Projects
An Economical Perspective on Early school Leaving in Vocational Education and Training. KU Leuven
This doctoral dissertation employs quasi-experimental empirical methods on administrative population data to investigate the causal relationship between high school dropout and its selected predictors, labour market consequences, and policies. Within this broad research agenda, contributions are made in four specific research topics. I first use coarsened exact matching and treatment effect bounds and find that children who were raised in a ...
How is social inequality reproduced by grade retention? Examining implicit bias among teachers with regard to the decision whether to retain a student or not. Ghent University
Grade retention has been criticized because it reproduces existing social inequalities. Students with an ethnic minority status and/or an underprivileged socioeconomic background have a higher chance of being retained in comparison to their counterparts with similar school achievements. Grade retention can be problematic for the future academic career, as retainees have three to seven times less chance to obtain a degree in secondary ...
REthinking MEdia literacy and DIgital Skills in Europe (REMEDIS) KU Leuven
Adopting an evidence-based approach to REthinking MEdia Literacy and DIgital Skills in Europe, REMEDIS seeks to provide a framework for evidence-based evaluative research of media literacy and digital skills. REMEDIS aims to inform practitioners and policymakers about so far severely underdeveloped evidence that links interventions around different types of media literacy and digital skills in different life domains to different types of ...
A mixed-methods perspective on blue collar workplaces: the multilingual and multi-varietal linguascape of the Port of Antwerp KU Leuven
Despite the boom in studies on communication in the workplace, blue-collar workplaces –particularly in non-transient multilingual settings– have received little attention. Hence, we aim to explore the language practices of a complex blue-collar community of practice situated in the multilingual as well as multi-varietal Flemish linguascape – i.e. the Port of Antwerp. Two linguistic groups can be identified among this community of port ...
Learning through (comparing) exemplars as a method to improve genre knowledge of argumentative texts. University of Antwerp
How secondary schools manage differences between students: Identifying strategies and evaluating their effectiveness. KU Leuven
When students in secondary education do not achieve the objectives of their track (ASO, TSO, KSO and BSO in Flanders), they must either repeat a grade or change track. The goal of both interventions is to allocate the student to a more fitting educational environment, and to make classes more homogeneous in students’ abilities and interests. Although grade retention and track change are both interventions for underperforming students, they ...
The relation between listening comprehension and grammar acquisition: a study into the effectiveness of teaching the grammar of Hungarian through listening tasks. KU Leuven
Every language teacher searches for the ideal teaching method, i.e. one that takes into account not only the specific features of the target language but also the learners and the intended result. Ideally, focus on meaning and focus on form should both be given attention. Nowadays, these are no longer considered antipodes, but rather complementary ingredients of an approach to language education in which, implicit and explicit learning are ...
An Economic Perspective on the Role of Family Structure and Education as Determinants of Crime KU Leuven
This research project employs quasi-experimental methods on administrative population data to investigate whether family structure and education have a causal impact on the children’s criminal outcomes. Within this broad research agenda, contributions are made in four specific research topics. I first use family fixed effects and multiple births as an instrument to estimate whether birth order and family size causally influence children’s ...
Controllable Synthesis of Conducting Polymer/High-Entropy Perovskite Composites with "Quasi-gas-solid" Interfaces for Electrocatalytic Nitrogen Fixation and Reduction KU Leuven
Fossil-fuel-based ammonia production currently generates 1 % of the world’s annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions. In order to decarbonize this industrial sector, considerable research attention has been given to the design of novel electrocatalysts for the nitrogen reduction reaction (eNRR). However, ammonia synthesis through N2 electroreduction is still far away from practical applications. Within the framework of this project, we aim to ...