National Initiative for Education Research

Although teachers’ collaboration might be tightly connected to their professional learning, its implementation is challenging. The goal of this review study was to provide an overview of the factors that enable or frustrate school-based teacher collaboration in secondary schools. Based on the collaborative learning activities that were central to 50 studies, three categories were distinguished including sharing, experimenting, and designing. Differences between categories in the way that personal, group, process, guidance, organizational, and structural factors enable or frustrate teacher collaboration were addressed. Overall, factors relating to the process of working and learning together are emphasized in all three categories. Practical implications concern creating possibilities for teachers to explore and critically analyze vital aspects of teaching and student learning.

Abstract In many countries, the quality of (large-scale quantitative) educational research is threatened by data challenges. In this article, we present an innovative data research project from the Netherlands in which many of the challenges that come forward in previous literature are addressed. The Netherlands Cohort Study on Education [in Dutch abbreviated as NCO (Nationaal Cohortonderzoek Onderwijs)] uses longitudinal register data on track placement of cohorts of pupils in primary and secondary education from Statistics Netherlands, which will be combined with school admin data on pupils’ performance and data from the major (inter)national surveys. NCO maps pupils’ pathways and performances through primary and secondary education and their trajectory into tertiary education. NCO so far covers more than 10 complete cohorts and is complemented with the newest data every year. These registers are made available at Statistics Netherlands. A major contribution of NCO is that data from school administrative systems and additional research projects are linked with administrative register data, thereby creating a unique data set that enriches not only research, but also policy and practice. This data brief elaborates on the possibilities of this database by exploring and following one of the cohorts over time.

Abstract Leadership in higher can influence the structurally embedding of educational technologies in higher education institutions. However, HEIs are complex pluralistic organizational environments with loosely coupled systems, diffused power and goal ambiguity which makes governance of educational innovations a wicked problem in which they have to balance dynamic complex interactions while also setting out a clear vision and enacting this vision towards organizational goals. This paper analyses four qualitative case studies with a focus on the choices made by leaders in four Dutch universities that aim to contribute to organisational educational innovation. We investigated the data through the lens of complexity leadership theory in which three types of leadership play an important role: administrative leadership (i.e. top-down oriented), adaptive leadership (i.e. bottom-up oriented) and enabling leadership that emerges as a leadership type between administrative and adaptive leadership and contributes to governing innovation in complex environments. This study sheds light on how, in the case of HEIs as complex environments, leaders made strategic choices and followed up on them to enable the innovative potential of the organisation.

This study explores a school leaders’ perspective on teacher professional agency. Tensions may arise when teachers feel hindered in their professional agency and try to negotiate their ‘space’ with other stakeholders (colleagues, students, management). School leaders are expected to empower and support teachers, but how do they perceive teachers’ agency tensions? What leadership instruments do they select for these situations? School leaders’ sense-making and framing of situations can influence the way teachers subsequently interpret and act upon situations. Regular research methods (interviews/surveys) are not sufficient to study school leaders’ framing of agency tensions. Therefore, we used a qualitative vignette questionnaire to study the dilemmas, responsible actors and leadership instruments of 50 school leaders from Dutch secondary schools in response to teachers’ agency tensions. The results show that school leaders perceived dilemmas at both the organisation and teacher levels. Five different leadership instruments showed a variety of possible roles for school leaders (e.g. communicating vision, exchanging expectations, diagnosing problems). This paper discusses the ways in which school leaders attribute an important role to themselves in resolving tensions related to teacher professional agency and the consequences school leaders’ roles and practices might have for how they lead professional learning.

Abstract The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into education holds promise for supporting and augmenting teaching and learning‐related activities. Yet, despite its potential, there is limited empirical research on the use of AI in K‐12 settings exploring the pedagogical grounding, impact and implications of the technological solutions. The current paper reports a systematic literature review of 28 papers that addresses the topic of AI technologies in authentic settings. We applied etic and emic content analysis to the collected data. Our results indicated that most AI research is conducted in China and the United States, and investigates AI solutions for primary education. As main AI technologies we found social robots, augmented reality and intelligent systems. The review also revealed that half of the papers lack a solid pedagogical foundation and a contextualisation under concrete course conditions. Finally, most AI solutions focus mainly on learning outcomes without exploring the teacher needs and impressions. Our findings suggest the need for research to focus on: (a) AIEd localisation to fit the AI context of different regions; (b) contextualisation of the tool design under several course conditions and learning theories; (c) equal attention on teacher agency and autonomy within the AIEd era; and (d) systematisation of the evaluation of sustained pedagogical effects (e.g., cognitive, relational, affective effects) apart from student learning outcomes. We envision that our research can support the design, development and deployment of AI tools in K‐12 under such pedagogical considerations, hence contributing to strengthen the ties between pedagogy and AI practices in authentic settings.

In higher education, many students do not complete their studies within the term allotted. A Dutch university implemented an intervention aimed to reduce this form of academic procrastination. The intervention consisted of three measures: (1) requiring students to acquire all first-year credits within their first year in university, (2) reducing the number of resits, and (3) introducing compensation opportunities for insufficient grades. In this study, we investigated which groups of students (if any) benefited most from this intervention. We divided 29,629 students entering the university between 2009 and 2015 into subgroups based on their gender, ethnic background, and level of achievement during pre-university education. For each subgroup, we determined both first-year completion and three-year bachelor graduation rates, both before and after the introduction of the intervention. It was demonstrated that almost all subgroups profited from the intervention. Particularly students from subgroups that in the past performed less well showed much better first-year completion rates and much lower study delay rates. Dropout rates did not change significantly. For most subgroups, an effect of the intervention was still visible after three years: Three-year graduation rates were higher, although the effect was smaller than completion rates in the first academic year.

Bewijs voor effectiviteit of ineffectiviteit van de inzet van leervoorkeuren op leerresultaten ontbreekt. Op basis van kennis over het toepassen van de theorie van leerstijlen lijkt het voor het leerrendement niet zinvol om onderwijsaanbod aan te passen aan leervoorkeuren. Mogelijk is er wel een belangrijke relatie tussen voorkennis en leervoorkeuren.