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The past two decades have witnessed an exponential growth in the use of technology in our daily life. Notwithstanding its phenomenal influence, the use of technology in education remains sporadic and disjointed. The promise that technology will bring deep-seated changes in the way that educators teach and students learn remains, disappointedly, elusive. This paper argues that the lack of systemic frame of reference may have explanatory power over such less than impressive performance of ICT...

Quality assessment is one of the activities performed as part of systematic literature reviews. It is commonly accepted that a good quality experiment is bias free. Bias is considered to be related to internal validity (e.g., how adequately the experiment is planned, executed and analysed). Quality assessment is usually conducted using checklists and quality scales. It has not yet been proven, however, that quality is related to experimental bias. Aim: Identify whether there is a...

It has become commonplace to measure teacher quality in terms of teacher value-added. Operationally, this means evaluating teachers according to the learning gains of students on various achievement tests. Existing research consistently shows large variations in teacher effectiveness, much of which is within schools as opposed to between schools. The policy implications of these variations are dramatic. But the underlying statistical modeling has become the subject of intense research, in...

Healthcare providers, consumers, researchers and policy makers are inundated with unmanageable amounts of information, including evidence from healthcare research. It has become impossible for all to have the time and resources to find, appraise and interpret this evidence and incorporate it into healthcare decisions. Cochrane Reviews respond to this challenge by identifying, appraising and synthesizing research-based evidence and presenting it in a standardized format, published in The...

To the extent that students benefit from high-achieving peers, tracking will help strong students and hurt weak ones. However, all students may benefit if tracking allows teachers to better tailor their instruction level. Lower-achieving pupils are particularly likely to benefit from tracking when teachers have incentives to teach to the top of the distribution. We propose a simple model nesting these effects and test its implications in a randomized tracking experiment conducted with 121...

In 1987, the government of Ghana embarked on a process to decentralise education management to districts as part of wider social and democratic governance reforms. A central part of this reform was the prescription of active community participation in the affairs of schools within their locality. This paper explores the different meanings community participation had for school community stakeholders. It examines the multiple understandings of how community and school relations work and the...

In 1997, the Government of Sri Lanka launched a comprehensive set of education reforms designed to promote equitable access to basic education and improvements in learning outcomes. The package of reforms arose as a political response to widespread youth unrest in the late 1980s and attracted considerable ‘political will’, a vague but much vaunted term in the international policy discourse. Yet, despite seemingly high levels of national political will, reform has not been plain sailing....

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of resource centres in providing Continuing Professional Development to high school teachers in the Copperbelt Province.Major concerns have been expressed by various stakeholders that not enough has been done in enhancing and strengthening the concept of Continuing Professional Development among high school teachers. The Teacher Resource Centres that are supposed to be custodians of In-service Training of Teachers(INSET) now...

This study looked at the effects of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) through School Programmes for In -Service for the Term (SPRINT) on teacher classroom practices and student learning outcomes. The purpose of the study was to find out if SPRINT had any effect on teacher classroom practice and student learning outcomes. The target population was all Ndola high schools. The sample consisted of 196 respondents that is, five head teachers, five deputy heads, fifteen heads of ...

Improving the design and implementation of evidence-based practice depends on successful behaviour change interventions. This requires an appropriate method for characterising interventions and linking them to an analysis of the targeted behaviour. There exists a plethora of frameworks of behaviour change interventions, but it is not clear how well they serve this purpose. This paper evaluates these frameworks, and develops and evaluates a new framework aimed at overcoming their limitations.

Performance in Mathematics in secondary school Education in Kenya remains poor. Consequently the Kenya secondary school examination (KCSE) Mathematics results continue to cause concern to all the stakeholders in the education sector. Therefore, there is serious and urgent need for intervention. Although research has indicated that computer-assisted instruction (CAI) enhances student achievement, promotes positive attitudes towards Mathematics and instruction, and improves interpersonal...

This research study employs a second-order meta-analysis procedure to summarize 40 years of research activity addressing the question, does computer technology use affect student achievement in formal face-to-face classrooms as compared to classrooms that do not use technology? A study-level meta-analytic validation was also conducted for purposes of comparison. An extensive literature search and a systematic review process resulted in the inclusion of 25 meta-analyses with minimal overlap...

This paper considers the key problems confronting the Pakistan Planning Commission; briefly examines the essentials of planning for a mixed economy; draws lessons from the experience of countries, both developed and developing, that have formulated and implemented successful plans; and suggests measures to revitalize the Planning Commission. Some suggestions are put forward for continuous upgrading of the institution’s skills in the longer run. The paper also describes ways in which...

Research on social networks has grown considerably in the last decade. However, there is a certain amount of confusion about network theory — for example, what it is, what is distinctive about it, and how to generate new theory. This paper attempts to remedy the situation by clarifying the fundamental concepts of the field (such as the network) and characterizing how network reasoning works. We start by considering the definition of network, noting some confusion caused by two different...

Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already enough names. One must know when to stop. Knowing when to stop averts trouble. Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea. Lau Tsu, Tao Te Ching.