Measuring and Enhancing the Student Experience provides insights on how student experiencemeasures could be used to inform improvements at institutional, course, unit of study and teacherlevel. The book is based on a decade of research and practitioner views on ways to enhance thedesign, conduct, analysis, reporting and closing the loop on student feedback data. While the bookis largely based on Australian case studies, it provides learning experiences for other countries wherestudent experience measures are used in national and institutional quality assurance. Consisting of 13chapters, the book includes a wide range of topics including the role and purpose of student feedback,the use of student feedback in staff performance reviews, staff and student engagement, a studentfeedback and experience framework, the first year experience, use of qualitative data, engagingtransnational students in feedback, closing the loop on feedback, student engagement in nationalquality assurance, use of learning analytics and the future of the student experience. Mahsood Shah is an Associate Professor and Deputy Dean (Learning and Teaching) with School ofBusiness and Law at CQUniversity, Australia. In this role Mahsood is responsible for enhancing theacademic quality and standard of courses. Mahsood is also responsible for learning and teachingstrategy, governance, effective implementation of policies, and enhancement of learning and teachingoutcomes across all campuses. In providing leadership for learning and teaching, Mahsood workswith key academic leaders across all campuses to improve learning and teaching outcomes of coursesdelivered in various modes including face-to-face and online. At CQUniversity, he provides leadershipin national and international accreditation of academic courses. Mahsood is also an active researcher. His areas of research include quality in higher education,measurement and enhancement of student experience, student retention and attrition, studentengagement in quality assurance, international higher education, widening participation and privatehigher education. Chenicheri Sid Nair is the incoming Executive Director, Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), Mauritius.Prior to joining TEC, he was Professor, Higher Education Development at the University of WesternAustralia (UWA), Perth where his work encompassed the improvement of the institutions teachingand learning. Before this appointment to UWA, he was Quality Adviser (Research and Evaluation) inthe Centre for Higher Education Quality (CHEQ) at Monash University, Australia. He has an extensiveexpertise in the area of quality development and evaluation, and he also has considerable editorialexperience. Currently, he is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Quality Assurance inEngineering and Technology Education (IJQAETE). He was also a Managing Editor of the ElectronicJournal of Science Education (EJSE). Professor Nair is also an international consultant in a number ofcountries in quality, student voice and evaluations.
This is an opinion piece from a highly qualified professor of science who has served in administration highlights the need for reform in our public higher education research institutions.  In this well-researched reference, Dr. Stocum illustrates how the competition among the public flagship universities for more money, research prestige, and power, and the imposition of mission differentiation on public universities, is detrimental to the educational needs of 21st century. The goal of the work is to expose the issues that exist, give a voice to under-recognized institutions and to provide suggestions for more effective education system moving forward.
New US government requirements state that federally funded grants and school programs must prove that they are based on scientifically proved improvements in teaching and learning. All new grants must show they are based on scientifically sound research to be funded, and budgets to schools must likewise show that they are based on scientifically sound research. However, the movement in education over the past several years has been toward qualitative rather than quantitative measures. The new legislation comes at a time when researchers are ill trained to measure results or even to frame questions in an empirical way, and when school administrators and teachers are no longer remember or were never trained to prove statistically that their programs are effective.Experimental Methods for Evaluating Educational Interventions is a tutorial on what it means to frame a question in an empirical manner, how one needs to test that a method works, what statistics one uses to measure effectiveness, and how to document these findings in a way so as to be compliant with new empirically based requirements. The book is simplistic enough to be accessible to those teaching and administrative educational professionals long out of schooling, but comprehensive and sophisticated enough to be of use to researchers who know experimental design and statistics but don't know how to use what they know to write acceptable grant proposals or to get governmental funding for their programs.
This book contains a general introduction to the education of academically able students. It provides a solid background of basic knowledge and a survey of research and theory for educational theorists, student teachers, practising teachers, administrators and planners. It offers insights into relevant practical problems as well as guidelines for classroom practice. The significance of this material is outlined for the various levels of the educational system from the individual classroom to the regional planning level. The book is not, however, designed to offer set answers and pat solutions, but to provide rationale for the creative work of teachers and administrators.