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Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the first to assess consistency of results by agency. We find results vary by agent, but consistent with Flynn effects, gains are larger in math than reading, except for the most recent period. Non-whites progress at a faster pace. Socio-economically disadvantaged white, black, and Hispanic students make greater progress when tested in elementary school, but that advantage attenuates and reverses itself as students age. We discuss potential moderators.

This paper studies the contribution of parental influence in accounting for cross-country gaps in human capital achievements. We argue that the cross-country variation in unobserved parental characteristics is at least as important as the one in commonly used observable proxies of parental socio-economic background. We infer this through an indirect empirical approach, based on the comparison of the school performance of second-generation immigrants. We document that, within the same host country or even the same school, students whose parents come from high-scoring countries in the PISA test do better than their peers with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Differential selection into emigration does not explain this finding. The result is larger when parents have little education and have recently emigrated, suggesting the importance of country-specific cultural traits that parents progressively lose as they integrate in the new host country, rather than of an intergenerational transmission of education quality. Unobserved parental characteristics account for about 15% of the cross-country variance in test scores, roughly doubling the overall contribution of parental influence.

The digital revolution and automation are accelerating changes in the labour market and in workplace skills, changes that are further affected by fluctuations in international and regional economic cycles and employment opportunity. These factors pose a universal policy challenge for all advanced economies and governments. In the workplace, people seek to acquire contemporary and relevant skills to gain employment and retain transferable skills to maintain employment. The central purpose of this paper is to investigate how other nations or regions are dealing with these issues. What approaches are they taking to understanding the mix and dynamics of the skills attained by individuals and, more broadly, the totality of skills that in aggregate constitute a highly capable and adaptable labour force, one that supports firm viability and greater national productivity. This research has examined a range of initiatives and approaches being developed or in use in selected countries, including the United States, Singapore and New Zealand, and agencies/organisations; for example, the European Commission and the Skills for the Information Age Foundation. In doing so, it showcases the good practices used to ensure that occupational-level skills information remains current and widely accessible. [For "Identifying Work Skills: International Case Summaries. Support Document," see ED579875.]

The place of women in the manual trades is examined in this paper, which sets out strategies for encouraging them to study and work in areas such as building and construction. Such strategies include introductory and pre-apprenticeships courses, clustering female students, and support from teachers in opening up job opportunities. This paper is the result of a 2008 NCVER New Researcher Award. (Contains 2 tables.)

The purpose of this study is to explore aspects and indicators most commonly used to assess the quality of education systems in different countries through the comparison of 12 national publications describing the state of the educational system. To compare indicators the CIPP model was chosen. This model is organized in four main parts: Context, Input, Process and Product. Each main part was then divided into categories based on the research literature (e.g., Input is divided into human, financial and material resources). Based on the CIPP model an electronic database for quality indicators comparison has been designed and implemented. This system is dynamic and easy to update. Using the database it is possible to compare countries according to several criteria (e.g., main parts and categories of the CIPP model, ISCED [International Standard Classification of Education] level, level of data collection). The database is available to the public and is designed for researchers and scholastic decision makers. A first comparison shows that processes at the classroom level are rarely considered, whereas public financial resources as well as achievement results are always included. The study concludes with a discussion of the findings of the comparison, as well as suggestions for future research aimed at further defining relevant indicators for the assessment of education quality." An appendix presents: "The on-line database: structure and functions. (Contains 5 figures and 7 footnotes.) [This paper was produced by INVALSI - National Institute for the Educational Evaluation of Instruction and Training.]

This project on national standards and accreditation of career practitioners is set against a background of unprecedented interest by governments nationally and internationally in the provision of career guidance services. Currently more is known about the policy and delivery of career guidance than at any other time in history. There is growing interest in the relationship between career guidance and public policy because the benefits of career guidance to individuals, society and the economy have been recognised. In this regard, strategic alliances are being formed between career guidance practitioners and policy makers in order that policy commitments relating to the provision of quality career services are enhanced. Such an alliance is evidenced in the collaboration between the Department of Education, Science and Training and the Career Industry Council of Australia on this project. This project constitutes a very necessary step in a move towards a quality industry. The purpose of this scoping paper is to: (1) identify current standards guiding career practitioners in Australia; (2) review international work on standards including examples of best practice and advise on how this work might be relevant to the development of national standards and accreditation in the Australian context; (3) be informed by outcomes of national workshops, forums, and conferences 2000-2004; (4) identify the current membership requirements of professional career associations and bodies both nationally and internationally; (5) assess how prior learning or qualifications might be recognised and developed to fit within and meet the requirements of the quality standards; and (6) identify the issues that need to be addressed in the development of national standards. To achieve this purpose, this paper is structured around four main sections--international quality standards, national quality standards, standards guiding Australian professions, and the Australian career industry. Following this a number of themes related to the development and implementation of quality standards will be elaborated. A number of issues relating to the development and implementation of quality standards and accreditation in the Australian career industry will then be raised. Appended are: (1) Glossary of terms; (2) Table of Comparative Competencies; (3) Entry-level Qualifications of Australian Career Practitioner Associations; (4) Standards of Australian Career Practitioner Associations; and (5) Comparison of Quality Standards Across Career Case Studies.

Growth in mixed-sector institutions offering both vocational and higher education qualifications is expected to increase given recent and predicted policy changes. This issues paper focuses on the provision and management of higher education in technical and further education (TAFE) institutes. Issues raised for discussion include the governance of mixed-sector institutions as well as ensuring access and maintaining progression to higher education without sectoral division in the institution. Implications arising from the Bradley review of higher education are canvassed and the authors are inviting discussion on a range of questions related to the nature of policies and practices influencing the provision of higher education in TAFE. A section listing the TAFE institutes that have been registered to offer higher education qualifications and their accredited higher education qualifications, at February 2009 is appended. (Contains 5 tables and 3 footnotes.) [Funding for this document was provided through the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.]

Within the context of the school finance literature, the concepts of equity and adequacy raise a number of complex definitional and pragmatic issues. The purpose of this paper is to clarify those issues and to use those concepts to evaluate the recent policy proposal called Weighted Student Funding (WSF). Though WSF contains some equity-enhancing elements, it is likely to fall short of its equity goals because the weights are likely to be inappropriate and the approach fails to take full account of the concentrations of challenging-to-educate students and their effects on the distribution of teachers. In addition, the WSF proposal can be faulted for paying no attention to adequacy, potentially stigmatizing individual students, and placing so much focus on individual schools. A more complete evaluation of WSF would require a broader institutional perspective that extends beyond the equity and adequacy considerations of this article. (Contains 8 footnotes.)

"Can You Hear Me? The Right of Young Children to Participate in Decisions Affecting Them" emphasises that participation enhances children's self-esteem and confidence, promotes their overall capacities, produces better outcomes, strengthens understanding of and commitment to democratic processes and protects children more effectively. Participation provides the opportunity for developing a sense of autonomy, independence, heightened social competence and resilience. The benefits are therefore significant, and adults with both direct and indirect responsibility for children need to acquire a greater humility in recognising that they have a great deal to learn from children. But the case for listening to young children goes beyond the beneficial outcomes. It is also a matter of social injustice and human rights. All people, however young, are entitled to be participants in their own lives, to influence what happens to them, to be involved in creating their own environments, to exercise choices and to have their views respected and valued. (Contains 4 footnotes.)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 35 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. The Organisation for works with countries to develop skills strategies tailored to specific needs and contexts. The Organisation prepared a global skills strategy outline over the period 2011 to 2013. Each national skills strategy country project offers a tailored approach to focus on the unique skills challenges, context and objectives of each country. Each project leverages OECD comparative data and policy analysis, fosters collaboration across ministerial portfolios and levels of government while engaging all relevant stakeholders--employers, trade unions, and civil society organisations. In its paper "Towards an OECD Skills Strategy" (OECD 2013), the OECD sets out the main issues which must be addressed by efficient and effective policies for skills formation and skills use. The majority of material in each of the 13 case summaries presented here has been lifted mostly verbatim from original sources. These sources are stated at the beginning of each case summary. [This document is an added resource for the report "Identifying Work Skills: International Approaches. Discussion Paper" which can be accessed in ERIC at ED579874.]

We consider the question whether pupils from the lower social strata perform better in private government-dependent schools than in public or private-independent schools, using the PISA 2000 data on European high schools. In the eighty's, Coleman and Hoffer (1987) found in the USA that the performance of these pupils was better at religious schools than at comparable public schools. Dronkers and Robert (2003) found in PISA-data for 19 comparable countries that private government-dependent schools are more effective then comparable public schools, also after controlled for characteristics of pupils and parents and the social composition of the school. The main explanation appeared to be a better school climate in private government-dependent schools. Private independent schools were less effective than comparable public schools, but only after controlling for the social composition of the school. As a follow-up we now investigate, again with the PISA-data of these 19 countries, whether this positive effect of private government-dependent schools differs between pupils from different strata. We use various indicators to measure social strata: social, cultural and economic. We expect that the thesis of Coleman & Hoffer does hold for private government-dependent schools, because in these 19 countries they are mostly religious schools, which have more opportunities to form functional communities and create social capital. But for private independent schools, which due to their commercial foundation are less often functional communities, this relation is not expected to hold. However, the results show that public and private schools have mostly the same effects for the same kind of pupils and thus mostly not favor one kind of pupils above another kind of pupils. But private government-dependent schools are slightly more effective for pupils with less cultural capital. However, private independent schools are also more effective for pupils from large families or low status families. (Contains 4 tables, 12 notes and a list of 25 Literature Resources .)

Many countries around the world are engaged in large-scale, government-mandated education reform. To explicate the working of these reforms, a study of government-mandated reform in New Zealand, England, Canada, and the United States is described. The paper reports on some of the main issues that are emerging, including the finding that current reforms in these areas seem to embody a sharp break from what might be called the "post-war consensus" on education policy, both in terms of substance and in policy processes. Education policy is becoming more polarized and there are many fears about the negative consequences of current directions. The focus is on three areas in reform efforts: (1) the centralization of curriculum coupled with large-scale testing of students and evaluation of schools; (2) the decentralization of management responsibility from intermediate bodies to individual schools; and (3) the introduction of elements into a market system of education. The paper looks at the commonalities and differences in reform and the shift away from past practices. Public education is being reshaped but that the situation is diverse and that reform usually marks less of a change than rhetoric suggests. (Contains 30 references.) (RJM)

Many countries' reform efforts are government-directed programs that are driven by the government rather than by educators or bureaucrats. A comparative analysis of this type of reform, with a focus on Canada, is presented here. The paper raises questions about the international character of education reform by comparing the Canadian experience with that of several other countries. It examines issues of commonality across jurisdictions, which is followed by another look through a Canadian lens. The text focuses on four aspects of reform: (1) the sources of reforms as initially proposed by governments, the role of various actors and forces in originating reforms, and the assumptions about education and reform; (2) what happened to reforms between their initial proposal and their actual passage into law; (3) the steps taken to implement reforms and the model of implementation that was used; and (4) the available evidence as to the effects of reforms, with particular attention to what may be known about how the reforms have affected student outcomes and learning processes. Subjects covered in the paper include the context of education reform in Canada, commonalities in reform, factors promoting commonality, significant differences, factors promoting differences, Canadian perspectives, and the unique nature of education reform in Canada. (Contains 62 references.) (RJM)

In today's world where tuition fees continue to rise rapidly and the demand for higher education increases in both the developing and developed world, it is important to find additional and alternative learning pathways that learners can afford. Traditional education as we have known it has begun to change, allowing for new parallel learning opportunities to take shape and new avenues to open up. This paper describes the world's largest online training initiative on open education that teaches wiki technology to educators in the formal education sector worldwide. WikiEducator, founded in 2006, initially operated with funding support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (WFHF) under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources, and technology. In May 2009, it became its own entity residing under Otago Polytechnic's International Centre for Open Education Resources under the auspices of the Open Education Resource Foundation (OERF) in Dunedin, New Zealand, where it continues today. WikiEducator's flagship, the Learning4Content (L4C) project, builds capacity among global educators by teaching wiki technology to newcomers and experts in the field of open education. In exchange for the free training opportunity they receive, participants are asked to create open content on WikiEducator and contribute toward WikiEducator's strategic objectives. The success of the L4C project helped WikiEducator reach its target number of equipping 2,500 educators with wiki skills to create open educational resources online two years ahead of the initially planned three years and was the reason for a large additional number of novices and experts alike joining the project. Even though many learners make use of the free learning opportunities offered through the L4C project, for those who do not have access to online content--or even computers--WikiEducator has developed a feature called "wiki-to-print," which allows users to select free and open WikiEducator content and combine it into a book that can be printed and used offline. Distribution of these print-based, compiled books provides an opportunity to those who do not or will never have access to the Internet and technology to gain access to knowledge and information. This paper will describe WikiEducator's stages of development and the outcomes it has achieved as the world's largest attempt to build wiki skills among global educators.

A comparative analysis of preparatory programs for educational administrators in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand is presented in this paper. The purposes of the paper are to describe similarities and differences in educational administration programs, to compare selected characteristics of programs in these countries with programs in the United States, and to identify common concerns that may merit further attention. Characteristics of programs compared include stage of development, enrollments, type of students, program content and structure, and instructional methods. These countries all participated in the parallel studies of preparatory programs initiated by the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and the University Council for Educational Administration and conducted by researchers in each of the five countries. This paper draws on the reports of those studies submitted to the 1978 International Intervisitation Program at Vancouver, British Columbia, in May, 1978. (Author/JM)

Education is recognized to be a key factor of economic development, not only giving access to technological progress as emphasized by the Schumpeterian growth theory, but also entailing numerous social externalities such as the demographic transition (Murtin, 2009) or democratization (Murtin and Wacziarg, 2010). If the evolution of world distributions of income and longevity over the last two centuries have been described by Bourguignon and Morrisson (2002), changes in the world distribution of education have remained unexplored until now, despite their major importance. How has global education inequality evolved over the twentieth century? How should it be measured? Up to now, existing studies on education inequality have had limited spatial and time coverage. For example, Castello and Domenech (2002) and Thomas et al. (2001) provide a descriptive analysis of years of schooling inequality for a broad panel of countries, but their study starts only in 1960. Also, they remain at the country level and do not consider the world distribution of years of schooling, which takes into account educational differences both within and between countries. In contrast, this paper depicts the world distribution of education over 140 years, improving and extending the database recently released by Morrisson and Murtin (2009), which focuses on average years of schooling. The authors provide both average years of schooling and the distribution of education as summarised up by four quantiles in each country. Importantly, this new database is cross-validated by historical data on illiteracy rates. Then, they describe average stocks of primary, secondary and tertiary schooling by region since 1870, and estimate world inequality in years of schooling, which has been dramatically reduced since 1870. Focusing on the measurement of education inequality, this paper raises an important methodological issue. The authors show that a substantial share of inequality in years of schooling can be mechanically explained by a single component of the distribution of education, namely the population that has not attended school, subsequently called the illiterate population. Actually, they find that the observed decrease in inequality in years of schooling over the XXth century is almost entirely explained by the decline in illiteracy. They believe that this result, derived both theoretically and empirically, could help to reconsider an empirical fact discussed in the literature on education inequality (see Berthelemy (2006)), namely the cross-country negative correlation between the average of and the inequality in years of schooling. This correlation mainly reflects the negative and mechanical correlation between average schooling and the illiteracy rate. In line with a recent macroeconomic literature (see for instance Hall and Jones (1999)), the authors then turn to human capital as defined by Mincer (1974), in order to confer a monetary dimension to education. They propose estimates of the world inequality in human capital, examining several definitions for human capital. They focus on one functional form in particular, which accounts for the existence of diminishing returns to schooling. It is the only one that can account for the cross-country negative correlation between Mincer returns to schooling and average years of schooling, as described by Psacharopoulos and Patrinos (2004). At the national level, they find that that human capital inequality within countries has increased then stabilized or even decreased in most regions of the world. When plotted against average years of schooling, human capital inequality within countries has clearly followed an inverted U-shape curve, namely a "Kuznets curve of education". At the global level, they also find that human capital inequality has increased from 1870 to approximatively 1970, then has decreased. They interpret these findings as a consequence of mass education and the existence of diminishing returns to schooling. (Contains 6 tables, 6 figures and 14 footnotes.)

Technological advances in communication and transportation have increased educational opportunities for post-secondary education students around the globe. Individuals and information now travel quicker and cheaper between countries and continents. Post-secondary institutions no longer have a local, jurisdictional or even domestic focus; their vision is global. Furthermore, governments and employers recognize that the workforce of the future must include well-trained, globally aware professionals with international work experience who can solve economic and social problems. At the same time, students and faculty are becoming increasingly interested in spending time in different academic environments, often in foreign surroundings. The length of stay can range from one semester to the pursuit of a full academic credential. A proper protocol (or mechanism) designed to recognize previous academic performance is essential in ensuring a full range of student mobility options. It is for this reason that credit transfer and student mobility are linked. Credit transfer systems provide the lubricant to ensure seamless academic mobility. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explain student mobility and credit transfer in a conjoined fashion. The first half of the paper will center on student mobility and what it means to the post-secondary system. The barriers which prevent the free flow of students from jurisdiction to jurisdiction will also be focused upon. Additional sections will examine the role finance, information and most importantly--academics--play in the restriction of opportunity. Next, the paper will investigate measures designed by post-secondary institutions and governments to assist increased mobility opportunities. The mobility section will end with a detailed analysis of the Canadian performance on select mobility measures and provide additional information on the mobility picture in the main international post-secondary education systems (e.g. United States and the United Kingdom). The second half of the paper will examine how post-secondary education credits act as a form of knowledge "currency" and how the issue of credit recognition is best seen as a policy issue which requires the "exchange" of one institution's credits into a currency that other institutions can freely accept. It will examine how credit transfer works in various Canadian jurisdictions, the role played by Credit Transfer Councils in certain jurisdictions and how transfer information is ultimately conveyed to the student, parent, guidance counsellor or post-secondary institution. Finally, a detailed analysis of credit transfer systems in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union will be provided. National Policies on Credit Transfer is appended. (Contains 8 tables, 2 figures and 10 footnotes.

This paper represents the second of two papers written as part of the National Standards and Accreditation of Career Practitioners project. The first, a scoping paper titled Shaping a career development culture: Quality standards, quality practice, quality outcomes (McMahon, 2004), provided information for and guided discussion at the National Forum for Career Practitioners held in Sydney on 25-26 August 2004. The purpose of the scoping paper was to: (1) identify current standards guiding career practitioners in Australia; (2) review international work on standards including examples of best practice and advise on how this work might be relevant to the development of national standards and accreditation in the Australian context; (3) be informed by outcomes of national workshops, forums, and conferences 2000-2004; (4) identify the current membership requirements of professional career associations and bodies both nationally and internationally; (5) assess how prior learning or qualifications might be recognised and developed to fit within and meet the requirements of the quality standards; and (6) identify the issues that need to be addressed in the development of national standards. The National Forum for Career Practitioners began the consultation phase of the project. Participation in the Forum was by invitation, and invitees represented the stakeholder groups identified in the scoping paper. Represented at the Forum were groups as diverse as career practitioners, career practitioner associations, CICA (Career Industry Council of Australia), policy makers, consumers/clients, parents, training providers, business and industry, employers of career practitioners, and service providers. During the Forum, group work and discussion were based on issues identified in the scoping paper. Individual and group responses, opinions, ideas and suggestions were recorded during the Forum on activity sheets that were then collated (McCowan, 2004). It was not intended to bring closure on any items raised during the Forum, but rather to open up issues for the next phase of the consultation process to be managed by Miles Morgan Australia (McCowan). The present paper serves as a record of the Forum discussion, and as a bridge between the scoping paper, the Forum, and the consultation phase of the project. Four sets of issues were presented in the scoping paper and discussed at the Forum, specifically: (1) industry membership and associated terminology; (2) the development and implementation of the quality standards; (3) the administration, management and maintenance of the standards; and (4) the role of stakeholder groups. Each issue will now be discussed. First, a brief background to the issue as described in the scoping paper will be presented. This will be followed by an outline of the Forum process and a summary of the discussion. Finally, issues that may warrant further exploration in the consultancy process will be discussed where possible by drawing on the case studies presented in the scoping paper. Where appropriate, comments made by Forum participants will be included in quotation marks. Appended are: (1) Comparison of ethical codes; (2) Comparison of models of continuing professional development; (3) Comparison of competencies; and (4) Timeline developed by a Forum participant. (Contains 2 tables.) [For the first report, "Scoping Paper--Shaping a Career Development Culture: Quality Standards, Quality Practice, Quality Outcomes," see ED536209.]

This conceptual framework is grounded in the data analysis of transcribed interviews with 50 Ontario teachers and the text of a 7-month online discussion group among 25 principals from England, Ireland, Canada, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Both methods were employed with the stated purpose of understanding emotional experiences of educational leadership. A normative professional silence about emotion renders inner-emotional processes largely unacknowledged in the legitimate discourses of educational leadership research, theory, and practice. Like cognitive processes, emotional ways of knowing also affect our experience of self, the ways we engage with others, our public image, our comfort with ambiguity, our level of need for control, the ways we experience leading and teaching, and our sense of moral community. Cognitive epistemological frameworks have conceptualized "connection" as important for developing more complex forms of thinking. This paper proposes that emotional ways of knowing are also epistemological. It argues that emotional epistemologies work in ways similar to cognitive processes. In this conception of emotional epistemologies are the themes of silence, authority, connection, and context that emerged as central to these teachers' and leaders' emotional meaning-making systems. The model suggests that emotional epistemologies can function differently in different contexts and become open to transformation and development. (Contains 71 references.)(RT)

The phrase, "digital divide," has been applied to the gap that exists in most countries between those with ready access to the tools of information and communication technologies and the knowledge that they provide access to, and those without such access or skills. This gap may be because of socio-economic, geographical, educational, attitudinal, or generational factors, or it may be through physical disabilities. A further gap between the developed and underdeveloped world in the uptake of technology is evident within the global community and may be of even greater significance. This paper examines a number of these issues at the national level in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, looking for evidence of the digital divide, assessing factors that contribute to it, and evaluating strategies that can help reduce it. The relevance of these strategies to developing countries, strategies for reducing the international digital divide, and the role of libraries in reducing the digital divide at the national and global level are also explored. (Contains 14 references.) (Author/MES)

In 2013, the National Academy of Education's (NAEd) report on teacher education program evaluation in the United States provided a substantial synthesis of how the nation approaches quality assurance for teacher education programs (Feuer et al., 2013). The United States, having no federal requirements for such quality assurance, proves to be a complex nation to characterize in generalized terms. The report raised the question of how other countries evaluate teacher education programs and whether their experiences can be relevant and informative in the U.S. context. The answer to this question was addressed in the 2013 report with only some brief illustrations of globally well-known jurisdictions. Since that report was released, some comparative analyses and syntheses of teacher education program evaluation approaches have been published, adding to a understanding of global trends in this area. this paper revisits the original question of how teacher education programs are evaluated in international contexts. While several international comparative studies of teacher education in general now exist, the researchers found that a focus on how programs are held accountable to quality assurance standards is a relatively unexplored area of comparative analysis. [For the 2013 report, "Evaluation of Teacher Preparation Programs: Purposes, Methods, and Policy Options," see ED565694.]

During the past decade, funding mechanisms for universities and technical education institutions and colleges have undergone massive restructuring in developed and developing countries alike. Governmental support has generally decreased, resulting in greater reliance on fee-based education or creation of privately sponsored engineering/technical colleges or universities. The following are some of the trends that will likely result from changes in the funding of technical education: (1) export of education will become an important component of the economies of advanced, rich countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada; (2) privatization, commercialization, and marketing of education, especially business, commerce, and information technology will increasingly play a dominant role in developing countries; (3) quality management in developing countries will also move away from government monitoring to professional monitoring, as is now the case in developed countries; (4) the quality of education in developing countries will eventually be determined by market forces; (5) educational funding from individual family budgets will become increasingly difficult in developing countries as privatization results in increased fees; and (6) education will move from being a totally governmental activity to a more commerce- and industry-based activity and will eventually become a service industry. (MN)

The concept of physical and chemical change is far from being the clearest and most self-explanatory concept in the world. If a number of chemists are asked to define physical and chemical change, there may well appear to be a fair degree of uniformity in their answers, until a few examples are suggested. When chemists are asked to place a variety of changes into the category of physical or chemical change, then differences inevitably arise. It is not difficult to demonstrate this by viewing school textbooks and articles about the topic. In spite of this, physical and chemical change is still taught in most in most secondary school courses. The problem arises from the definition and the historical layers of meaning that have grown around the concept, almost by accretion, without teachers being aware of their significance. The purpose of this paper is to describe the answers given by experienced educators to a questionnaire, which attempted to find out what the views of science educators/chemists worldwide about physical and chemical change now are. Four appendixes present: (1) List of Respondents; (2) List of Questionnaires Returned; (3) Physical and Chemical Change: An Information Sheet; and (4) Full Questionnaire: Interview Protocol or Basis for Written Response.

Too often student services have become a provider of discrete assistance in which one-way information transactions take place between the staff/student paraprofessionals providers and the students receiving the services. Students attend academic advising appointments, listen during tutorial or small groups study meetings, and read computer screens of information during career exploration sessions. Transactions seldom lead to transformations of engagement, identity, and deep learning for the students who provide or receive the service. Student leaders involved in student services, Students as Partners partnerships, student organizations, and athletics experience unanticipated personal and professional growth. Case studies from Australia, Belgium, Indonesia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States display global connections among common themes of co-curricular learning events from such rich environments. This chapter provides a conceptual model for an ecosystem of leader identity emergence that can be effective in a variety of student activity venues and recommendations to be more intentional in fostering growth. [This paper was published in: H. Juijser, M. Kek, and F. F. Padro (Eds.) (2021). "University Development and Administration. Student Support Services." Springer Nature.]

This paper explores methods of collaboration among countries in order to promote successful development, exchange, and dissemination of international education materials. The discussion emphasizes activities of the Pacific Circle Consortium, which was founded in 1977 and includes Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States. Its goals are to exchange information, materials, and personnel and to develop educational materials with a multicultural perspective. The paper is presented in five major sections. Section one explains the Consortium's origin, structure, membership, purpose, and activities. Section two defines the concept of international collaboration and outlines various methods of collaboration, stressing three important types of activity within collaborative efforts. These are parallel, cooperative, and integrated activities. Section three discusses four key elements of any type of collaborative activity: commitment and decision making, location of activity, structure and roles of participating agencies, and size and scope of activity. The discussion related these elements to specific Consortium procedures. Section four describes exemplary Consortium activities of parallel, cooperative, and integrated natures. Section five offers comments on constraints of collaborative ventures and specific implications of the Consortium's experience. (AV)

Focusing on the experience of New Zealand, this paper is a response to a 1978 essay which suggested that a study be done to compare the programming patterns of television in the developed countries of Australia and New Zealand. Significant differences between the two nations are presented, including conspicuous discrepancies in television programming, despite similar shared social and cultural characteristics. A need for cooperative research efforts by Australian and New Zealand media scholars is noted, and some limited New Zealand research is summarized, including content analyses and program ratings. Numerous areas for fruitful research are suggested, many of which center on audience reactions and attitudes about viewing Australian, American, and United Kingdom imports, as well as on other aspects of television programming and scheduling. The production of television genres other than the more costly, less effective indigenous drama programs is advocated as the best means of inculcating a sense of national identity. The need for research to investigate the influence of "cultural imperialism" on Australian and New Zealand television audiences is stressed. An analysis of the national origins of television programs shown in New Zealand is appended. (40 end notes) (CGD)

This paper provides an overview of recent research on the factors that drive the performance of registered training organisations (RTOs), with a view to identifying areas for future research. Initially it explores the drivers of RTO performance; then discusses findings from available literature from Australia and from overseas, and discusses some implications for further research. The discussion is structured under the organising themes of: (1) high performance organisations and frameworks; (2) effectiveness and efficiency indicators of performance; (3) trials of RTO performance indicators; (4) international approaches (including for United State of America, United Kingdom, European Union, Germany, and New Zealand); and (5) concluding remarks. This is a companion piece to another National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) report, "Are We All Speaking the Same Language? Understanding "Quality" in the VET Sector", written by Tabatha Griffin (ED579516).

Conceptually, learning progressions hold promise for improving assessment and instruction by precisely outlining what students know and don't know at particular stages of knowledge and skill development. Based upon a synthesis of the literature, a rationale for the use of learning progressions maps to clarify how learning progresses in English language arts and mathematics is provided. How these maps can characterize learning for students, including those with significant disabilities and intellectual gifts, is discussed. In addition, large-scale learning progressions projects undertaken in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States are described. We conclude the paper with a discussion about specific ways in which the application of learning progression maps can enhance current assessment and instruction practices for supporting the learning of "all" students.

This literature review interrogates current international writing about inclusive education (IE) in regional and remote settings, with explicit reference to Australian considerations, including the emergent National Curriculum. The task of this review has been to establish the types of knowledge reported about IE in minority, marginalized and "other" inclusive educational settings, and to locate the absences of knowledge that the current literature indicates. Finally, future directions for research into IE in minority educational settings are proposed. (Contains 4 footnotes.)

Most people would agree that helping students learn new information is important; however, there are numerous methods for achieving this goal, and not all of them have been proven to be effective. One method with intuitive appeal and some empirical backing is prompting students to self-explain. A self-explanation can be defined as generating explanations to oneself in an attempt to make sense of new information (Chi, 2000). The self-explanation effect has been studied since the 1980s, and has been examined in many learning domains, from chemistry to mathematics to argumentation (e.g., Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989). The purpose of the current meta-analysis reported in this paper is to determine if there is a significant, positive self-explanation effect in mathematics domains or not. In addition, this meta-analysis will examine the possibility that study setting might relate to the effectiveness of self-explanation in mathematics. This meta-analysis illustrates that there is some evidence for the benefits of self-explanation in math; however, the evidence is not as strong as some researchers might think. It seems that self-explanation is not harmful to students, but whether or not it is worth the time it takes to go through them is unclear. Future studies may want to include a control group that does not self-explain so that a direct comparison can be made to test for the self-explanation effect. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)