This study examines a natural experiment in New Zealand higher education, where university entrance criteria were modified in response to Covid-19 disruptions to secondary education. Using comprehensive longitudinal data from seven universities, student retention outcomes were linked to their (un)modified admission marks. While the modified criteria successfully preserved pathways to university during crisis, students admitted under these criteria experienced consistently higher exit rates across all levels of prior academic achievement. However, the higher attrition rates among this cohort highlight the challenges of balancing the increased access to university with academic preparedness. The main limitation of our study is that we do not have a clear picture of what support interventions by universities were targeted towards the modified UE students. In addition, the analyses are primarily descriptive, and differences in institutional responses to the pandemic across universities may have influenced student outcomes independent of admission criteria. University admission criteria must well balance equity upon admission, the cost of failure, and equity in completion. This may be achievable by employing statistical modelling of longitudinal data to advise policy development. This study highlights the importance of adopting a comprehensive equity policy rather than a patchwork that may provide a short-term solution while not addressing negative unintended consequences. The findings suggest significant implications for policy makers and institutions considering similar interventions in response to systemic disruptions to education.
The emotional state of teachers and their well-being in schools and their profession have been a topic of growing interest to policymakers. This paper aims to address teachers’ possible generational differences and overlaps concerning emotional work in teaching. This paper delves into teachers’ emotional engagement throughout their careers in Spain. The research was based on a qualitative paradigm. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with 147 novice, veteran, and retired teachers. The main results show a difference in teachers’ emotional management of tasks, which appears as teachers gain more work experience. On one hand, novice teachers must adapt to their professional environment more than their veteran and retired colleagues. This finding suggests that novice teachers may demonstrate a higher level of emotional management than their more experienced counterparts, but they perceive that their efforts eventually burn out over time. This issue is perceived through the lens of their elders, making both emotional engagement and emotional management in the teaching profession visible.
Numerous factors are related to students’ performance on standardized mathematics tests, including teacher-assigned math grades, gender, socio-economic status (ESCS), origin, geographic location, and school type. Typically, the influence of these factors on students’ outcomes on standardized mathematics tests is analyzed using classical regression analyses, which might not be able to handle complex, high-dimensional datasets and capture non-linear relationships. Boosting regression, a machine learning approach, was employed to overcome these limitations, allowing for more robust estimation of variable importance, detection of interaction effects, and provision of insights that are directly relevant for educational policy and intervention. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate the significance of these factors in predicting students’ achievements on the Italian national assessment of mathematical knowledge, INVALSI, through both multiple regression and boosting regression analyses. Results indicate that school type and teacher-assigned grades emerged as the most influential predictors, contributing approximately 42
This editorial introduces a Special Issue examining literacy support across eight diverse educational contexts spanning four continents. Drawing together research from Asia, North America, Oceania, and Europe, the papers showcase how teachers, educational systems and policies respond to learners who need the extra support that mainstream learners do not. These papers showcase the various challenges faced and a key idea is that of institutional trust. Trust in the teachers—to plug the persistent gap between policy intent and classroom enactment, and to transform their knowledge to adaptive expertise. This then requires systems to support their teachers in the hard/heart work of teaching.
Early childhood education (ECE) is a constantly evolving field with frequent policy changes such as the recent calls for multilingual approaches and digitalization. Digital multilingual literacy materials could help ECE teachers implement these policies and develop their practices. Shared reading is a well-established practice because it promotes language learning, and digital storytelling is engaging and supports vocabulary growth. Nevertheless, there is a shortage of suitable multilingual materials in both analogue and digital formats. Drawing on interviews and a survey, this study examines both analogue and digital storytelling activities of six preschool teachers in Luxembourg and the influence of digital materials on children’s participation. Findings show that all teachers offered multilingual literacy practices across analogue and digital modalities although the activities varied with their expertise and understanding of multilingualism. The translingual conversations, the digital recordings and the meaningful story content supported children’s participation and learning. Using multilingual digital materials was transformative for the less experienced teachers who came to understand the powerful effect of home languages on children’s participation, well-being and identity. These findings have implications for teacher education and policy-makers who prepare the ECE workforce and regulate access to multilingual approaches and digital resources in preschools.
