High School Exit Examinations: When Do Learning Effects Generalize?

This paper reviews international and domestic evidence on the effects of three types of high school exit exam systems: voluntary curriculum-based external exit exams, universal curriculum-based external exit exam systems and minimum competency tests that must be passed to receive a regular high school diploma. The nations and provinces that use Universal CBEEES (and typically teacher grades as well) to signal student achievement have significantly higher achievement levels and smaller differentials by family background than otherwise comparable jurisdictions that base high stakes decisions on voluntary college admissions tests and/or teacher grades. The introduction of Universal CBEEES in New York and North Carolina during the 1990s was associated with large increases in math achievement on NAEP tests. Research on MCTs and high school accountability tests is less conclusive because these systems are new and have only been implemented in one country. Cross-section studies using a comprehensive set of controls for family background have not found that students in MCT states score higher on audit tests like the NAEP that carry no stakes for the test taker. The analysis reported in table 1 tells us that the five states that introduced MCTs during the 1990s had significantly larger improvements on NAEP tests than states that made no change in their student accountability regime. The gains, however, are smaller than for the states introducing Universal CBEEES. New York and North Carolina. The most positive finding about MCTs is that students in MCT states earn significantly more during the first eight years after graduation than comparable students in other states suggesting that MCTs improve employer perceptions of the quality of the recent graduates of local high schools

Intensive care of the cancer patient: recent achievements and remaining challenges

A few decades have passed since intensive care unit (ICU) beds have been available for critically ill patients with cancer. Although the initial reports showed dismal prognosis, recent data suggest that an increased number of patients with solid and hematological malignancies benefit from intensive care support, with dramatically decreased mortality rates. Advances in the management of the underlying malignancies and support of organ dysfunctions have led to survival gains in patients with life-threatening complications from the malignancy itself, as well as infectious and toxic adverse effects related to the oncological treatments. In this review, we will appraise the prognostic factors and discuss the overall perspective related to the management of critically ill patients with cancer. The prognostic significance of certain factors has changed over time. For example, neutropenia or autologous bone marrow transplantation (BMT) have less adverse prognostic implications than two decades ago. Similarly, because hematologists and oncologists select patients for ICU admission based on the characteristics of the malignancy, the underlying malignancy rarely influences short-term survival after ICU admission. Since the recent data do not clearly support the benefit of ICU support to unselected critically ill allogeneic BMT recipients, more outcome research is needed in this subgroup. Because of the overall increased survival that has been reported in critically ill patients with cancer, we outline an easy-to-use and evidence-based ICU admission triage criteria that may help avoid depriving life support to patients with cancer who can benefit. Lastly, we propose a research agenda to address unanswered questions

The effect heterogeneity of central examinations: evidence from TIMSS, TIMSS-Repeat and PISA

This paper uses extensive student-level micro databases of three international student achievement tests to estimate heterogeneity in the effect of external exit examinations on student performance along three dimensions. First, quantile regressions show that the effect tends to increase with student ability—but it does not differ substantially for most measured family-background characteristics. Second, central examinations have complementary effects to school autonomy. Third, the effect of central exit examinations increases during the course of secondary education, and regular standardised examination exerts additional positive effects. Thus, there is substantial heterogeneity in the central-examination effect along student, school and time dimensions.Central examinations, student achievement, international education production function, effect heterogeneity, TIMSS, PISA,

Computers and student learning: bivariate and multivariate evidence on the availability and use of computers at home and at school

We estimate the relationship between computers and students’ educational achievement in the international student-level PISA database. Bivariate analyses show a positive correlation between achievement and computer availability both at home and at school. However, once we control extensively for family background and school characteristics, the relationship gets negative for home computers and insignificant for school computers. Thus, mere availability of computers at home seems to distract students from effective learning. But achievement shows a positive conditional relationship with computer use for education and communication at home and an inverted U-shaped relationship with computer and internet use at school.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Computers and student learning: bivariate and multivariate evidence on the availability and use of computers at home and at school

We estimate the relationship between computers and students’ educational achievement in the international student-level PISA database. Bivariate analyses show a positive correlation between achievement and computer availability both at home and at school. However, once we control extensively for family background and school characteristics, the relationship gets negative for home computers and insignificant for school computers. Thus, mere availability of computers at home seems to distract students from effective learning. But achievement shows a positive conditional relationship with computer use for education and communication at home and an inverted U-shaped relationship with computer and internet use at school.Computers at home; computers at school; student achievement; educational production; PISA