Suchergebnisse

Physical activity (PA) may improve brain development, cognition, concentration and academic performance. In this prospective controlled intervention study, we increased the level of PA in 338 children aged 6–8 years at study start, from the Swedish standard of 60 min per week to 200 min per week (40 min daily). The intervention continued in all nine compulsory school years until the students graduated between 2007–2012. All other 689,881 Swedish children who graduated the same years were included as a control group. We registered at graduation eligibility rate for upper secondary school and the final grade score (from 0 to 320 grade points). We also registered the same end points in the 295 students in the index school and in all other 471,926 Swedish students who graduated in 2003–2006, that is, those who graduated before the intervention study started. Before the intervention, academic performance was similar among children in the index school as for all other Swedish boys and girls. With the intervention, the eligibility rate increased for boys in the index school by 7.3 percentage points and the mean grade scores by 13.3 points. This should be compared with a decrease of 0.8 percentage points in eligibility rate and an increase by 2.7 points in grade score in other Swedish boys. No changes were seen for intervention girls, neither in eligibility rates or grade scores. By introducing daily school-based PA in compulsory school, more boys would probably reach the eligibility rate for higher education.

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. We consider the effects of daytime fasting by pregnant women during the lunar month of Ramadan on their children's test scores at age seven. Using English register data, we find that scores are .05 to .08 standard deviations lower for Pakistani and Bangladeshi students exposed to Ramadan in early pregnancy. These estimates are downward biased to the extent that Ramadan is not universally observed. We conclude that the effects of prenatal investments on test scores are comparable to many conventional educational interventions but are likely to be more cost effective and less subject to "fade out""--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

As governmental subsidies to universities are declining in recent years, sustaining excellence in academic performance and more efficient use of resources have become important issues for university stakeholders. To assess the academic performances and the utilization of the resources, two important issues need to be addressed, i.e., a capable methodology and a set of good performance indicators as we consider in this paper. In this paper, we propose a set of performance indicators to enable efficiency analysis of academic activities and apply a novel network DEA structure to account for subfunctional efficiencies such as teaching quality, research productivity, as well as the overall efficiency. We tested our approach on the efficiency analysis of academic colleges at Alzahra University in Iran.

Academic achievement is one of the central outcomes
targeted by all major models of youth development. Youth who succeed academically are
well-positioned to thrive through meaningful careers, positions of community leadership,
and fulfilling personal and family lives (Arnold, 2018). As such, the Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board (THECB) has established a set of ambitious goals for the
postsecondary education of Texas youth. Almost in tandem with the establishment of these
goals, outcomes of academic achievement in relation to membership in Texas 4-H have
become a keen interest for stakeholders. Through our study, we compared postsecondary
academic achievement of Texas 4-H Alumni who graduated from high school in 2013, 2014,
and 2015 against the Texas population. Data sources included the National Student
Clearinghouse (NSC), the THECB, and an online survey. Results found that Texas 4-H
alumni substantially outperformed the population of Texas higher education students on
completion rates, baccalaureate graduation rates, marketable skills, student debt, ACT
scores, and dual credit enrollment. To provide further direction and context,
opportunities for Texas 4-H to build upon this success are provided in the
recommendations section.