Dans ma thèse, je me sers de modèles de recherche solides pour répondre à des questions importantes de politique publique. Mon premier chapitre évalue l’impact causal de l’allégeance partisane (républicain ou démocrate) des gouverneurs américains sur le marché du travail. Dans ce chapitre, je combine les élections des gouverneurs avec les données du March CPS pour les années fiscales 1977 à 2008. En utilisant un modèle de régression par discontinuité, je trouve que les gouverneurs démocrates sont associés à de plus faibles revenus individuels moyens. Je mets en évidence que cela est entrainée par un changement dans la composition de la main-d’oeuvre à la suite d’une augmentation de l’emploi des travailleurs à revenus faibles et moyens. Je trouve que les gouverneurs démocrates provoquent une augmentation de l’emploi des noirs et de leurs heures travaillées. Ces résultats conduisent à une réduction de l’écart salarial entre les travailleurs noir et blanc. Mon deuxième chapitre étudie l’impact causal des fusillades qui se produisent dans les écoles secondaires américaines sur les performances des éléves et les résultats des écoles tels que les effectifs et le nombre d’enseignants recruté, a l’aide d’une stratégie de différence-en-différence. Le chapitre est coécrit avec Dongwoo Kim. Nous constatons que les fusillades dans les écoles réduisent significativement l’effectif des élèves de 9e année, la proportion d’élèves ayant un niveau adéquat en anglais et en mathématiques. Nous examinons aussi l’effet hétérogene des tueries dans les écoles secondaires entre les crimes et les suicides. Nous trouvons que les fusillades de natures criminelles provoquent la diminution du nombre d’inscriptions et de la proportion d’élèves adéquats en anglais et mathématiques. En utilisant des données sur les élèves en Californie, nous confirmons qu’une partie de l’effet sur la performance des élèves provient des étudiants inscrits et ce n’est pas uniquement un effet de composition. Mon troisième chapitre étudie l’impact des cellulaires sur la performance scolaire des élèves. Le chapitre est coécrit avec Richard Murphy. Dans ce chapitre, nous combinons une base de données unique contenant les politiques de téléphonie mobile des écoles obtenues à partir d’une enquète auprès des écoles dans quatre villes en Angleterre avec des données administratives sur la performance scolaire des éleves. Nous étudions ainsi l’impact de l’introduction d’une interdiction de téléphonie mobile sur le rendement des éleves. Nos résultats indiquent qu’il y a une augmentation du rendement des éleves après l’instauration de l’interdiction des cellulaires à l’école, ce qui suggère que les téléphones mobiles sont sources de distraction pour l’apprentissage et l’introduction d’une interdiction à l’école limite ce problème. / In my thesis, I use compelling research designs to address important public policy issues. My first chapter estimates the causal impact of the party allegiance (Republican or Democratic) of U.S. governors on labor market outcomes. I match gubernatorial elections with March CPS data for income years 1977 to 2008. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that Democratic governors are associated with lower average individual earnings. I provide evidence that this is driven by a change in workforce composition following an expansion in employment of workers with low and medium earnings. I also find that Democratic governors cause a reduction in the racial earnings gap between black and white workers through an increase in the annual hours worked by blacks relative to whites. My second chapter analyze how shootings in high schools affect schools and students using data from shooting databases, school report cards, and the Common Core of Data. The chapter is co-written with Dongwoo Kim. We examine schools’ test scores, enrollment, and number of teachers, as well as graduation, attendance, and suspension rates at schools that experienced a shooting, employing a difference-in-differences strategy that uses other high schools in the same district as the comparison group. Our findings suggest that homicidal shootings significantly decrease the enrollment of students in Grade 9, and reduce test scores in math and English. We find no statistically significant effect for suicidal shootings on any outcome variables of interest. Using student-level data from California, we confirm that some of the effects on student performance occur as a result of students remaining enrolled and not only due to changes in student body composition. My third chapter investigates the impact of school mobile phone policy on student performance. The chapter is co-written with Richard Murphy. Combining a unique dataset on autonomous mobile phone policies from a survey of schools in four cities in England with administrative data, we investigate the impact of imposing a mobile phone ban on student performance. Our results indicate an improvement in student results after a school bans the use of mobile phones; this suggests that mobile phones distract learning and imposing a ban limits this problem.

SILVA FILHO,José Pereira. As reprovações em disciplinas nos cursos de graduação da Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC) no período de 2000 a 2008 e suas implicações na evasão discente . 2009. 71 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Políticas Públicas e Gestão da Educação Superior) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Políticas Públicas e Gestão da Educação Superior, Fortaleza-CE, 2009. / Submitted by moises gomes (celtinha_malvado@hotmail.com) on 2012-06-21T13:24:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2009_dis_JPSFilho.pdf: 1248461 bytes, checksum: c3d80809a20b2caa9edcaeb8d1f910c1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Josineide Góis(josineide@ufc.br) on 2012-06-21T13:28:35Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2009_dis_JPSFilho.pdf: 1248461 bytes, checksum: c3d80809a20b2caa9edcaeb8d1f910c1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-06-21T13:28:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2009_dis_JPSFilho.pdf: 1248461 bytes, checksum: c3d80809a20b2caa9edcaeb8d1f910c1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / This research deals with the results over the student dropout at the Federal University of Ceara, Brasil, during the period from 2000 to 2007, focusing mainly in the early period when it is significant the numbers of retirements course in higher education. Furthermore was verified the existence or not of a relation between this fact and the withdrawal of students by the institution or by the course. Data about the student performance, such as to Graduate rate, periods of disciplines problem, Academic Performance Index (IRA), percentage of approval; besides this were done a comparison with the courses which presented higher dropout rates and those with higher rates of fails in disciplines. The results shown that in the Science Exact Area, there are a lot of failures and an association with low graduation rate, meanwhile Courses from the Human Area, there is no correlation with the results found in Science Exact Area. In conclusion there are no standards for students behavior, once both courses presented a great index of failures and not dropout, and there are a few others courses with considerable repetition and dropout. / A preocupação cada vez mais presente nos debates de gestores das instituições de educação superior, com respeito ao ingresso e manutenção de estudantes, força a uma busca pelos motivos que estão associados às elevadas taxas de evasão, no sentido de se obter um melhor aproveitamento dos recursos, bem como evitar as perdas sociais advindas com a saída de um estudante sem concluir o curso. Este trabalho mostra o resultado de uma pesquisa documental sobre a evasão discente na Universidade Federal do Ceará, nos cursos sediados em Fortaleza, com ênfase nas reprovações em disciplinas entre os anos de 2000 e 2008, focando principalmente nos períodos iniciais, quando, segundo alguns pesquisadores, é mais expressiva a quantidade de abandonos de curso no ensino superior. Objetiva-se, com isso, verificar a existência de uma relação direta entre esse fato e a desistência de alunos de uma instituição ou de um curso. Para tanto, foram realizados levantamentos de desempenho dos estudantes, com relação aos seguintes fatores: taxa de conclusão, períodos de ocorrência de disciplinas-problema, Índice de Rendimento Acadêmico(IRA), porcentagem de integralização e de aprovação. Ao final, fez-se um cruzamento entre cursos com maiores taxas de abandono, e aqueles com maiores taxas de reprovação em disciplina. Os resultados encontrados permitiram visualizar, mesmo que superficialmente, haja vista a grande quantidade de cursos e as peculiaridades de cada um, que em algumas áreas que ofertam disciplinas, como a de ciências exatas, há uma grande quantidade de reprovações e uma associação com índice de conclusão baixo, enquanto outras, como ciências humanas, não seguem um padrão, pois tanto há cursos com grande número de reprovações e pouco abandono, como há outros com poucas reprovações e abandono considerável.

The use of standardized test scores to hold schools, students, and teachers accountable for their performance has been at the heart of education reform efforts throughout the United States for years. Recent reform efforts have been especially focused on including the standardized testing performance of students into the overall evaluation of teacher effectiveness. In several states throughout the country, including Florida, results from teacher performance evaluations are being used to inform professional development, tenure, retention, termination, and compensation decisions. The purpose of this study was to explore the teacher performance evaluation system initiated in Florida in 2011 as perceived by the individuals who created the system, the influencers, as well as by those it most directly impacted, the implementers. This mixed-methodological study provides valuable information on the perceptions of the overall effectiveness of the current teacher performance evaluation system and its potential to improve teacher, student, and school performance. Qualitative data were collected through the use of interviews with Florida Department of Education personnel and open-ended survey questions sent to teachers and principals in six Florida districts. A survey instrument was administered in an effort to further obtain quantifiable results from the 1,022 participants. Given the current federally-funded teacher evaluation system has been in a progressive implementation process for the past three years, minimal research exists on the system other than promotional and informational material that has been produced by state policymakers. As a result, it was important to review how this process to date has impacted the state of Florida and its stakeholders. The results of this study can provide insight to policymakers as well as to the general public to best inform current and future educational policies and practices.

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This case study explored students’ perception about their performance in CSEC English A at three evening schools in Savanna La Mar. While conducting the research I used ethnographic methods, including interviews, observations and document analysis to better understand students’ perceptions of their performance in CSEC English A. The central questions which guided the research are “how do students at three evening schools in Savanna La Mar perceive their performance in CSEC English A and what factors affect those perceptions, and what strategies do students think can improve their performance in English?” Creswell’s (2008) steps for analyzing qualitative data were used to explore the central research questions. The discussion sought to highlight how students perceived their academic performance in CSEC English A and what attributed for these perceptions. These views were examined using four themes: student factors that influence student learning outcome, influence of Jamaican Creole (JC) on learning Standard Jamaican English (SJE), teacher traits that influence learning and structure and operations of the evening schools. The Attribution and Expectancy Value Theories were used to make meaning of the data. The findings revealed that most of the students exhibited high self-concept and expressed that they would be successful in the upcoming CSEC English A Examination despite previous challenges they experienced with SJE. They attributed this success to the strategies they were using and the encouragement and positive feedback they got from their teachers. However, some students cited several factors which have negatively affected their performance such as the predominant use of JC in the home, school and community. Although the research was a multiple site study, it was limited to one geographical location which delimited the generalizability of the study. However, the insights gained can contribute to and fill gaps in the literature and also enlighten educators and other stakeholders of students’ perception about their performance in CSEC English A. / Educational Leadership

Educators in many disciplines are too often forced to rely on intuition about how students learn and the effectiveness of teaching to guide changes and improvements to their curricula. In computer science, systems that perform automated collection and assessment of programming assignments are seeing increased adoption, and these systems generate a great deal of meaningful intermediate data and statistics during the grading process. Continuous collection of these data and long-term retention of collected data present educators with a new resource to assess both learning (how well students understand a topic or how they behave on assignments) and teaching (how effective a response, intervention, or assessment instrument was in evaluating knowledge or changing behavior), by basing their decisions on evidence rather than intuition. It is only possible to achieve these goals, however, if such data are easily accessible. I present an infrastructure that has been added to one such automated grading system, Web-CAT, in order to facilitate routine data collection and access while requiring very little added effort by instructors. Using this infrastructure, I present three case studies that serve as representative examples of educational questions that can be explored thoroughly using pre-existing data from required student work. The first case study examines student time management habits and finds that students perform better when they start earlier but that offering extra credit for finishing earlier did not encourage them to do so. The second case study evaluates a tool used to improve student understanding of manual memory management and finds that students made fewer errors when using the tool. The third case study evaluates the reference tests used to grade student code on a selected assignment and confirms that the tests are a suitable instrument for assessing student ability. In each case study, I use a data-driven, evidence-based approach spanning multiple semesters and students, allowing me to answer each question in greater detail than was possible using previous methods and giving me significantly increased confidence in my conclusions. / Ph. D.

Idag byggs fler bostäder än vad som gjorts under de senaste 60 åren. Det finns många utmaningar med den volym bostäder som behöver byggas. Många bostäder kommer byggas i exploateringsområden, detta ställer krav på infrastrukturinvesteringar exempelvis i form av nya skolor. Enligt prognoser kommer antalet grundskoleelever öka med 250 000 till år 2025. Detta innebär ett behov av 1000 nya skolor på tio år. Behovet av skolor är långsiktigt och lärmiljöer behöver planeras för att vara långsiktiga. Dagsljus och utblick har en stor inverkan på vår arbetsmiljö, prestation och är nödvändig för vår hälsa. Studier har visat att dagsljusbelysta skolmiljöer får elever att prestera bättre. Trots detta har vi sedan 50-talet halverat kravet på dagsljusnivåer i skolor från 2 % till 1,0 % dagsljusfaktor. Idag har vi samma dagsljuskrav för klassrum som för ett sovrum i en bostad. Syftet med examenarbetet är att problematisera moderna skolmiljöer sett ur dagsljusets betydelse för hälsa och prestation i relation till dagens myndighetskrav för tillgång av dagsljus. Vidare syftar arbetet till att ta fram goda exempel på dagsljuslösningar som kan nyttjas vid utformning av moderna skolmiljöer. För att bedöma moderna skolors dagsljustillgång har ett urval av fem skolor i Stockholmsområdet utgjort studieobjekt där tillgången på dagsljus undersökts mot myndighetskraven. Undersökning av studieobjekten har utförts genom 3D modellering i Rhinoceros 3D samt dagsljusfaktorsimuleringar i programmet Grasshopper och Honeybee. Studieobjekten har modellerats upp efter inhämtade bygglovsritningar och dagsljussimuleringarna har utförts med simuleringsmotorn Radiance. Resultatet från dagsljusfaktorsimuleringen visar att ingen av de undersökta skolornas fullt ut uppfyller myndighetskraven. Anledningen till varför skolornas undersökta rum inte uppfyller kraven varierar mellan eller utgör en kombination av; rumsdjup, fönsterstorlek, fönstersättning i fasad, avskärmningsvinklar, avskärmande byggnadsdelar och fast solavskärmning. Undersökningen visar att rum som hemvistytor och uppehållsrum ofta saknar fönster mot det fria och följaktligen underkänns. Dessa rum är vanligt förekommande vid nyttjande av progressiva pedagogiska inriktningar. Beroende på rummens tilltänkta användning kan de komma att klassas som vistelserum och behöver därför tillgång till dagsljus. Ur litteraturgenomgången förstås att en tidig integrering av dagsljusdesign i gestaltningsprocessen är nödvändigt för att säkerställa en god tillgång till dagsljus i lärmiljöer. Som del av examensarbetet har därför ett gestaltningsförslag tagits fram där en dagsljusdesign nyttjas. Iterativt under gestaltningsprocessen har dagsljustillgång simulerats för att motivera gjorda designval och säkerställa en god dagsljusnivå. För jämförande och platsspecifika resultat har klimatbaserade simuleringsmetoder använts. Det nyttjade mätvärdet Optimal Day-lit Area (ODA) simulerar användbarheten i det tillgängliga dagsljusets belysningsstyrka över ett år. Samtidigt tar ODA hänsyn till överbelyst golvyta som kan vara problematisk då obehagsbländning och överhettning kan uppstå. Det presenterade gestaltningsförslaget utgör ett konceptförslag i syfte att gestalta användningen av en integrerad dagsljusdesignprocess och dess resultat. / Currently more housing is being built than in the past 60 years. There are many challenges accompanied with the volume of housing that needs to be built. Many of the dwellings that are going to be built are placed in new densely planned urban areas, which imposes requirements for infrastructure investments, for example in the form of new schools. According to forecasts, the number of students in primary school will increase by 250,000 by the year 2025. This implies a need for approximately 1000 new schools in ten years. The need for new schools are long term and therefore the learning environments need to be designed to be long term. Daylight and view have a major impact on our work environment, performance and are necessary for our health. Studies have shown that daylight-lit school environments enhance the performance of the students. The building legislation regulates the required levels using the daylight factor metric. Since the 50’s the requirements of daylight levels in schools have been approximately halved from 2 % to 1,0 %. Today the daylight requirements are the same for classrooms as for bedrooms in dwellings. The purpose of this thesis is to examine modern school environments in relation to today's regulatory requirements for access to daylight. Furthermore, the work aims to produce good examples of daylight solutions that can be used when designing modern school environments against the regulatory requirements. To assess the daylight access in modern schools, a selection of three nursery schools and two primary schools in the vicinity of Stockholm were chosen. Case studies were conducted using the 3D modelling software, Rhinoceros 3D and the daylight factor was then simulated using the Grasshopper and Honeybee plug-ins. The schools were modelled according to the acquired drawings and daylight were performed using the simulation engine Radiance. The result from the daylight factor simulation show that none of the schools examined fully meet the requirements. The reasons why the examined schools do not meet the requirements vary between or constitute a combination of; room depth, window size, window façade, obstruction angles, obstructing components and shading devices. The study shows that rooms such as: common areas and study hall often lack windows towards the outside and therefore only gets borrowed light from other areas. These kinds of rooms are common when using progressive pedagogical approaches. Depending on the intended future use of the rooms, they may be classified in such a way that they need to fulfil the regulations regarding daylight. From the literature review it is understood that early integration of daylight design in the design process is necessary to ensure good accesses to daylight in learnings environments. As a part of the thesis project, a design proposal has been developed using a daylight design process. During the design process, the access to daylight has been iteratively simulated to motivate selected design choices and ensure a good daylight level.  For comparison and site-specific results, climate-based simulation methods have been used. The use of the Optimal Day-lit Area (ODA) metric measures the usefulness of the available daylight illumination intensity over a year. At the same time, ODA takes the eventual over lit areas that may cause overheating and glare into account. The presented design proposal demonstrates the use of an integrated daylight design process and its results.

A large number of students are struggling with Information System and other computer related subjects. This has a negative impact on students’ academic performance at large. In fact, a number of students from various institutions of higher learning are facing serious Information System challenges. Information System student on NATED curriculum at Majuba TVET College are facing serious challenges on their studies. This has been indicated by their performance on Information System. This article intends to draw an attention of education stakeholders, College management and lecturers to this matter. A number of reasons leading to students poor performance in this field has been mentioned. Various studies have been conducted but yet the lack of Information System skills still persists. The main question that guided this study was: What are the stakeholders’ perceptions of the challenges encountered Information System students? In order to explore and to get some findings for this case qualitative study, semi-structured interviews with relevant stakeholders were conducted. Sample of lecturers, student’s focus groups and college management members was conducted. Data collected from various participants were transcribed verbatim. A combination of literature and data collected produced some findings on the matter. In an attempt to answer the main question, recommendations were made. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)