Research about the use of social media under primary and secondary school pupils

a (Dutch) publication about the use of social media in the primary and secondary education. This research has looked at 1500 students in the Netherlands. See it here.

Grade retention in Belgium

I came across a (unfortunately only) Dutch article about grade retention, read it here

Codingcodingcoding writingwritingwriting

It's going fast now! Last week, I've coded my 20 interviews and looked at the program Atlas.ti in which you can process interview results in a more scientific way. The program connects codes which you apply to certain (pieces of) texts, and gives overall view of what you're doing. Easy to use!
Besides that, other results are useful for me.
- what the websites of the schools say about guidance and placement policy on their sites,
- the additional data some people gave me about their school
- the percentages of throughput, ranged on: grade retention, etc.

I need to combine those 3, and then say something about it.
The structure of my thesis, and the layout is ready. Now I have to fill it!

My goal? Hand in a quite good first thesis on August 6...
How to? Lock myself in till that time and having no contact at all.

So maybe there will be no update next week! Well, I will be going on with the same stuff as described above, so I will be repeating myself then.

oh! and my research proposal is also finished. I made the final changes a couple of days ago. The teacher was so kind to let me finish my interviews first!

Going with the flow

I'm glad to tell you that I've got a clear view on the rest of the process, and that I've got the feeling that the end is near (or, better said: is clear).
While planning isn't my strongest point, and certainly is something I need to look into, I have a feeling this will work out. My pace is steady now, and every day is exactly the same (lol), except for the weekend, then my main thoughts are with doing nice stress releasing things. Yep, I've come to the point that I also work in the weekends, but it's kind of necessary I think.

Next week, I'm off to Barcelona, on a trip with my youth orchestra (no update then). Not much time for working there. With now working in the weekends, I hope I can get this time off. :)

I've got 5 weeks from now (actually 6, but one ' useless'') to write my thesis.. Must be possible :) within 7 weeks I've got to request my colloquium, because that takes 3 weeks to organize..

Today: 1 more interview, a talk with my mentor, working on the plans and actions that come forward from that the rest of the week till Saturday.

What data?

I'm looking for quantitative data to compare my interview results with the actual throughput results of the school. I especially was looking for factual numbers, not percentages. For 2 schools I managed those numbers, but from other schools I still only have the figures in percentages per educational institution, not per location.

Though, when I'm able to somehow receive percentages of all visited schools, it would be perfect. because throughput of schools looked over a period of 6 years (so that I would in fact follow just one year of students, during their school period) is not able because of the percentages and anonymity of the numbers, I have to do it with the percentages over a certain period in time.

That clears a lot for me! Next week, I'm meeting with my mentor again - I'm glad to actually justify my actions of the above!

Dutch school advice differs weirdly

Interesting. Just came along an article from April 15th about the advice primary school teachers give. It seems that the advice between pupils in primary education (on different schools) can pretty vary. With that, there's no difference in the pupil himself. Read the article here (only in Dutch).

So, when you're going to school X as a kid, it can happen that your secondary education starts way lower than when your parents decided to put you on school Y. Weird huh? The Inspection of the Education is at the moment researching why that is. Trouw (Dutch newspaper) says that in the four largest cities, the pupils most get a higher advice than is usual. 

Nu.nl (Dutch news website) reports that teachers are put under pressure by highly educated parents to give their kids higher advises.. Well. I've heard some things now, and I can say the news is actually based on the reality. I don't say it's a good case though! 

Finding more schools

Yup, it isn't over yet! The interviews are still going on! I dó have 3 schools already, but it is still 50% of my goal! I've trouble at the moment finding schools who will participate. I dó have schools that can participate: I only don't know yet if they're willing to help me out. That's first thing tomorrow! Really! I promise! Why is it so difficult to just call and ask...? Emailing is far easier than calling people, but with lack of response I cannot relate to that any longer. I have to call them! All interviews need to be held before the month of July. So, calling schools. Will it be a problem? I'm finding out tomorrow :)