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Education Commons

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Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

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2015

Academic performance

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Education

The Effects Of Spatial Skills And Spatial Skills Training On Academic Performance In Stem Education, Gavin Duffy, Stephanie Farrell, Rachel Harding, Avril Behan, Aaron Mac Raighne, Robert Howard, Edmund Nevin, Brian Bowe Jul 2015

The Effects Of Spatial Skills And Spatial Skills Training On Academic Performance In Stem Education, Gavin Duffy, Stephanie Farrell, Rachel Harding, Avril Behan, Aaron Mac Raighne, Robert Howard, Edmund Nevin, Brian Bowe

Conference papers

Spatial ability plays an important but often unacknowledged role in achieving success in science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) education. Many entering STEM disciplines have low spatial skills but these can be improved through a short training course. Accompanying improvements in academic grades and retention rates have been observed by others. This presents an opportunity to enhance the first year experience (FYE) for those with poor spatial skills. In this study the spatial skills of students entering several first year programmes in science and engineering were measured. Those identified as weak visualisers were offered a spatial skills course. Spatial skill …


Non-Cognitive Abilities And Spanish Regional Differences In Student Performance In Pisa 2009, Ildefonso Mendez, Gema Zamarro, Jose G. Clavel, Collin Hitt Jun 2015

Non-Cognitive Abilities And Spanish Regional Differences In Student Performance In Pisa 2009, Ildefonso Mendez, Gema Zamarro, Jose G. Clavel, Collin Hitt

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The goal of this paper is to analyze the role that non-cognitive skills and, in particular, regional differences in those skills, play on the observed differences in 15-year-old student’s academic performance, across Spanish regions, on PISA 2009. Previous research has shown the relevance of differences in student’s personal, family and school characteristics in accounting for academic differences across Spanish regions but it has also found that a sizeable part of the observed differences remained unexplained. We have found that differences in the distribution of certain non-cognitive skills associated to academic performance like focus, perseverance and resilience play a prominent role …