Educational Effectiveness and Improvement - Research, Policy and Practice from the UK, the USA, China and across the World

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Education Sciences is going to publish original peer-reviewed articles on educational issues related to the effectiveness of schools, written from the disciplinary perspectives of psychology, sociology, and of the educational social sciences in general. It aims to further understand what is “good practice" in education in multiple fields, to promote the improvement of educational practice and to encourage cross cultural and international exchange and the sharing of ideas in these fields. It looks at education in multiple settings across all the age groups/phases, from pre-primary and secondary schools to further, higher and life-long education. This Special Issue has a particular focus upon education in China, as well as globally.

The journal is open access and publishes original, peer-reviewed articles dealing with issues concerning the quality, effectiveness and improvement of school/education. Papers are encouraged based upon all age phases and age groups within education.

Papers can be reviews of the field/sub-fields or reports of original research, covering:

• Literature reviews;
• Case studies of individual schools/teachers;
• Reviews of methodological issues in the field;
• The theoretical perspectives on effectiveness and improvement;
• Discussions of competing value perspectives in the field.

Book reviews, accounts of work in progress, and descriptions of the research process itself are also welcome. Of particular interest are papers with an international and/or comparative perspective on the field, and papers that are of interest to practitioners and educational leaders, in addition to the research community.

We are particularly interested in material on such topics as;

• Schools and teachers effects on the academic and social development of their students;
• The characteristics of effective, value adding educational institutions;
• The mechanisms of classroom and school level improvement of educational institutions;
• The attributes and characteristics of “effective” teaching methods;
• The universals of effective practice (what works in all contexts) and what is context specific (what works in particular countries and/or within countries);
• Areas of educational practice in schools/classrooms that matter in determining effectiveness that may have been neglected in study (eg interpersonal relationships);
• The generation of theories that explain educational effectiveness;
• The processes of “failing” educational institutions and possible mechanisms of improvement;
• The system, cultural and social context of what appear to be effective educational systems;
• The philosophical perspectives on “effective” education;
• The appropriate methodological techniques (quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods).

The proposed content will both summarize the large existing literature of the fields and be useful for forward thinking in its review of topics that are currently minority perspectives which are likely to become mainstream over the next few years.

Prof. David Reynolds
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• school effectiveness
• school improvement
• educational change
• comparative education
• teacher effectiveness