Educational Policy News

March 20, 2025

Top Headlines

More Than Marks: How Wellbeing Shapes Academic Success

Mar. 11, 2025 — A world first* study of more than 215,000 students, researchers found that while standardized tests measure academic skills, different dimensions of wellbeing -- emotional wellbeing, engagement, and learning readiness -- can play a crucial role in ...

How 'Self-Silencing' Your Opinion May Change Behavior

Mar. 5, 2025 — People who have a minority viewpoint on a controversial topic are more likely to 'self-silence' themselves in conversation -- and that may lead them to behave against their own beliefs, a new study ...

How London's Ultra Low Emission Zone Is Changing the School Run

Mar. 3, 2025 — London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is transforming children's journeys to school by making streets safer, improving perceptions of air quality and encouraging children to live healthier lives. A new study highlights its benefits, with many ...

New Study Examines How Physics Students Perceive Recognition

Mar. 5, 2025 — Experts see peer recognition as important to student success in physics, and a new study gives college-level physics instructors insight into how students perceive the message from their classmates that 'you're good at physics.' Even when women ...

Latest Headlines

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Creativity Boosts Standardized Literacy and Numeracy Test Scores: Australia

Mar. 4, 2025 — A groundbreaking study shows that creativity plays an essential role in academic success, suggesting that students who think outside the box are more likely to excel in literacy and numeracy ...

Nearly 4 of 10 Americans Report Sports-Related Mistreatment

Mar. 4, 2025 — Nearly 40% of adult Americans say they've experienced some type of sport-related mistreatment in their lives, a new study shows. Mistreatment ranged from psychological and emotional to physical and ...

Problem-Based Learning Helps Students Stay in School

Feb. 26, 2025 — Education experts are encouraging schools to consider problem-based learning (PBL) in a move to improve engagement and creativity among high school students. New research demonstrates how hands-on, ...

Adults Don't Trust Health Care to Use AI Responsibly and Without Harm

Feb. 14, 2025 — A survey of adults found most had low trust in their health care system to use artificial intelligence responsibly or to make sure an AI tool would not harm ...

Adults Can Learn Absolute Pitch: New Research Challenges Long-Held Musical Belief

Feb. 12, 2025 — It's been a long-held belief that absolute pitch -- the ability to identify musical notes without reference -- is a rare gift reserved for a select ...

Scientists Harness AI to Help Protect Whales, Advancing Ocean Conservation and Planning

Feb. 11, 2025 — Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that will help predict endangered whale habitat, guiding ships along the Atlantic ...

A Wealth of Evidence: 85,000 Individual Studies About Climate Policy

Feb. 11, 2025 — Research on climate policy is growing exponentially. Of the approximately 85,000 individual studies ever published on policy instruments for mitigating global heating, a good quarter are from 2020 or ...

School Bans Alone Not Enough to Tackle Negative Impacts of Phone and Social Media Use, Researchers Find

Feb. 5, 2025 — Students attending schools that ban the use of phones throughout the school day aren't necessarily experiencing better mental health and wellbeing, ...

Study in India Shows Kids Use Different Math Skills at Work Vs. School

Feb. 5, 2025 — A study by economists shows a wide gap between the kinds of math problems kids who work in retail markets do well and the kinds of problems kids in school do ...

Acoustic Sensors Find Frequent Gunfire on School Walking Routes

Jan. 6, 2025 — A new study used acoustic sensors that detect the sound of gunfire to show how often children in one Chicago neighborhood are exposed to gunshots while walking to and from school. Results showed that ...

COVID Lockdowns Disrupted a Crucial Social Skill Among Preschoolers, Trailblazing Study Finds

Jan. 29, 2025 — Researchers discovered children ages 3 to 5 tested before and after COVID lockdowns had a significant gap in a key cognitive skill, particularly for children from homes with low financial resources ...

'Heartbreaking' Impact of COVID on Treatment of Children With Brain Tumors

Jan. 7, 2025 — Research into the impact of the COVID pandemic on children and young people with brain tumors has revealed how investigations or treatments were frequently postponed as key people or resources were ...

11 To 12-Year-Olds Use Smartphones Mainly to Talk to Family and Friends

Dec. 26, 2024 — A research group has analyzed the digital ecosystem of 11- to 12-year-old children across the Basque Autonomous Community, and concluded that two out of three own a smartphone. They use smartphones ...

How Loss of Urban Trees Affects Educational Outcomes

Dec. 17, 2024 — Economists looked at test scores and school attendance for Chicago-area kids before and after a bug infestation wiped out the city's ash trees. Education outcomes for low-income students went ...

Education Scholar Calls for Ecological Shift to 'School Within a School' to Give Students Autonomy Needed for Success

Dec. 12, 2024 — An international education expert, argues in a new study for an ecological shift to a 'school within a school' approach that would give students, teachers and parents the ability to guide ...

Preschool Education: A Key to Supporting Allophone Children

Nov. 28, 2024 — A Canadian study reveals that allophone children often face learning and communication difficulties in kindergarten, which can negatively impact their educational ...

Need a Landing Pad for Helicopter Parenting? Frame Tasks as Learning

Nov. 22, 2024 — Parents are much less likely to intervene when their young children are getting dressed or performing other simple chores if those tasks are framed as learning opportunities, according to a new ...

Confidence Drives Feedback-Seeking Behavior: Insights Into Learning and Motivation

Nov. 21, 2024 — New research reveals how low confidence drives feedback-seeking, enhancing learning with insights for education and rehabilitation ...

Math-Selective US Universities Reduce Gender Gap in STEM Fields

Nov. 21, 2024 — Nationally, men in colleges and universities currently outpace women in earning degrees in physics, engineering, and computer science (PECS) by an approximate ratio of 4 to 1. To better understand ...

Traditional Mayan Practices Have Long Promoted Unique Levels of Family Harmony: But What Effect Is Globalization Having?

Nov. 16, 2024 — A new study shows that the past 30 years of globalization have brought fundamental shifts in some aspects of family interaction among Indigenous people in Guatemala. But families have still ...

Why Health and Price, Not Sustainability, Drive US Meat Consumption Choices

Nov. 8, 2024 — Environmental sustainability isn't a major factor influencing meat consumption decisions for most Americans, despite increasing awareness of the climate impacts of red meat production, according ...

School Suspensions and Expulsions Can Lead to a Lifetime of Depression, Study Finds

Nov. 7, 2024 — A new study shows that children who are suspended or expelled from school report higher rates of depression in adolescence and into ...

Probability Training: Preventing Errors of Reasoning in Medicine and Law

Nov. 6, 2024 — A new study shows how students can better understand and interpret conditional ...

Explaining Science Through Dance

Nov. 5, 2024 — Explaining a theoretical science concept to high school students requires a new way of thinking altogether, which is precisely what researchers did when they orchestrated a dance with high school ...

From Compliance to Conversation: New Guidelines Push for Ethical Reflection in Research Reporting

Nov. 4, 2024 — A new study highlights key challenges and tensions in research ethics, particularly in light of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and calls for the adoption of new research ...

Autistic Traits Shape How We Explore

Oct. 31, 2024 — People with stronger autistic trails showed distinct exploration patterns and higher levels of persistence in a computer game, ultimately resulting in better performance than people with lower scores ...

How Local Governments Can Lead the Way in Decarbonizing the U.S.

Oct. 30, 2024 — The success of the $1 trillion that was recently invested by the U.S. federal government to mitigate climate climate change through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ...

Dramatic Drop in Marijuana Use Among U.S. Youth Over a Decade (2011 to 2021)

Oct. 28, 2024 — Using a national survey of 88,183 adolescents in grades nine to 12, findings show marijuana use declined from 23.1% in 2011 to 15.8% in 2021, with first-time use before age 13 dropping from 8.1% to ...

Studying Wikipedia Browsing Habits to Learn How People Learn

Oct. 25, 2024 — A collaborative team of researchers led by Dale Zhou, who did his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, and Dani Bassett in Penn's School of Engineering and ...

Early Active Learning Boosts Skills for Children Born Into Extreme Poverty, but Gains Fade for Black Boys, Study Shows

Oct. 23, 2024 — Research findings provide further evidence that early childhood education can improve educational outcomes for low-income Black children, but that subsequent experiences may erode those impacts ...