There has been long discussion in educational psychology about the individual factors that promote pupils' sense of school belonging during secondary education. However, the literature on the school factors associated with these outcomes seems to be less informed. By utilising an ecological-systemic approach, the present study aimed to consider…

Using PISA 2012 data, we conducted multilevel modeling analyses to explore how student-teacher relationships (STRs) affected mathematics motivation across EU countries. We compared this relationship across high and low achievers and explored how sex, economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS), ability grouping, class size, and teacher intentions…

PISA 2015 data show that, on average across OECD countries, as many as three out of four students from the lowest quarter of socio-economic status reach, at best, only the baseline level of proficiency (Level 2) in reading, mathematics or science. While in Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, Japan, Korea, the…

By aligning factors that most commonly influence the achievement of Black and Hispanic students with the type of resources inside the black box of schooling, this study differentiated the achievement effect of school resources from what was brought by students to schools. The hierarchical regression results showed that minority students'…

This study examined the relationship between educational resources and student performance in mathematics and science on the Program for International Student Achievement (PISA). Many countries face educational inequality and achievement gaps between high performing and low performing students. The resources invested in education determine--to a…

Teachers are the most important school resource. In every country, teachers' salaries and training represent the greatest share of expenditure on education; and this investment in teachers can have significant returns. Research shows that being taught by the best teachers can make a real difference in the learning and life outcomes of otherwise…

There is no consensus among academics about whether children benefit from smaller classes. We analysed the data from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to test if smaller classes lead to higher performance. Advantages of using this data set are not only its size (478,120 15-year old students in 63 nations) and…

This study explored the relationships among high school students' reading comprehension achievement, three latent constructs (reading comprehension strategy use, reading comprehension strategy instruction, reading attitudes), and five control variables (gender, minority status, socio-economic status [SES], class time, class size). The purpose of…

Socioeconomic integration in schools has been shown to bring positive academic and nonacademic outcomes to disadvantaged students attending them. The academic benefits of integration on advantaged students are, by contrast, less evident. Effective integrated schools are those that promote disadvantaged students' outcomes yet advantaged students do…

The demographic shift occurring in Serbia has had a profound effect on the education system. The student population has declined by 21 percent in primary schools and 13 percent in secondary schools since 2000, but the school network has changed little since then. This has resulted in many schools with few students. Furthermore, the total number of…

In this paper, the authors begin by classifying the arguments that assert American schools are relatively inefficient into two categories: the "long-term trend argument" and the "international comparison argument." Their focus herein is on the latter of these two. They then describe two frameworks for approaching either of…

This study aims to analyze the student and school level variables that affect students' self-efficacy levels in mathematics in China-Shanghai, Turkey, and Greece based on PISA 2012 results. In line with this purpose, the hierarchical linear regression model (HLM) was employed. The interschool variability is estimated at approximately 17% in…