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2241.More information
Québec's students at the secondary level have always been considered as a relatively performing group on the basis of their mean scores in international skills tests (reading, math, sciences) such as PISA. It is less known that students' performance in private schools, where a significant proportion are enrolled at the secondary level, raise substantially the reported mean scores. Nonetheless, a school with high standardized scores may be an institution where students come from a much-advantaged background or are selected on the basis of their abilities or social class. The impact of non-randomness for the estimation of a treatment effect poses analytical challenges like bias related to selection, causality, or recruitment that must be reduced or neutralize. We use student-level micro data from five (2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and four type of treatment assignment estimators to estimate the impact of private schools on student performance in test scores. The analysis also conducts a falsification exercise with Ontarians students as a control group relative to Québec's students in the private or public sector. Results suggest that the large minority of students attending private schools at the secondary level largely explains the higher PISA scores of Québec over the years, as well the scores in the public schools (due to external effects from school competition). According to the more conservative treatment effects, private schools add approximately one year of study in reading and math scores. Results highlight the major importance of increased “knowledge capital” by private schools, that is higher proficiency scales in cognitive skills.
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2247.More information
The contributions of the allied military forces carrying out operations in the Balkans, in the Mediterranean, in Afghanistan and in Iraq are clear illustrations of the increasingly onerous tasks assumed by NATO in various regions of the world. In order to properly fulfill these duties, the Alliance has undertaken a process of transformation and renewal. This trend, initiated at the Washington Summit of 1999, was continued at the Prague Summit of November 2002. The complete reorganization of NATO's structures represents not only a new vision for the Alliance but also a disruption of sorts in light of the original fundamental objective of the Alliance. The setting up of this "new" NATO has been incremental and it is mainly due to the creation of the NATO Response Force and to the introduction of a revised command structure that the Alliance is now able to react to the new security environment and to pursue new types of missions. Consequently, despite the transformation it is presently undergoing, NATO has been able to adapt to the changing strategic context by accepting missions such as the fight against terrorism and by entering new theatres of operation such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfour.
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2248.More information
In Canada, distance education (DE) is present in the majority of post-secondary institutions. However, there is a constant polemic in the scientific community. This is the controversial impact of technological advances on the effectiveness of this type of training. Some authors highlight the positive contribution of these advances while others emphasize the many disappointments caused by the use of newer technologies. In the face of these conflicting positions, several researchers agree that studies on the effectiveness of DE based on technological advances are still in their infancy. To fill this gap, the objective of this research is to verify the effectiveness of the DE based on technological advances using a mega-analysis. Based on a synthesis of 16 meta-analyses involving 862 primary studies involving over 200,000 participants, the positive results obtained by our mega-analysis would support the use of more recent technologies to promote distance learning.
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2250.More information
ABSTRACTThis is a survey of the main business cycle models that have been developed since the early '80s. It emphasizes the incorporation of money in the neoclassical growth model. It argues that money contributes substantially to aggregate fluctuations only if nominal rigidities are introduced in the model.