Student Sorting Research Articles

Learning of Reading Comprehension through Reading Workshop in the Industry 4.0

Reading comprehension is still considered as a part of new literacy required to encounter the Industry 4.0. Reading comprehension in this era is related to reading the data presented in technology. In addition to students’ ability to understand readings, students sort positive and negative information in a reading through reading comprehension. Students can also get used to utilize the internet access to read various information and stories. Therefore, the presence of the Industry 4.0 is considered to not have negative effects on students. This research focuses on examining the online magazine-based reading workshop model towards the improvement of fourth grade students’ reading comprehension skills. The research employed quasi experiment methods with a nonequivalent group design. The research sample was selected purposively from fourth grade students in primary schools in Cimahi City. The data were collected using the test of reading comprehension skills and were analyzed using inferential statistics with the assistance of the SPSS 21.0 program. Through this research, the researchers are expected that the online magazine-based reading workshop model has an effect on the improvement of the fourth-grade students’ reading comprehension skills.

Learning of Reading Comprehension through Reading Workshop in the Industry 4.0

Reading comprehension is still considered as a part of new literacy required to encounter the Industry 4.0. Reading comprehension in this era is related to reading the data presented in technology. In addition to students ability to understand readings, students sort positive and negative information in a reading through reading comprehension. Students can also get used to utilize the internet access to read various information and stories. Therefore, the presence of the Industry 4.0 is considered to not have negative effects on students. This research focuses on examining the online magazine-based reading workshop model towards the improvement of fourth grade students reading comprehension skills. The research employed quasi experiment methods with a nonequivalent group design. The research sample was selected purposively from fourth grade students in primary schools in Cimahi City. The data were collected using the test of reading comprehension skills and were analyzed using inferential statistics with the assistance of the SPSS 21.0 program. Through this research, the researchers are expected that the online magazine-based reading workshop model has an effect on the improvement of the fourth-grade students reading comprehension skills.

Social Promotion in Primary School: Effects on Grade Progression

This paper evaluates the effect of relaxing promotion criteria in early primary school on grade delay in later years. Exploiting variation in primary school repetition policies across Brazilian municipalities, we find that social promotion in junior primary years reduces grade delay, and that some of this reduction persists through the transition to senior primary school. Cohorts of twelve-year-old students who have been exposed to the social promotion policy since they were seven have almost 5 percentage points fewer members who are delayed a year or more in their studies than do similar cohorts who faced the threat of retention every year. We also find that, when the option is available, students sort across schools in response to the policy in a way consistent with negative selection into social promotion.

Being stable and getting along with others: perceived ability expectations and employability among Finnish university students

The aim of this study was to examine what sort of ability expectations university students have about the requirements of working life, and how the perception of these expectations relate to students’ perceptions of their own employability. The participants comprised a sample of students (N = 1819) from two Finnish universities, representing diverse fields of study. They were asked to describe themselves according to a set of abilities and to then indicate those abilities that would be particularly important for them in the labour market. It was found that being stable and getting along with others were the most commonly considered generic capabilities for coping in working life. Furthermore, those university students who identified entrepreneurial skills and extroversion as predominant ability requirements were prone to have relatively pessimistic perceptions of their employability possibilities. Accordingly, the results of the study suggest that students’ views of their expected abilities tend to shape their perceptions of their employment prospects, particularly with regard to entrepreneurial skills.

The impact of the school choice policy on student sorting: evidence from Seoul, South Korea

ABSTRACT This article examines the impact of a high school choice policy in Seoul, South Korea on school segregation by student performance levels. Seoul replaced random assignment of high schools with school choice in 2010. By exploiting the policy change, this article examines the effect of the school choice policy on student sorting by ability. Using rich administrative data, this article compares school segregation prior to and following the implementation of the high school choice policy in Seoul. We find that schools became segregated by student performance levels after the implementation of the school choice policy. Because of the high degree of racial and ethnic homogeneity of South Korea, the results of this article suggest that school choice increases school academic segregation independently from school racial segregation.

Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from an Advancement Program

AbstractThis paper examines the effects of a comprehensive performance pay program implemented in high‐need schools using administrative data from Louisiana. Exploiting the within‐student variation in the timing of implementation, we find a large and significant effect beginning with the second year of the program on math achievement. Similar but generally insignificant point estimates are observed in social studies. As for English Language Arts and science, there are no effects of the program. We provide evidence against changes in the composition of teacher workforce and postadoption student sorting as potential explanations for our results. We then show aggregate findings from a web‐survey that teachers may have altered their teaching practices following performance‐based compensation. Finally, under certain assumptions, we calculate the net present value of earnings impact to be close to a million dollars per school‐year for math.

Type of education and civic and political attitudes

In addition to increasing cognitive skills and preparing students for the labour market, one of the core tasks of education is to prepare citizens for participation in democracy. Considering the ideal of democratic equality, it is important to know the degree to which civic outcomes of education are distributed equally. One feature of the education system that can lead to differential civic outcomes is tracking, that is, the sorting of students into different types of education. In this study, we examine the relationship between type of education (general/academic or vocational) and five attitudinal dimensions of civic and political engagement between the ages of 14 and 49 years in the Netherlands. By using panel data from the Netherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study (n = 5,312) and applying linear fixed effects models, we can observe the effect of a transition in the type of education on the within‐person change in our outcome variables. The findings demonstrate that transitions in the type of education have little effect on intention to vote, trust in institutions or ethnic tolerance. However, students making transitions in general/academic education develop higher levels of interest in politics and generalised trust than do students in vocational education or people outside the education system. This point suggests that general/academic education fosters civic and political participation.

Not whether, but where? Pell grants and college choices

Pell grants are the largest financial aid vehicle in the United States, and yet, their role in shaping students' college choices is not clear. Drawing on the enrollment decisions of four cohorts of Tennessee high school graduates and quasi-experimental Pell eligibility derived from federal formulas, we find little evidence that marginal Pell eligibility affects whether or where students enroll in college. Inframarginal estimates suggest that students sort into colleges with 11.6 cents higher tuition per dollar of Pell aid, although other measures of college quality do not significantly improve over the counterfactual. An investigation into mechanisms that might be muting student responses to Pell favors the application process itself over grant size or institutional aid flexibility.

High School Role Models and Minority College Achievement

Large racial differences persist in college enrollment and major choice, which may be exacerbated by the racial distribution of high school teachers. In this paper, I present the first evidence that matching high school students with same-race teachers improves the students’ college outcomes. To address endogenous sorting of students and teachers, I use detailed Texas administrative data on classroom assignment, exploiting variation in student and teacher race within the same course, year, and school, eliminating 99% of observed same-race sorting. Race-matching raises minority students’ course performance as well as improves longer-term outcomes like high school graduation and college enrollment. Black and Hispanic students matching with a same-race teacher in a given subject also become more likely to major in that subject in college. Finally, I do not find any robust, significant effects of race-matching for White students, suggesting policies to make the teaching population more representative would benefit minority students with minimal negative spillovers to the White student population.

Bilingual Education and School Choice: A Case Study of Public Secondary Schools in the Spanish Region of Madrid

In the academic year of 2004-2005 the Spanish region of Madrid began to implement a bilingual educational programme in public schools. Currently, 45% of the public educational system (primary and secondary) participates in the bilingual programme of the Community of Madrid (hereinafter MBP). One of the objectives sought by this programme, but not the only one, is to make the study of a foreign language accessible to students from economically less favoured families (who have greater difficulty in meeting the cost of private language tutoring). Consequently, our study aims to analyse whether, as proposed, students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds effectively participate in the MBP. To comply with this objective, we estimate a model directed at identifying which factors influence the selection of a bilingual public school by families. The results obtained reveal that the MBP has led to the sorting of students by socioeconomic and cultural status, causing cream skimming within the public education sector in Madrid. This is due to the influence in the choice of a bilingual public school of factors such as the educational level and the mother’s immigrant status, the occupational level of the parents and the cultural capital of the household.

Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: twenty-first century student sorting and tracking

With the increase in the costs of providing education and concerns about financial responsibility, heightened consideration of accountability and results, elevated awareness of the range of teacher skills and student learning styles and needs, more focus is being placed on the promises offered by online software and educational technology. One of the most heavily marketed, exciting and controversial applications of edtech involves the varied educational programs to which different students are exposed based on how big data applications have evaluated their likely learning profiles. Characterized most often as ‘personalized learning,’ these programs raise a number of ethical concerns especially when used at the K-12 level. This paper analyzes the range of these ethical concerns arguing that characterizing them under the general rubric of ‘privacy’ oversimplifies the concerns and makes it too easy for advocates to dismiss or minimize them. Six distinct ethical concerns are identified: information privacy; anonymity; surveillance; autonomy; non-discrimination; and ownership of information. Particular attention is paid to whether personalized learning programs raise concerns similar to those raised about educational tracking in the 1950s. The paper closes with discussion of three themes that are important to consider in ethical and policy discussions.

How College Students Use Advanced Placement Credit

Millions of high school students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which can provide college credit. Using nationally representative data, I identify a diverse set of higher education outcomes that are related to receipt of AP college credit. Institution fixed effects regression reduces bias associated with varying AP credit policies and student sorting across higher education. Results indicate college credits earned in high school are related to reduced time to degree, double majoring, and more advanced coursework. Bounding exercises suggest the time to degree and double major outcomes are not likely driven by bias from unobserved student characteristics. Policies used to support earning college credits while in high school appear to enhance undergraduate education and may accelerate time to degree.

Evaluating Teacher Evaluation – Evidence From Chile

This study applies a quasi-experimental research design to evaluate the effects of Chile’s national teacher evaluation system on teacher productivity (as measured by student learning), on teaching behaviors, and on teacher beliefs. The paper’s identification strategy exploits a recent change in the evaluation assignment mechanism, together with a discontinuity in the evaluation system’s scoring mechanism. Jointly, these two factors provide plausibly exogenous variation in which teachers get newly evaluated, after two years. My econometric analysis is motivated by, and overcomes, two limitations of a simple regression-discontinuity approach: systematic sorting of teachers close to the cut-off score, as well as additional programs that also use the same cut-off to determine teacher eligibility. The study’s main results suggest that student learning, teacher beliefs, and teaching behaviors remain unaffected by a teacher’s reevaluation, both in the year of the evaluation and in the year thereafter. The article confirms that these findings are not driven by a teacher’s level of work experience, by student sorting, or by systematic attrition.

The Role of Families in Student Sorting to Teachers

This study leverages sibling identifiers merged to administrative school records to analyze the assignment of elementary students to teachers. We document significant sorting of students to their older sibling’s teachers, and this effect is stronger for relatively advantaged students. By analyzing the circumstances in which students are disproportionately assigned to their older sibling’s teacher, we provide indirect evidence regarding parental preferences for various teacher characteristics. We find stronger sorting to the older sibling’s teacher when that teacher is relatively experienced or has higher value-added. The sorting towards higher value-added teachers is significantly stronger for relatively advantaged students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School Readiness Assessments for Class Placements and Academic Sorting in Kindergarten

Kindergarten readiness assessments are commonly used in schools nationwide. Prior work shows that the use of such assessments for class placement decisions has increased in recent years. This article uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of 2011 to explore whether the use of readiness assessments for such purpose predicts differential sorting of students across classrooms by prior academic ability. Results from multilevel models as well as other sensitivity analyses suggest that the use of readiness assessments for classroom placements is predictive of slightly higher cross-class ability sorting, particularly in English/language arts. The implications for policy and practice are discussed.

The threat of competition and public school performance: Evidence from Poland

Theoretical literature on whether school competition raises public school productivity is ambiguous (e.g. MacLeod & Urquiola, 2015) and empirical evidence is mixed (e.g. Hsieh and Urquiola, 2006). Moreover, competition might itself be an outcome of changes in productivity (e.g. Hoxby, 2003). We provide evidence for the negative effect of the threat of competition on students’ test scores in elementary public schools in Poland. The identification strategy uses the introduction of the amendment facilitating the creation of autonomous schools in Poland in 2009 as an external shock to the threat of competition. We focus on the short run in which there is only a limited set of actions available to schools’ principals. For the total sample we find no effect, however, for more competitive urban educational markets, we report a drop in test scores in public schools following the increased threat of competition. This negative effect is robust to the existence of autonomous schools prior to the amendment and to the size of public schools. It does not result from a pre-existing or concurrent trend either. We exclude student sorting and adjustments in schools’ expenditures as potential channels.

The effectiveness and equity of public-private partnerships in education: A quasi-experimental evaluation of 17 countries

I estimate achievement effects of education public-private partnerships (PPPs) in 17 countries on the 2009 PISA assessment. Enrollment in PPP schools is tied to student wealth and prior academic ability. PPP students outperform their public peers on half of all outcomes. After accounting for selection, the PPP performance advantage remains on one-quarter of outcomes. However, nearly all of these performance differences are accounted for by school-level peer group effects. PPP schools are outperforming their public counterparts not through any advantages in productive efficiency but through sorting of more capable students.

The effects of making performance information public: Regression discontinuity evidence from Los Angeles teachers

This paper uses school-district data and a regression discontinuity design to study the effects of making teachers’ value-added ratings available to the public and searchable by name. We find that classroom compositions change as a result of this new information. In particular, high-scoring students sort into the classrooms of published, high-value added teachers. This sorting occurs when there is within school-grade variation in teachers’ value added.

Hubungan Penguasaan Konsep dengan Kemampuan Menilai Kredibilitas Sumber Informasi Menggunakan Problem Based Learning (PBL) pada Materi Pencemaran Lingkungan

The aim of this research was to reveal a relationship between students' concepts mastery on the matter of environmental pollution with the ability to assess the credibility of the source through problem-based learning. The type of research is pre-experiment which analyzed by correlation method. Then the study design using the post-test only design with a total sample of 39 students of grade 10 and for sampling technique uses simple-random sampling technique. Student’s concepts mastery on material environmental pollution are identified using the instrument in the form of multiple choice questions and essay question, while the level of ability to assess the credibility of the source is identified based on the accuracy of the students sort the level of credibility of source and the students' answers on the criteria that they use to sort the credibility of the source, which is scored with a rubric that has been made. The average score of students' mastery of concepts is 74.1 and quite good. In addition, through one sample t-test was also proven when problem-based learning have a real or significant influence on students' mastery of concepts in the matter of environmental pollution. Correlation test is then performed using the non parametric statistical using Spearman correlation, and got score 0.82 for correlation coefficient, which means having a high correlation with a contribution of 67.5%. Thus the conclusions that can be drawn is that there is a high correlation between students' concepts mastery on the matter of environmental pollution with the ability to assess the credibility of the source through problem-based learning.

Political connections and higher education

AbstractDo political connections affect investment in human capital? This paper studies the higher education decisions of politically connected and unconnected students during China's economic transition. Using the sequential introduction of reforms, I show that economic liberalization increased tertiary educational attainment, as well as sorting of students into different degree types depending on family background. Students whose parents were members of the Chinese Communist Party selected into relatively less prestigious vocational colleges with lower admissions standards. In contrast, politically unconnected individuals responded to the higher skill premium following the reforms by studying harder to obtain more demanding and sought‐after university degrees.