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The Department for Children, Schools and Families set the topic for this review to improve understanding of employer engagement in higher education (HE) curriculum development and, in particular, the impact (if any), of that engagement. The underlying rationale was that a number of studies have set out to capture employers' views of graduate skills and qualities, and some have indicated that employers are often not satisfied with graduates' 'softer' skills. Furthermore, policy pushes have created an environment where employer engagement is the expected norm for both higher and further education.

The review found that there are benefits to employer engagement (e.g. work-based learning) but there are also barriers, and one of these barriers is size of employer organisation: smaller organisations are less likely to engage with higher education. However, the review also found that there is a need for more rigorous evaluative, analytical and longitudinal studies to shed further light on the impact of employer engagement in course development - and in the disciplinary areas and occupational sectors that were the focus of this review.

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Targeted Youth Support (TYS) is an initiative aimed at vulnerable young people and involves ensuring that agencies work together to meet young people’s needs. The initiative’s rationale is that a collaborative, ‘joined-up’ approach is needed because young people may have complex and multiple needs which cannot be met by mainstream or specialist services in isolation. This report was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to explore what works for young people in relation to the outcomes prioritised by the TYS initiative.

We were interested both in identifying which risks are associated with the outcomes targeted by TYS, and in interventions which improve these outcomes, and so conducted this study in two parts: Component 1) identification and assessment of risk and protective factors associated with TYS outcomes, and Component 2) a rapid review of systematic reviews examining what services and interventions work to reduce the poor outcomes.

We identified 29 risk and protective factors. The risk factors fell into five main areas: family, school, community, individuals and peers. We found 57 systematic reviews about what works and related these to the risk and protective factors. We found that rarely, if ever, were all known risk factors addressed by the included reviews; for example, one out of four known individual risk factors for mental health was addressed by the interventions we identified. Protective factors, where known, were all addressed in the reviews. The risk factors relating to drug and alcohol misuse, [Not In Education, Employment or Training] NEET, and low attainment were rarely addressed in the reviews. More risk factors at the individual and family levels were identified (and more addressed) than at the school and community levels. This either suggests that individual and family levels are more important in determining behaviour or is simply a reflection of an emphasis in research and policy on personal responsibility and behaviour change. Many studies were not always clear that they were targeting a specific risk factor at all; they were aiming to improve a particular outcome.

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The impact of financial circumstances on the engagement with learning of young people and adults in the post-16 education sector is of considerable interest to policy-makers and other stakeholders. The Post-Compulsory Education Review Group has investigated the impact of financial circumstances on engagement with learning in the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) sector by systematically reviewing an international range of research studies dating from 1993 to 2002. This report identifies the range of studies that address the impact of financial circumstances on engagement with learning in the LSC sector and undertakes an in-depth review of the papers that were identified as focusing on the impact of financial circumstances on access to learning in the LSC sector. The findings and implications are discussed. Show less

In the United States, initial teacher education (ITE) has seen many debates and attempted reforms over recent years. While some advocate for shorter, more intensive programmes, the Professional Development School (PDS) movement stands at the opposite end of reform, promoting more thorough, and potentially longer, teacher education. While many studies have discussed the potential value of Professional Development Schools, few have presented systematic reviews of the evidence from which to derive judgement. A systematic review is important because the effectiveness of education reforms can vary based on context, and a review would provide better insights into contextual and aggregate success than a single study could provide. Using an abridged systematic review, a systematic rapid evidence assessment, this study examines the impact of Professional Development Schools compared to more traditional teacher education across five sub-categories: Interaction with Diverse Students in Urban Environments (hereafter referred to as Urban Environments and Diversity), Self-Efficacy, Reflective Educator, Classroom Management and Organisation, and Lesson Planning.

Included in this assessment are articles found on the ERIC (ProQuest) database showing comparative data on both Professional Development Schools and more traditional ITE forms. A Quality Assessment for each study was conducted. Quantitative data were entered into the MetaLight meta-analysis programme to develop pooled effect sizes for each sub-category. Qualitative data, if found for a sub-category, were used to augment the quantitative analysis. A total of 10 studies provided data which was included in this review. All pooled effect sizes were positive, although some were found to be insignificant. Qualitative data predominantly showed support for Professional Development Schools, although some did indicate otherwise. Overall, the findings suggest Professional Development Schools may provide positive effects, although the time constrained nature of this study suggests more research ought to be conducted. The shortcomings identified in this study point to the need for educational research to strengthen data collection methods and the evidence on which policy is based.

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This review's overall aim was to support the further development of teaching and learning. Educational policy implementation has been the focus for this review. Specifically, this review looked at post-16 practitioners' perceptions of implementing national education policy at the local level. The findings of the review are relevant to the tasks of framing, presenting and administering effective policy, policy that is able to harness the potential of local settings in the pursuit of improving teaching and learning.

Key findings of the review were as follows: practitioners implemented national policy, but this was generally mediated to suit local conditions. They commonly responded pragmatically to national policy, making it work for the benefit of their institution or learners; they felt that a key challenge when implementing policy was having to balance the requirements of working in a competitive environment (in terms of attracting students to courses) with their own judgement on the best way to teach and encourage learning. They were often unsure whether the right balance had been struck; and they were concerned about demands for more flexibility, a feeling of 'policy initiative overload' and a local tendency to place more importance on being successful in a market environment than in teaching. Tutors in particular felt that they did not have enough space to exercise pedagogic judgement and agency. The view was expressed that this aspect of practice was the most under-exploited resource in local settings.

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This review focuses on how to effectively increase access to and quality in higher education in developing countries. One hundred and seventy-five research papers on the impact of higher education policies and methods of provision on access, quality and gender issues in developing countries, available in English language, were systematically reviewed. The majority of the studies fell into six main categories: affirmative action; cross-border, distance and open education; financial policies/programmes (including cost-sharing policies and student loan programmes); technical and vocational education and training (TVET); and institutional type.

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This study was funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) as part of a joint call for systematic reviews with the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK, and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). They and the policy makers, teacher educators and managers in the education systems sought information on the approaches to increasing the skills of untrained or under-trained teachers (UUTs) in the teacher workforce that are likely to be most effective in low- and middle-income countries and at what cost. This addresses a concern that previous strategies, such as the massive recruitment of untrained and less-educated teachers in order to meet vastly expanded pupil enrolment, have led to poorer learning and teaching outcomes. This review explored the following research question: What are the impacts and cost-effectiveness of strategies to improve performance of untrained and under-trained teachers in the classroom in low and middle-income countries? This was done through the following sub-questions: How do UUTs perform in the classroom, and what factors affect their performance? What forms of intervention have been used to attempt to improve the performance of these teachers? How have these interventions affected these teachers' methods, skills and motivation, the performance of their pupils, and the satisfaction of parents, headteachers and other stakeholders? What is the available evidence for the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of such interventions, and what are the factors that may influence these in different settings? The review had a broad scope, considering interventions with untrained or under-trained schoolteachers from low- or middle-income settings countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Setting, contextual factors, barriers, facilitators and the reported views of stakeholders were taken into account in order to situate better these strategies and their range of applicability.

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The desire to widen participation in formal post-compulsory education and training is a policy agenda common to most developed countries, and political attention in the UK has largely focused on young (potential) students aged 16-21. Given that some minority ethnic groups have higher rates of participation in the UK at both age 16 and 18 than both the majority white cohort and some other minorities, identifying potential determinants could lead to a method of increasing participation for all. The overall aim of this review, therefore, was to determine the factors that drive high post-16 participation of many minority ethnic groups. There were 23 studies included for in-depth analysis. These examined relationships and/or statistical analyses with regard to the factors that could be instrumental in determining young people’s views about post-16 participation by considering a variety of variables. Differences between ethnic groups are largely explained by differences in cultural attitudes towards education in general and higher education in particular. Minority ethnic groups with high participation tend to have a high cultural awareness of the value of extending young people’s education.

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This systematic review aims to provide comparable, reliable and verifiable estimates of the effect of education on economic growth, controlling for study heterogeneity in terms of the measure of human capital used, growth measurement applied and country grouping. The objective is to address the impact of education and skills on economic growth empirically with a view to providing a meta-synthesis of the empirical evidence on the direct effects of human capital investment on growth in low-income countries (LICs). The report also aims to highlight policy conclusions and point out potential avenues for further research. The review focuses on the growth impacts of education and skills in LICs, but we also provide evidence for a larger set of countries for comparative purposes. The review suggests the widely held belief that investing in education and skills promotes economic growth in LICs is correct in general. It also identifies many gaps in the research field which, if filled, would enable a more effective policy response by international donors and governments in LICs. The most important issue is that of the education and skills measurements used. These are often chosen by academics in terms of data availability rather than usefulness as a measure for policy intervention. The human capital measures used tend to be measures of the inputs into the education process, for example enrolment rates as a measure of engagement, and educational expenditure as a measure of costs, rather than measures of learning. Therefore a discussion between academics and policy-makers as to what they mean by education and skills and how best to measure these may be a fruitful line of enquiry in terms of making the academic literature in this field more useful to policy-makers.

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In the UK, workplace-based learning for healthcare students takes place mainly within the National Health Service (NHS). To ensure that students are adequately supported in their workplace-based learning, many regulatory bodies have produced guidance to set out the standards for learning in practice based settings. All Governments of the UK have developed specialised bodies or workplace strategies to lead and deliver learning and development priorities for a modern health service. Research evidence has a central role to play in informing our understanding of the characteristics of excellence in workplace-based learning. Yet, there is no systematic understanding of the nature of the body of research on workplace learning for healthcare professional students. The research on workplace-based learning in healthcare education is disparate, inchoate, and spread across a range of professions and disciplines. There is a need to bring together the research in this field and identify the gaps in the literature. This report starts this journey by providing a timely and unique description of the current state of UK research in the field of workplace-based learning for undergraduate/pre-registration healthcare professionals.

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