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Black British minority ethnics (BME) students are nationally underachieving in comparison to their Ethnic Chinese and White peers, showing typically a 16 per cent graduate attainment gap in the UK. Previous research has suggested that the attainment gap could be explained by BME student disengagement, as the students typically commute from family home to University, and they work part time. However, peer-assisted learning (PAL) has been shown to have a positive impact on addressing and resolving student alienation and disengagement. However, a question still remains regarding whether student perceptions hold up to statistical analysis when scrutinised in comparison to similar cohorts without PAL interventions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper presents the results of a statistical study for two cohorts of students on engineering courses with a disproportionately high representation of BME students. The research method involved a statistical analysis of student records for the two cohorts to ascertain any effect of correlation between: PAL; student ethnicity; and student parental employment on student academic performance and placement attainment.

The results indicate that PAL has no significant impact on the academic performance; however, PAL has a positive impact on the placement/internship attainment for BME students and students from parental households with parents in non-managerial/professional employment.

The research limitations are that the cohorts are small, but more equal diverse mix of different social categories than any other courses. However, as the cohorts are less than 30 students, comparing social categories the data sets are small to have absolute confidence in the statistical results of academic performance. Even the t-test has its limitations as the subjects are human, and there are multiple personal factors that can impact an individual academic performance; therefore, the data sets are heterostatic.

The results highlight that there is need for pedagogy interventions to support: ideally all BME students from all social categery to secure placements; BME students who are unable to go on placement to gain supplementary learning that has the same impact on their personal development and learning as placement/internship experience; and White students from managerial/professional family households to engage more in their studies.

Not addressing and providing appropriate pedagogy interventions, in the wider context not addressing/resolving the BME academic and placement attainment gap, a set of students are being disadvantaged to their peers through no fault of their own, and compounding their academic attainment. As academics we have a duty to provide every opportunity to develop our student attainment, and as student entry is generally homogeneous, all students should attain it.

Previous research evaluation of PAL programmes has focused on quantitative students surveys and qualitative semi-structured research interviews with students on their student engagement and learning experience. On the other hand, this paper evaluates the intervention through conducting a quantitative statistical analysis of the student records to evaluate the impact of PAL on a cohort’s performance on different social categories (classifications) and compares the results to a cohort of another group with a similar student profile, but without PAL intervention implementation.

This study aims to explore the impact of school leadership, particularly that of the principal (head teacher), on school improvement in England.

The study adopts a mixed‐methods (MM), longitudinal design to investigate the leadership of a sample of academically effective and improving schools identified from analyses of national assessment and examination data sets. In addition, questionnaire surveys of principals and key staff and 20 qualitative school case studies were conducted. The paper reports results from the questionnaire analyses and changes in measures of school performance over three school years using data from 378 primary and 362 secondary schools. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models (SEM) test direct and indirect effects of school leadership and school and classroom processes in predicting changes in schools' academic results.

The analyses identified robust underlying dimensions of leadership and school and classroom processes and highlighted strategies and actions that school principals and staff had adopted to raise pupil attainment. The SEM models reveal both direct and indirect effects of leadership on a range of school and classroom processes that in turn predicted changes (improvements) in schools' academic performance.

This original empirical study presents new results on the leadership of a large sample of effective and improving primary and secondary schools in England. A dynamic model is presented predicting changes in schools' academic performance over three years and identifying direct effects of leadership on school and classroom processes and indirect effects on improvements in schools' academic results.

Women remain underrepresented in academic STEM, especially at the highest ranks. While much attention has focused on early-career attrition, mid-career advancement is still largely understudied and undocumented. The purpose of this paper is to analyze gender differences in advancement to full professor within academic STEM at a mid-size public doctoral university in the western USA, before and after the National Science Foundation (NSF)-ADVANCE Program (2003–2008).

Using faculty demographics and promotion data between 2008 and 2014, combined with faculty responses to two waves of a climate survey, the magnitude and longevity of the impact of ADVANCE on mid-career faculty advancement across gender is evaluated.

This study documents increased representation of women in all ranks within the STEM colleges, including that of full professor due to ADVANCE efforts. It also demonstrates the role of greater gender awareness and formalization of procedures in reducing the variability in the time as associate professor until promotion to full professor for all faculty members, while also shrinking gender disparities in career attainment. As a result of the codification of the post-tenure review timeline toward promotion, more recently hired faculty are promoted more swiftly and consistently, irrespective of gender. Post-ADVANCE, both male and female faculty members express a greater understanding of and confidence in the promotion process and no longer see it as either a hurdle or source of gender inequality in upward career mobility.

While data were collected at a single university, demographics and career experiences by women mirror those at other research universities. This study shows that within a given institution-specific governance structure, long-lasting effects on faculty career trajectories can be achieved, by focusing efforts on creating greater transparency in expectations and necessary steps toward promotion, by reducing barriers to information flown, by standardizing and codifying the promotion process, and by actively engaging administrators as collaborators and change agents in the transformation process.

This study addresses mid-career dynamics and potential mechanisms that explain gender gaps in the promotion to full professor, a largely understudied aspect of gender disparities in career attainment within STEM. It shows how institutional policy changes, intended to alleviate gender disparities, can benefit the career trajectories of all faculty members. Specifically, this study highlights the crucial role of codifying procedures and responsibilities in neutralizing subjectivity and inconsistencies in promotion outcomes due to varying departmental climates.

The underrepresentation of women in engineering has important consequences for meeting the need for a larger, talented scientific and technological labor force. Increasing the proportion of women faculty in engineering will help increase the persistence probabilities of women undergraduate and graduate students in engineering, as well as contribute to the range and diversity of ideas toward innovations and solutions to the greatest engineering challenges. This study aims to examine the association among gender, family formation and post-PhD employment patterns of a cohort of engineering doctorates.

Using the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctorate Recipients data, 2001–2010, descriptive and multinomial logit regression analyses are conducted to illustrate the career trajectories of engineering PhDs over a ten-year period.

The career trajectories of engineering PhDs are nonlinear, and transitions between employment sectors commonly occur over the ten-year time period studied. Although women engineering PhDs with young dependents are less likely to be employed initially after PhD completion, they tend to enter the workforce in the academic sector as time progresses. Early post-PhD employment as a postdoctoral researcher or in the academic sector contributes to the pursuit of the professoriate downstream.

While previous studies tend to focus on the early career outcomes of science and engineering students, this study contributes to the literature by focusing on the long-term career outcomes of engineering doctorates. Research findings provide engineering PhD students and PhDs with more information regarding potential post-PhD career trajectories, highlighting the multitude of career options and transitions that occur over time. Research findings also provide higher education administrators and doctoral program stakeholders with foundational information toward designing and revitalizing professional development programs to help PhD students prepare for the workforce. The findings have the potential to be applied toward helping increase diversity by shaping policies and programs to encourage multiple alternative career pathways to the professoriate.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive model of personal and institutional input variables, composed of elements describing status‐based antecedents, job/organizational context antecedents, and individual level antecedents, which may contribute to the production of significant (top‐tier) research outputs in the management discipline.

The development and empirical examination of this model were done with two main goals in mind. First, the nature and degree to which certain factors lead to the production of top‐tier research productivity in the management discipline were explored. Second, it is hoped that information about these relationships could then be used by institutions and individuals so that they could better understand what it takes to adequately prepare faculty members to achieve increased productivity or, alternatively, to decide whether the goal of top‐tier research production is consistent with individual and institutional resources. As such, the results of this investigation should have interesting and potentially important implications for both academic status attainment and career success.

Hierarchical moderated regression analyses of 440 faculty records revealed that the status of current affiliation of the faculty member, editorial board membership, faculty rank, and the availability of doctoral students were related to top‐tier research productivity.

The findings from this study have important implications for the careers of management faculty at AACSB‐accredited business schools. Faculty at higher status institutions appear to enjoy a number of cumulative advantages due to increased social, human and cultural capital that support the production of top‐tier research. Additionally, faculty with doctoral student support and those with memberships on editorial boards seem to possess the resources and connections necessary to produce top‐tier research on a consistent basis. Future research should investigate institution‐specific inducements to research productivity (e.g. research support and remuneration) and the exact causal nature of the editorial board/productivity relationship.

Prior research has investigated status effects using broad categories as predictors, whereas this research uses interval values representing research‐based assessments of institution status rankings. Additionally, this research creates and tests a comprehensive causal model of research productivity antecedents.

This study examines whether students graduating from SSC-VOC perform better in diploma engineering programs.

This study uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how secondary school certificate-vocational (SSC-VOC) graduates perform in their subsequent vocational programs.

Despite having vocational training orientation, this study finds that graduates from SSC-VOC receive lower grades than their public counterparts by 0.109 cumulative grade points average (CGPA).

Findings imply that policymakers should increase teachers' numbers, salaries and laboratory facilities. In addition, collaboration between SSC-VOC institutions and polytechnics would allow them to offer a quality engineering education. In such a way, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programs prepare human resources to promote economic development and employment, expand production opportunities and improve employment quality.

This is the first piece of work conducted in Bangladesh that has examined the quality of VET graduates for furthering their studies. This study added value by providing some pragmatic suggestions for practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understanding of different ways that parents and schools develop and maintain working partnerships to improve outcomes for children by focusing on quantitative evidence about parental involvement (PI). The key questions for this synthesis are: what is the evidence about the extent of impact of PI on cognitive or academic outcomes for children, and how consistent and reliable is this evidence?

This is an “umbrella” review comparing and contrasting findings from 13 meta-analyses across three areas of PI and home/school partnerships: first, general approaches; second, home and family literacy programmes; and finally, targeted interventions focused on individual or specific family need.

There is consistent evidence about the extent of impact from general approaches (three to six months average additional gain for children’s educational outcomes) and for targeted intervention (four to six months), but with a wider range of estimates for family literacy (two to eight months average gain). Variation in approaches and evaluation quality make specific recommendations for practice challenging, though some consistent patterns of findings indicate strategies that are likely to be “good bets” to explore and evaluate.

The quality of the underlying studies makes drawing secure implications for practice difficult. The nature of the review means that it does not capture the most recent studies.

The paper provides a synthesis of quantitative evidence from 13 meta-analyses to identify where there is consistency in estimates of impact and what is associated with systematic variation in this impact.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise and analyse empirical research on protective factors that promote academic resilience in ethnic minority children mainly aged between 13 and 18 years attending schools in the Nordic countries.

This paper was opted for a literature review of 23 peer-reviewed quantitative articles published between 1999 and 2014. The analysis entailed protective factors at both the personal and environmental levels in ethnic minority children.

Some minority children’s school performance may be just as good if not better than majority children when having similar or even lower socioeconomic status than majority children. Protective factors at the personal level included working hard, having a positive attitude towards school, and having high educational aspirations. Protective factors at the environmental level included supportive school systems, supportive schools, and supportive networks including parental qualities and support. The findings are comparable to the findings outside the Nordic countries with one exception; minority children in the Nordic countries performed better than expected despite socioeconomic disadvantages.

Protective factors affecting academic resilience need further attention in a time with an increased global migration. Research implications may be related to how schools and policy makers develop supportive school systems, supportive schools, and supportive networks to contribute to making a difference for minority children’s educational opportunities in the Nordic countries.

Academic resilience is a relatively new research field in the Nordic countries. This review is the first review which has summarised and analysed existing findings on academic resilience in the Nordic countries in minority children.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the quality of teachers based on education and training provided under new reform policies in Malaysia affects their earnings outcomes. The study conducted a benefit and returns analysis guided by human capital theory.

The study used survey research methods to investigate human capital formation in the teaching profession using teachers’ qualifications, benefits and private rate of returns as key variables in the estimation.

Earnings and experience levels were highly correlated with teachers’ education levels, as suggested by human capital theory. The private rate of returns in earnings for each additional year of schooling of teachers was found to lie between 3 and 4 per cent per year. Discrepancies were apparent in teachers’ qualifications and licensure levels regionally and at academic levels, as expected. These correlated with earning levels.

Improvements in teachers’ salary and employment opportunities will attract higher quality graduates to the teaching profession. Teachers’ annual earnings in Malaysia are comparable to other public sector and private professional jobs in the nation but lag far behind those of the world’s top education systems. Increasing teachers’ earnings will attract better qualified teachers. Policymakers could address these issues.

This paper demonstrates the utility of economic analyses in terms of earnings returns, to evaluate the Malaysian policy of upgrading teachers’ qualifications as a mechanism to improve the overall quality of schooling. Such studies are rare but needed to understand the benefits and returns of policy-driven teacher education and training investments. This study provides new evidence of schooling returns using a recent, national data set.