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Although instructional development for teachers has become an important topic in higher education, little is known about the impact it has on daily teaching practice. The lack of systematic programme evaluation is an ongoing concern. In this study we investigate by use of a quasi-experimental design, the impact of an instructional development program for beginning university teachers on their teaching approach. Quantitative pre-test as well as post-test data were assembled from 20 experimental teachers and 20 control teachers. At the post-test qualitative data were gathered too: 17 teachers of the experimental group and 12 teachers of the control group were interviewed. Paired t-tests and analysis of covariance with the pre-test scores as a covariate showed some effect of instructional development on teaching approach. The analysis of the qualitative data sustained this result. Our results reveal the influence of instructional development on teachers' teaching approach being slightly different for teachers belonging to distinct disciplines. Several interpretations and perspectives for further research are discussed.

The environmental agenda is gaining momentum as an international policy issue. This is reflected in an increase in environmental education research focussing on children's awareness and attitudes toward the environment. In this study, we focused on this issue from a school effectiveness perspective and evaluated (a) which student characteristics predict environmental attitudes and awareness, (b) whether schools make a difference in their students' environmental attitudes and awareness and (c) if school effects are different for students with varying levels of science ability. The cross-sectional Flemish data of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment 2006 (4,999 students in 156 schools) were re-analysed using a multivariate multilevel model to address these issues. Results show that gender, immigrant status, socioeconomic status and educational track are important in explaining students' environmental attitudes and awareness. Furthermore, the results show that schools do matter; schools in which science is taught in a more hands-on manner are associated with higher student environmental awareness whilst environmental learning activities are associated with more pro-environmental attitudes amongst students. After controlling for student characteristics, these school effects do not differ between more science-literate children and their less or average science-literate peers.

The study makes clear that the impact of teaching strategies on learning strategies in first-year higher education cannot be overlooked nor overinterpreted, due to the importance of students' personality and academic motivation which also partly explain why students learn the way they do.

Recently, comparative judgement has been introduced as an alternative method for scoring essays. Although this method is promising in terms of obtaining reliable scores, empirical evidence concerning its validity is lacking. The current study examines implications resulting from two critical assumptions underpinning the use of comparative judgement, namely its holistic characteristic and how the final rank-order reflects the shared consensus on what makes for a good essay. Judges' justifications that underpin their decisions are qualitatively analysed to obtain insight into the dimensions of academic writing they take into account. The results show that most arguments are directly related to the competence description. However, judges also use their expertise in order to judge the quality of essays. Additionally, judges differ in terms of how they conceptualize writing quality, and regarding the extent to which they tap into their own expertise. Finally, this study explores divergence conceptualisation of misfitting judges.

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The present study explores whether students' learning strategies and academic motivation predict persistence and academic success in the first year of higher education. Freshmen students in a professional bachelor program in teacher education were questioned on their learning strategy use and motivation at the start and at the end of the academic year. Students' learning strategies were assessed using the inventory of learning styles-SV. Motivation was measured using scales from the self-regulation questionnaire and the academic motivation scale. Gender and students' prior education were incorporated as control variables. Logistic regression analyses and general linear modelling were applied to predict persistence and academic success, respectively. In each case a stepwise approach in data analysis was used. Results on persistence indicate that lack of regulation and amotivation at the start of the year are significant predictors. For academic success, results showed that relating and structuring, lack of regulation, and lack of motivation at the end of the year are meaningful predictors. Overall, our study demonstrates that learning strategies and motivation have a moderate explanatory value regarding academic success and persistence, and that these effects remain even after controlling for the influence of background variables.

Nowadays, comparative judgment (CJ) is used to assess competences. Judges compare two pieces of student work and judge which of both is better regarding the competence assessed. Using these pairwise comparison data, students' work is scaled according to its quality. Since student work is highly information loaded and heterogeneous of nature, this raises the question whether judges can handle this type of complex judgments? However, research into the complexity of CJ and its relation with decision accuracy is currently lacking. Therefore, this study initiates a theoretical framework on the complexity of CJ and relates it to decision accuracy. Based on this framework, two hypotheses are formulated and their plausibility is examined. The first hypothesis states that the distance between two pieces of student work on the rank-order (rank-order distance) is negatively related to experienced complexity, irrespectively of decision accuracy. In contrast, hypothesis 2 expects decision accuracy to moderate the relation between rank-order distance and experienced complexity. A negative relation is expected for accurate decisions. Meanwhile, inaccurate decisions are assumed to result in higher experienced complexity than accurate decisions, irrespective of rank-order distance. In both hypotheses, judges are expected to vary in mean experienced complexity as well as in the strength of the expected relationship between rank-order distance and experienced complexity. Using an information-theoretic approach, both hypotheses are translated into a statistical model and their relative fit is assessed. All analyses are replicated on three samples. Sample 1 and 2 comprise CJ data on the assessment of writing, while sample 3 contains pairwise comparison data on the assessment of visual arts. In all samples, results unambiguously confirm the moderating role of decision accuracy (hypothesis 2). Inaccurate decisions are experienced as more complex than accurate decisions, irrespective of rank-order distance. Meanwhile, for accurate decisions, rank-order distance is negatively related to experienced complexity. In line with expectations, differences between judges are found in mean experienced complexity and in the strength of the relationship between rankorder distance and experienced complexity. Suggestions for further theory development are formulated based on the results of this study.