Search results

Education can be classified into formal and informal sectors—the first category as a regular schooling system and the latter category as private tutoring. After completing secondary education, students in many countries receive education from private tutoring to get admission into the university. This study examines the effect of private tutoring on university admission and subsequent students' academic achievement at the university level.

Using survey data from Bangladesh as a case study, this study employs a two-stage least squares (2SLS) methodology.

Considering that coaching centers offer services such as private tutoring, this study finds that an informal education for admission greatly helps academic achievement. Students who benefit from informal schooling are more likely to achieve higher grades in subsequent programs.

This study strongly suggests that formal education at the secondary school level is unable to meet the academic expectations that are demanded at the tertiary level. This forces the development of private tutoring, which supports the students from more financially well-off families to perform well at the cost of educational disparity.

This study examined predictors of cumulative grade point average (GPA) from entrance scores and successive performance during students' academic work in university engineering programs.

Scores from high school coursework, the General Ability Test and the Achievement Test were examined to determine if these factors and annual successive GPAs were predictors of long-term GPA. The sample consisted of 2,031 students registered in university engineering programs during the 2013–2019 period.

Correlations were significant between entrance scores and the preparatory year GPA but not with cumulative GPA. Also, correlations were significant between year-1 GPA to year-3 GPA and the graduation GPA. Adjacent year GPA is the better predictor of later GPA. More importantly, GPA at the time of graduation is well predicted by GPAs throughout years of study within engineering programs after controlling for entrance scores. Girls outperform boys in their entrance scores and GPAs. Hence, girls are likely to obtain higher cumulative GPAs.

The implications of the study findings could help university faculty and administrators to understand the role of current entrance scores in predicting academic achievement of engineering students. In addition, the results could serve as a foundation to review weights of entrance scores for future developments and revisions. The findings of the study are limited to admission data for engineering students during the 2013–2019 period. Other disciplines may show a different pattern of relationships among the studied variables.

The study findings have useful practical implications for admitting and monitoring student progress at engineering education programs. Results may help program curriculum development specialists and committees in designing admission criteria.

Administrators and faculty members are advised to consider entrance scores when providing counseling and monitoring throughout students' program-year progress. More attention should be devoted to university performance when interest is focused on later or graduation CGPA, with less emphasis on entrance scores.

The existed previous studies explored factors that influence the student performance in engineering programs. This study documents the role of admission criteria and successive GPAs in predicting the student graduation CGPA in engineering programs. Relationships between factors are crucial for engineering program revisions and policymaking.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether Taiwan’s “Stars Policy” for university admission can fulfill its major aim to promote educational equity. Implemented by the government, the policy relies on student within-school ranks to admit high achievers to top universities or departments, mainly in medicine.

Open data were collected from the government, universities, high schools, and news reports. High schools were identified as having benefited from the Stars Policy if more students were accepted into medical departments in the first year of the policy than one year before its implementation. χ² tests and logistic regression were used to examine how the benefit status interacted with school types and regions.

The results indicated that the Stars Policy benefited 25 high schools, namely, 9 community public schools (not top achieving in a region) and 16 struggling private schools (especially vocational). Contrary to expectations, private schools were three times as likely and private school students seven times as likely to have benefited from the Stars Policy. Schools located in disadvantaged regions did not benefit.

The Stars Policy is unique given its centralized and school-based system. The design, however, increases educational equity in a manner that fails to benefit disadvantaged students seeking admission to the top-achieving medical departments in Taiwan.

This study examines the test's predictive validity of English language performance and compares test constructs to identify the most effective predictors of English language performance.

Data were collected and analysed from test scores of students enrolled in the foundation year (N = 84) and level 2 (N = 127) in the faculty of English at a Saudi university using correlation and regression tests.

The findings revealed that the General Aptitude Test (GAT) is effective in predicting English performance for students in level 2 and that the error detection task is the most effective predictor of performance in English reading.

The study provides support for the validity of the GAT as a university admission requirement for English language courses in the Arabic-speaking world.

This study examines the GAT's power using a fine-grained approach by deriving scores from its breakdown constructs to predict the performance of English skills at the university level.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how and why Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) has developed a system aiming to effectively place students in freshman and developmental English programs. The placement system includes: triangulating data from external test scores, with scores from a panel‐marked hand‐written essay (HWE), written at the University under proctored conditions, and also data from a range of computer based tests, including a computer assessed essay. This is discussed within the broader context of placement testing in general.

Notes on the evolving process have been kept for the last three years, and this case study is written by a “placement evaluator”, using these notes as a starting point.

TAMUQ has found an integrated approach to placement testing to be effective.

The number of institutions integrating internal and external testing for placement is growing. TAMUQ's perspective may be of value to many academic institutions. The paper outlines the types of assessments used at TAMUQ in order to appropriately place students in classes. It describes the strengths and shortcomings of both external test data and placement software, and argues that relying on either alone (or in conjunction) to decide starting points for students in English programs is a flawed approach. The need for integrating authentic HWE samples and opinion from English faculty is discussed.

Prior learning and prior knowledge are among the most dependable and consistent factors in predicting students’ success (Richardson et al., 2012). Although for UK Higher Education, the traditional A-level (advanced level qualification) remains the principal qualification students use to gain entry to University, there has been a small but significant rise in alternative qualifications, such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) and vocational qualifications such as that from the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC). The multidisciplinary nature of Psychology means students enter the degree program with a range of qualifications in differing topic areas. The current case study aimed to assess if science qualifications aided student success in the University of Liverpool’s Psychology course. Ordinal regression and correlations were used to examine the impact of prior qualifications on three first-year cohort module scores (Psychobiology, Social psychology, and Research Methods) and the overall degree mark across three cohorts of Psychology students (n = 1,072). University entry grades showed a significant overall and subject specific effect of scientific prior knowledge. However, the effects of previous qualifications were not cumulative and did not persist beyond the first year of study. These findings were strongest for Chemistry in the Psychobiology module suggesting that scientific literacy – the understanding of scientific concepts, phenomena, and processes, as well as an individual’s ability to apply such knowledge to new or non-scientific situations (Schleicher, 2019) – rather than domain-specific knowledge is driving such increase in grades. A negative relationship was seen for those holding BTEC qualifications, suggesting that vocational qualifications, specifically for this Psychology program, were of less use than academic ones, even if topic areas were similar – a finding which may also apply to other academic based courses, and warrants further study. Although the advantage of prior qualifications diminishes across the course of study, this small but distinct advantage suggests that making a science qualification a requirement for a place on a Psychology degree course would be a beneficial step for admissions tutors to consider.

Aspects of intellectual competence would not be sufficient for quality teaching that requires a mix of intellectual and personal qualities. The purpose of this paper was to elicit personal attributes of teachers’ college applicants.

This qualitative case study consisted of 99 participants aged 20-24 years of average socio-economic and achievement backgrounds. The authors constructed five qualitative tools, in addition to the two existing standardized exams. Using techniques of the grounded theory, the authors sorted and synthesized the data through three-phase coding.

The authors elicited a general concept map of attributes, from which a personal attribute profile for each participant emerged. This model makes fine differentiations between individuals, providing a personal attribute profile pool of applicants useful for any admission committee and for empowering students’ strengths during studies.

A solid database of non-cognitive attributes opens the door to further research, which will take into consideration multiple variables, such as student knowledge, beliefs and aptitudes.

Training teachers to apply research methodology into practice and limiting the length of tools make the mission possible, interesting and useful. Figuring out how to collect valid measures of such data about large numbers of college students would be a major challenge.

As teachers occupy a central position in the educational enterprise, they become guardians of the country’s collective socio-cultural legacy. In the current context of teacher shortages, the authors offer a model that has the potential of improving recruitment of applicants for teaching and raising teacher quality.

No previous attempt that uses qualitative methodology for this purpose was found.

The use of linear models has major limitations for accurately representing the true link between gender diversity and organizational performance. This study aims to explore two curvilinear models and tests which one – the U-shape or the inverted U-shape – best represents the gender diversity–performance link at two hierarchical levels: the board of directors and the workforce.

Both models are tested using data collected from a representative sample of Spanish educational organizations, which are dominated numerically by women, although women are still slightly underrepresented in managerial positions.

The results show the existence of an inverted U-shape and, therefore, the existence of a potential “optimal” level of gender diversity for both the board of directors and the workforce. While the highest performance by the board of directors is attained when the proportion of women and men is balanced in the workforce, the highest level of performance is attained when the proportion of women is greater.

There are hardly any studies simultaneously exploring the gender diversity–performance linkage at two hierarchical levels where the proportion of women/men is substantially different: the board of directors and the workforce. Thus, this study contributes to better know whether such relationship is dependent on the hierarchical position. It is important to know this because each level is related to different functions and tasks and shape a social status that can significantly influence performance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of a classroom application of the cooperative learning (CL) methodology on nine dimensions of business students’ teamwork competence (TC).

The authors used a quasi-experimental pre-post design with a previous cohort as control group (first-year students from the year prior to treatment application), applying treatment to a sample of 228 first-year students in a School of Economics and Business at a Chilean University (114 as treatment and 114 as control).

The authors’ results show that CL had a positive, significant influence on five dimensions of TC: collective efficacy, planning, goal setting, problem solving and conflict management.

This paper upholds the importance and effectiveness of CL in developing TC. However, the evidence suggests that the effectiveness of the CL methodology was limited to development and improvement of less complex dimensions of TC. More complex dimensions require a longer period of time to be developed.

This research is an important contribution to the design and implementation of appropriate methodologies for developing a widely needed area of competence in the workplace, considering its multidimensional nature, whether in academia or business.

This is the first study to seek empirical evidence that would link the CL methodology with TC. In addition, it fills a gap in the literature on the development of TC in its multiple dimensions. It particularly addresses the training of business professionals.

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es analizar el impacto de la metodología Aprendizaje Cooperativo aplicada en aula en nueve dimensiones de la Competencia Trabajo en Equipo en estudiantes de negocios.

Se ha empleado un diseño cuasi experimental pre-post test con grupo cuasi control en una cohorte anterior (curso de primer año del año previo a la aplicación del tratamiento), aplicada a 228 estudiantes de 1° año de una Facultad de Economía y Negocios de una Universidad Chilena (114 de tratamiento y 114 de control).

Los resultados obtenidos ponen de manifiesto un efecto positivo y significativo de la metodología Aprendizaje Cooperativo sobre cinco dimensiones de la Competencia Trabajo en Equipo, las cuales son eficacia colectiva, planificación, establecimiento de objetivos, resolución de problemas, y gestión de conflictos.

El presente trabajo sostiene la importancia de emplear una metodología de Aprendizaje Cooperativo en la formación de la Competencia Trabajo en Equipo. No obstante, la evidencia presentada sugiere que la aplicación de la metodología Aprendizaje Cooperativo es significativa para dimensiones de menor complejidad en su desarrollo, ya que aquellas más complejas requieren de un horizonte más largo para ser adquiridas.

Esta investigación supone una contribución importante para el diseño e implementación de metodologías adecuadas para la formación de una competencia ampliamente requerida en el mundo profesional, considerando su carácter multidimensional, tanto en el ámbito universitario como empresarial.

Es el primer estudio que busca evidencia empírica acerca de la relación entre la aplicación de una metodología de Aprendizaje Cooperativo y la Competencia Trabajo en Equipo. Adicionalmente, complementa un vacío en la literatura a la formación de la Competencia Trabajo en Equipo desde sus múltiples dimensiones. En especial, en la formación de profesionales de los negocios.