The project implementation group consists of 7 researchers (including group leader) and 2 specialists. The group of researcher is balanced in terms of subject areas (3 educators, psychologist, statistician and 2 informatics), including 5
experienced and 2 young scientists. The balance should ensure successful accomplishment of the physical indicators of the project.
Research leader:
dr. Audronė Jakaitienė defended her PhD thesis in physical sciences (Informatics 09P) in 2001. Title of the thesis “The Algorithms of Competing Risk Regression Models”, in which competing risks were forecasted using regression models and neural networks. Later A. Jakaitienė worked in Lithuanian and EU institutions developing her modelling skills in social, physical and biomedical sciences. As of 2005, she published 40 scientific papers (15 in Clarivate Analytics Web Of Science, H-index 4), participated in more than 30 conferences. Over the past five years she was leader of one Researcher Team’s project which was successfully completed. Currently she leads another Researcher Team’s project “Modelling the status and causing factors of Lithuanian education system”. She also participated in one project funded from European Social Fund under the Global Grant Measure. In 2014-2015 she was visiting The Institute of High Performance Computing and Networking at National Research Council of Italy (ICAR-CNR), where big genetic data was modeled. From 2011 she is head of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics center at Human and Medical Genetics Department. Under her supervision 10 bachelor and 9 master's thesis were defended. At present, she is supervisor of two doctoral dissertations. A. Jakaitienė scientific expertise, the ability successfully carry out applied research and preparation of young researchers and scientists will contribute to the fluent process and successful outcome of the project.
Group:
Habil. dr. Rimantas Želvys, professor at Vilnius University, Head of Education Policy centre. Author of more than 80 publications in peerreviewed journals, 3 monographs and 4 study books. Member of the editorial boards of 4 Lithuanian and 2 foreign scientific journals. Participant of the EU V Framework and national research projects. In the project, he will make comparative education policy analysis on school effectiveness and efficiency.
Dr. Rita Dukynaitė, associated professor at Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, deputy director of the Department of Strategic Programs at the Ministry of Education and Science. Member of the OECD PISA board. Member of the IEA General Assembly. The author of 1 book and 50 publications, leader or member of governing commigees of several international and national projects. In the project, she will contribute with expert assessment of identified factors, whose influence school effectiveness and efficiency.
Jogaila Vaitekaitis, doctoral student of educational sciences at Vilnius University. His Master’s thesis was about the influence of international student achievement studies on curriculum development in Lithuania and abroad. Author of 1 publication. He will conduct a systemic review of literature and interpret the results in relation to effectiveness and efficiency in education.
Dr. Saulė Raižienė, professor at Mykolas Romeris University Institute of Psychology. She has very rich experience in participating in national (DoIT, POSIDEV) and international (Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Project INSIDE, IP CHALID, COST IS081, COST IS1210) projects. Author of more than 30 research publications (including 8 in Web of Science (WoS)/Scopus), several scientific studies, study books and methodological handbooks. In the project, she will determine the importance of psychological factors for the effectiveness and efficiency of education.
Dr. (HP) Julius Žilinskas, professor and chief researcher at Vilnius University. In the project he will design optimisation-based methods for the analysis of educational effectiveness and efficiency.
Dovilė Stumbrienė, doctoral student of informatics at Vilnius University. The topic of her doctoral thesis – big data in education and making a composite index by applying methods of optimisation. Participant of the project “Modelling the status and causing factors of Lithuanian education system”. Author of 4 publications (including 1 in WoS). In the project she will apply advanced statistical methods for modelling school effectiveness and efficiency.
The specialists will merge databases; create R packages and public access from the projects homepage; will make their contribution to the writing of research papers.