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Abstract-At present there is an increasing emphasis on both data mining and educational systems, making educational data mining a novel emerging field of research. Educational data mining (EDM) is an attractive interdisciplinary research domain that deals with the development of methods to utilise data originating in an educational context. EDM uses computational methodologies to evaluate educational data in order to study educational questions. The first part of this paper introduces EDM, describes the different types of educational data environments, diverse phases of EDM, the applications and goals of EDM, and some of the most promising future lines of research. Using EDM, the second part of this paper tracks students in Australia from primary school Year 1 through to successful completion of high school, and, thereafter, enrolment in university. The paper makes an assessment of the role of student gender on successive rates of educational completion in Australia. Implications for future lines of enquiry are discussed.

A key issue for youth development programs is whether the learning they provide is transferred to participants' daily lives. It is also important that they are effective for the diverse range of participants they attract. This study used a randomized controlled trial design to measure the impact of Project K, a New Zealand-based youth development program, on academic and social self-efficacy. Project K combines a 3-week wilderness adventure, a 10 day community service component, and 1 year of mentoring to promote positive growth in 14-15 year olds with low self-efficacy. At baseline, the evaluation included 600 Project K (46 % female) and 577 Control participants (48 % female) and revealed that Project K was effective in improving both social and academic self-efficacy from pre- to post-program with effects being sustained 1 year later. Parents' perceptions of changes in the participants' interpersonal skills supported these findings. Differential program effects were found across participant subgroups, particularly 1 year after program completion. The implications of these differences are discussed.

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Research in international large-scale assessment (ILSA) has become an increasingly popular field of study in education. Consequently, interest and debate in the field by practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and the public has grown over the past decades. This study adopts a descriptive bibliometric approach to map modern research on ILSA in education and provide an up-to-date picture of the recent developments and structure of the field. The analysis of 2,233 journal articles indexed in the Web of Sciences database revealed that ILSA research in education is an emerging field in a stage of exponential growth that has become increasingly international with recent substantive contributions from China, Spain, and Turkey. Research in the field is currently produced by a tupid network of scholars with diverse geographical backgrounds that engage frequently in national and international research collaborations. Also, the field is relatively interdisciplinary and has developed grounded on nine differentiated historical paths. The PISA program has received the greatest attention in the field, and a wide variety of topics have been addressed in the literature in the last decades, including equity and quality education, globalization and education policy, measurement and statistics, student motivation and self-concept, and interpersonal relationships. The paper concludes by pointing to the potential of future ILSA research to make use of new more relevant instrumentation, data linkages, and trans-regional collaborations.

The Challenge Immersion in virtual reality environments can unite language, place, and community as students experience highly contextualized real-world environments in visual, auditory, and sensory modalities. How can virtual reality enhance foreign language students' ability to envision and understand the diverse and multifaceted nature of target cultures?

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