The rise in the numbers of pupils identified by schools with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): a comparison of the four countries in the United Kingdom
ROY MCCONKEYAn annual school census is held in the four countries of the UK in which pupils with ASD are identified. This longitudinal study of the total UK school population compares increases in prevalence rates for pupils with ASD over a nine-year period from 2010/11. Northern Ireland had the highest prevalence throughout, reaching 3.20% by 2018/19 compared to 1.92% in Wales. The prevalence rates were higher in secondary than in primary schools. The increases in prevalence and intra-country variations may be linked to a greater appreciation of ASD occurring alongside other developmental difficulties. Greater reliance on school rather than statutory assessments may also contribute to increases in pupils with ASD. More in-depth research is needed to establish the reason for the variations across years and countries.
Composite indicators are regularly used for benchmarking countries' performance, but equally often stir controversies about the unavoidable subjectivity that is connected with their construction. Data Envelopment Analysis helps to overcome some key limitations, viz., the undesirable dependence of final results from the preliminary normalization of subindicators, and, more cogently, from the subjective nature of the weights used for aggregating. Still, subjective decisions remain, and such modelling uncertainty propagates onto countries' composite indicator values and relative rankings. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis are therefore needed to assess robustness of final results and to analyze how much each individual source of uncertainty contributes to the output variance. The current paper reports on these issues, using the Technology Achievement Index as an illustration. * This paper is an offshoot of the KEI-project (contract n° 502529) that is part of priority 8 of the policy orientated research under the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme (see http://kei.publicstatistics.net/). Laurens Cherchye thanks the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) for his postdoctoral fellowship.
The increasing availability of statistical data raises opportunities for ‘big’ data and learning analytics. Here, we review the academic literature and research relating to the use of big data analytics in the public sector, and its contribution to public organizations’ performance and efficiency. We outline the advantages as well as the limitations of using big data in public sector organizations and identify research gaps in recent studies and interesting areas for future research.
Composite indicators are regularly used for benchmarking countries' performance, but equally often stir controversies about the unavoidable subjectivity that is connected with their construction. Data Envelopment Analysis helps to overcome some key limitations, viz., the undesirable dependence of final results from the preliminary normalization of subindicators, and, more cogently, from the subjective nature of the weights used for aggregating. Still, subjective decisions remain, and such modelling uncertainty propagates onto countries' composite indicator values and relative rankings. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis are therefore needed to assess robustness of final results and to analyze how much each individual source of uncertainty contributes to the output variance. The current paper reports on these issues, using the Technology Achievement Index as an illustration. * This paper is an offshoot of the KEI-project (contract n° 502529) that is part of priority 8 of the policy orientated research under the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme (see http://kei.publicstatistics.net/). Laurens Cherchye thanks the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) for his postdoctoral fellowship.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.