs to understand. Overall, he spots demographic patterns that are tilting the US population toward the Hispanic southwest. Moreover, since 2007, fertility rates have fallen by 12 percent. Higher education analysts recognize the destabilizing potential of these trends. However, existing work fails to adjust headcounts for college attendance probabilities and makes no systematic attempt to distinguish demand by institution type. This book analyzes demand forecasts by institution type and rank, disaggregating by demographic groups. Its findings often contradict the dominant narrative: while many schools face painful contractions, demand for elite schools is expected to grow by 15+ percent. Geographic and racial profiles will shift only slightly--and attendance by Asians, not Hispanics, will grow most. Grawe also use the model to consider possible changes in institutional recruitment strategies and government policies. These "what if" analyses show that even aggressive innovation is unlikely to overcome trends toward larger gaps across racial, family income, and parent education groups. Aimed at administrators and trustees with responsibility for decisions ranging from admissions to student support to tenure practices to facilities construction, this book offers data to inform decision-making--decisions that will determine institutional success in meeting demographic challenges"--

Productivity in Higher Education

Productivity in Higher Education
Author: Caroline M. Hoxby
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2019-11-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022657458X

How do the benefits of higher education compare with its costs, and how does this comparison vary across individuals and institutions? These questions are fundamental to quantifying the productivity of the education sector. The studies in Productivity in Higher Education use rich and novel administrative data, modern econometric methods, and careful institutional analysis to explore productivity issues. The authors examine the returns to undergraduate education, differences in costs by major, the productivity of for-profit schools, the productivity of various types of faculty and of outcomes, the effects of online education on the higher education market, and the ways in which the productivity of different institutions responds to market forces. The analyses recognize five key challenges to assessing productivity in higher education: the potential for multiple student outcomes in terms of skills, earnings, invention, and employment; the fact that colleges and universities are “multiproduct” firms that conduct varied activities across many domains; the fact that students select which school to attend based in part on their aptitude; the difficulty of attributing outcomes to individual institutions when students attend more than one; and the possibility that some of the benefits of higher education may arise from the system as a whole rather than from a single institution. The findings and the approaches illustrated can facilitate decision-making processes in higher education.

Measuring Up

Measuring Up
Author: Vickie Rutledge Shields
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0812204026

The mute gestures of advertising images are frozen for posterity by photographers and illustrators, gestures that, for better or worse, perpetuate a certain aesthetic and eventually become emblematic of a period. The images of today display the values of a society that has more interest in the body than the mind. They are technoenhanced labyrinths of unattainable appearances that leave women and men feeling horrified, estranged, and restricted by unrealistic, silent mandates. Measuring Up looks at advertising as more than just a way to extract money from unsuspecting people but as a vehicle for conveying the larger views of a confining, body-obsessed culture. By weaving theoretical and textual insights from feminist and cultural studies with the voices of real women and men, Measuring Up offers a unique reception analysis of the effects of repetitious exposure to advertisements of perfect bodies in our everyday lives. Shields examines a particular, complex relationship between the idealized images of gender we see in advertising and our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior in relation to these images. The study is unique in presenting audience reception in terms of ethnographic data, not textual interpretations alone. Measuring Up engages with and informs current theoretical debates within these sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory literatures: feminist media studies, feminist film theory, critical social theory, cultural studies, and critical ethnography. This is an important work that explores the forms and channels of power used in one of the most insidious and overt means of mass influence in popular culture.

Transforming University Education

Transforming University Education
Author: Paul Ashwin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2020-09-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1350157260

What is a university degree for? What can it offer to students? Is it only about getting a job? How can we measure the quality of an undergraduate degree? Paul Ashwin shows how, around the world, economic arguments have come to dominate our thinking about the purpose and nature of university education. He argues that we have lost a sense of the educational purposes of an undergraduate degree and the ways in which going to university can transform students' lives. Ashwin challenges a series of myths related to the purposes, educational processes, and quality of an undergraduate education. He argues that these myths have fuelled the current misunderstanding of the educational aspects of higher education and explores what is needed to reinvigorate our understanding of a university education. Throughout, Ashwin draws on his deep engagement with international research to offer an accessible and thought-provoking analysis of the nature of university education.