ABSTRACT The fall semester of 2020 brought a range of instructional modalities to university classrooms. Instructors at a large, public institution in the Midwest were allowed to choose between face-to-face, hybrid, online-synchronous, and online-asynchronous formats. The purpose of this study is to examine how students rated the effectiveness of courses using each of these different course instructional modalities. This investigation uses the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test to examine how the distribution of student ratings changed for courses in the fall 2020 semester by using the fall 2019 semester as a baseline. The results show that online-synchronous and online-asynchronous courses received lower evaluation scores in fall 2020 than when the same courses were taught by the same instructor using the face-to-face format in fall 2019. Meanwhile, the evaluation scores for face-to-face and hybrid courses in fall 2020 showed no statistically significant change from the fall 2019 scores.

ABSTRACT The study aims to present a framework, a so-called Quality Function Deployment (QFD) house, to enhance the service quality of higher education institutions (HEIs), supporting the institutional compliance management issues and processes. To develop the compliance QFD, questionnaires and focus group interviews were conducted to determine the service quality attributes, while the compliance management functions originated from a comprehensive literature review. This research describes and correlates ten service quality attributes at the institution level of HEIs and nine compliance management functions. The QFD results present the priority ranking of the examined compliance functions proposing improvement criteria based on higher education institutions’ general compliance and service quality management areas. These insights will be helpful to educational leaders to align compliance activities for student-perceived quality and also to leaders and policymakers in deriving a strategic plan on compliance management to improve the service quality offered to the stakeholders, primarily students.

ABSTRACT This study applied Cox Proportional Hazard model to determine the supply-side and demand-side factors associated with early school dropout in Pakistan. Hazard ratios are calculated using MICS6 data on children between the age of 5–17 years. The individual, collective and social factors are explored along with the role of education performance, readiness and schooling attributes. Child labor, poverty and cognitive and functional difficulty are found major impediments for successful transition to a higher level of schooling. The input measures such as regularity in homework, teacher’s feedback, presence of school governing body, active parent–teacher associations and the output indicator measured as learning scores are found to have a significant association in reducing school dropouts. The study also observes that early childhood readiness, better school infrastructure, education performance, readiness toward higher level schooling as well as higher level school availability considerably reduce the risk of school dropouts. A voucher scheme for education attainment specifically in impoverished regions could play an important role in improving school retention. The general principle of ‘access to education” must be prioritized toward “quality education” to improve the learning outcomes. Parental involvement and school governance system must also be strengthened vis-à-vis a conducive household environment for child development.

ABSTRACT General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) are the main school qualifications in England and Wales. Analysing GCSE outcomes is challenging because pupils study many subjects, each subject is awarded an individual grade, and there is no common or compulsory set of subjects. In this study we investigate inequalities in pupils’ highly individualised school GCSE profiles using latent variable models, with data from the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales (YCS). Four latent educational groups were identified. The identification of two distinctive groups with moderate levels of GCSE outcomes but different GCSE profiles, especially in science subjects, is an important new finding. The latent variable approach remains suitable for the numeric GCSE grading scheme (i.e., grades 1–9) first implemented in 2017, because the numerical grades are also discrete ordered categories. The approach is more broadly applicable to other educational systems where there is no compulsory set of subjects.

ABSTRACT This bibliometric analysis explored research trends on humanistic learning (HL) in higher education (HE), addressing a gap in understanding its integration into HE research. Using the PRISMA framework, 1,115 articles from Scopus were analysed, covering publication years, countries, authors, journals, and keywords. The year 2022 saw the highest output (n = 109), with the United States contributing most articles, overall (n = 855). The Journal of Chemical Education was the leading journal with an h-index of 21, and the University of Minnesota (n = 21) was a key institution in the field. Word cloud analysis highlighted “teaching” as a dominant term, emphasizing its role in HL research. Thematic and conceptual maps revealed major areas like student-centred learning, teacher education, and web-based education. Limitations include the dataset's focus on Social Sciences and specific metrics. Future studies could expand the dataset and apply other bibliometric tools for a more thorough analysis.

ABSTRACT Accounting-majored students in their final year of university program understand that they still have a long journey of both work and rigorous studies before earning their professional accounting designation. Even though the literature examines various factors, such as accountants’ job status and lifestyle affecting students’ self-efficacy, we argue that the perceived and persistent intrinsic passion of studying accounting as enjoyment becomes an important expected outcome from a high level of self-efficacy. Using survey questionnaires, this study explores what and how qualities of personal and environmental factors influence students’ enjoyment to remain self-motivated. As expected, empirical results exhibit that some personal factors have larger positive impacts in shaping accounting students’ level of enjoyment. Also, there are systematic differences in certain environmental factors that influence students’ enjoyment of studying accounting between a North American small university and an Asian large university.

ABSTRACT This study assesses school efficiency in six South-East Asian countries using OECD PISA 2018 data. The average PISA scores were 425.4 in mathematics, 429.5 in science, and 406.2 in reading, with Singapore scoring the highest and the Philippines lowest. Using stochastic frontier analysis, the study model's efficiency across these domains, finding average efficiency scores of 38.47% in math, 48.83% in science, and 49.82% in reading. The study also examines how ICT affects scores and efficiency, suggesting that internet-connected computers can improve PISA scores, while general computer availability may boost efficiency. This analysis offers a benchmark for schools in the region, providing insights into factors that influence both PISA performance and efficiency.

ABSTRACT Rapid changes and greater complexities bring new difficulties and place new expectations on our educational system. Teacher education programs must adapt to these changes and train pre-service teachers in various learning modalities. This study determined the readiness of pre-service teachers to teach online based on their technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) when they are grouped based on their profile. Through proportional random sampling, 400 third-year pre-service teachers were surveyed using comparative research. No significant difference in the readiness of pre-service teachers to online instruction based on their TPACK when grouped according to their sex and specialization. However, it was found that the respondents when grouped according to their specialization were different in terms of their Technological Knowledge and Technological Content Knowledge. This study suggests that as the era of technological changes emerged, the abilities of preservice teachers must be highly targeted to cope with dramatic changes in the educational landscape.

ABSTRACT Grading inflation is a major problem in academia. The paper’s purpose is to assess graduate students’ perception of grade inflation. Students’ results (n = 120) are examined by gender and grade point average. According to students, grade inflation is not a problem and grades accurately reflect performance. Respondents believe that some students feel entitled to receive a higher grade regardless of effort. Graduate students’ views of grade inflation did not differ based on their gender or grade point average. Further, grade inflation is seen as unethical but not personally relevant. Students, overall, are pragmatic in endorsing grade inflation remedies. They support those in their best interest.

ABSTRACT Suicide is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and post-secondary students are a particularly vulnerable group with respect to this. A systematic review was conducted to investigate the barriers associated with help-seeking for suicidality in this population, whilst exploring the quality of the literature. The databases PsychInfo, PsychArticles, MEDLINE, and Emcare were searched for publications up to the year 2022 inclusive, yielding ten publications. The most frequently cited barriers were lack of time and finance, questioning the seriousness of their own needs, wanting to deal with their problems on their own, perceiving stress to be a normal part of attending university/college, and perceived stigma. These barriers should be taken into consideration when designing suicide prevention strategies. Limitations of this review include the majority of studies within this review employing a cross-sectional design and only professional help-seeking. Future studies should employ longitudinal designs and investigate informal help-seeking.