Where are the returns to lifelong learning?

Participation in formal education during adulthood (ages 25 to 54) is a key part of lifelong learning. Employing unique longitudinal data for Australia, we highlight the prevalence of such study, the varied reasons for undertaking it (consumption, career development, job and home disruption), and investigate whether it is socially valuable. Our more detailed estimates of the labour market return to adult education (wage rates, employment, hours of work and occupational status) confirm previous studies that generally found such returns to be small and isolated. We contribute to this literature by also estimating the effect of adult education on job satisfaction and satisfaction with employment opportunities. Increases in satisfaction help rationalise the education enrolment decisions of these adults

The role of innovations in secondary school performance - Evidence from a conditional efficiency model

This paper studies the influence of educational innovations on school performance. We apply a tailored, fully nonparametric conditional efficiency model to study secondary school efficiency in the Netherlands. The application uses official school data and a self-collected questionnaire on recent innovations in schools. In the nonparametric model, it is assumed that schools aim to maximize educational attainments of students under a budget constraint. The results suggest that innovations are positively related to efficiency. We find that profiling, pedagogic, process and education chain innovations are significantly related to school efficiency, whereas innovations in the professionalization of teachers are insignificantly related to school efficiency. Furthermore, the number of locations per school and the number of schools per governing body are negatively and significantly related to school efficiency. School type and region significantly influence school efficiency, whereas share of disadvantaged students, degree of urbanization and student/teacher ratio do not have significant influence. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.status: publishe

Does residential social mobility improve educational outcomes? Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper explores the impact of residential mobility on educational outcomes. By considering a large Dutch city with substantial internal residential mobility, we examine how residential mobility influences the decision of students to drop out of school. The paper exploits a rich administrative dataset with extensive information on educational, individual, family, housing and moving characteristics of students. It combines a matching design with a multivariate regression analysis, such that the evaluation draws on a well-comparable control group for the treated students. Accounting for individual, family, educational, neighborhood and housing characteristics, as well as for school and year fixed effects, we observe that residential mobility increases the probability of school dropout in the first few years after moving. The estimated effect changes, however, to a lower risk of early school leaving after an initial period, and then changes again to a higher risk after 6years. This effect remains, regardless the level of education the students attended, or whether the student moves to a better or a worse neighborhood.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Does residential mobility improve educational outcomes? Evidence from the Netherlands journaltitle: Social Science Research articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.02.008 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.status: publishe

Niet-cognitieve vaardigheden tijdens COVID-19: Een onderzoek onder leerlingen in het voortgezet onderwijs

In deze studie onderzoeken we of er tijdens de COVID-19-pandemie, en de hieruit voort-komende schoolsluitingen en onderwijs op afstand, een verandering heeft plaatsgevon-den in de niet-cognitieve vaardigheden van leerlingen in het voortgezet onderwijs en of dit verschilt tussen de aangeboden onderwijsty-pen in Nederland. Hiervoor maken we gebruik van data van de OnderwijsMonitor Limburg, en vergelijken we metingen in 2018 en maart 2020 (beide pre-COVID) met metingen direct na de eerste schoolsluiting (juni/juli 2020) en aan de start van het nieuwe schooljaar (sep-tember 2020). Met deze studie leveren we een bijdrage aan de schaarse literatuur over de relatie tussen de COVID-19-pandemie en niet-cognitieve vaardigheden van leerlingen. In de regressieanalyses met fixed-effects op schoolniveau, zien we voor vmbo-leerlingen (N=3025) weinig verschillen. De enige ver-schillen zijn een lagere gerapporteerde pres-tatiegerichtheid en vindingrijkheid en hoger doorzettingsvermogen tijdens de pandemie. Voor havo/vwo-leerlingen (N=4027) zien we di-rect na de eerste schoolsluiting, waarin men dacht dat het ergste achter de rug was, een opleving in de meeste niet-cognitieve vaardig-heden. Enkele maanden later, toen duidelijker werd dat het nog wel even zou duren, bleek het beeld beduidend negatiever. Havo/vwo-leerlingen rapporteren dan lager op school-motivatie, schoolhouding, schoolvertrouwen en sociale relaties met klasgenoten en leraren

Increasing Student Involvement to Decrease Underachievement: Experimental Evidence on Gender Differences in Performance

This article studies the short-run effect of increased student involvement on academic achievement, motivation, and grade repetition. We use a randomized field experiment among 130 tenth-grade students in a Dutch upper secondary school. Students who are more involved in their own learning process have significantly higher academic performance and a lower chance of grade repetition. Extrinsic motivation was lower for these students, but there was no effect on intrinsic motivation. All effects can be attributed to male students. The main explanation for the findings is that students feel more responsible and in charge of their own learning process

The effectiveness of a computer-assisted math learning program

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) programs are considered as a way to improve learning outcomes of students. However, little is known on the schools who implement such programs as well as on the effectiveness of similar information and communication technology programs. We provide a literature review that pays special attention to the existing causal evidence of computer-assisted programs on learning outcomes. The paper relies on a rich data set consisting of (i) pupil-level information on the use of a Dutch computer-assisted program and (ii) detailed school-level information on, among others, outcomes on national exams. The results suggest that schools with lower educational attainments use more frequently CAI programs. This suggests that they use CAI programs to catch up on learning outcomes. Moreover, using an instrumental variable design, we argue that given the participation in the CAI program, making more exercises leads to higher test results. Working with a CAI program seems therefore effective.status: publishe

Make IT Work: The Labor Market Effects of Information Technology Retraining in the Netherlands

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effects of an active labor market program (ALMP) for higher educated workers in the Netherlands. The one-year program is characterized by six months of full-time IT retraining followed by a six-month internship. We estimate the effects of participating on earnings per month and working days per month. The results show significant lock-in effects during the program, lasting up to five months after program start. After this lock-in period, we find significant positive effects on earnings and working days. These positive effects remain significant until the end of the 36-month evaluation period. A conservative cost–benefit analysis based on the effects on earnings shows a return of 2.53% (95% CI 2.02–3.04%), which is low compared to the returns to education in the Netherlands of around 8%. We conclude that IT retraining has positive effects on the labor market outcomes of the participants yet relatively low returns