The Programme for International Student Assessment, carried out every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development across a large number of countries and economies, have shown that socioeconomically disadvantaged students are almost three times more likely than advantaged students not to attain the baseline level of…

I brought together two strands of literature, one investigating the moderate but persistent underachievement of girls in mathematics in most countries, and the other examining the role of self-efficacy and other self-beliefs in predicting behaviour and achievement. I implemented detailed decompositions of the gender mathematics gap, both at the…

In large-scale international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), or the Progress in International Reading Study (PISA), research has struggled to find positive associations between the frequency of educational technology use in schools and…

Devaluing an academic domain is a potential means of alleviating the psychological discomfort that results from the inconsistency of a low domain-specific self-concept of ability and great value attached to the domain. Such motivated devaluation of a domain is expected to be stronger in cultural contexts that promote a relatively greater focus on…

Math proficiency is a strong predictor of postsecondary attainment, yet cross-national comparative assessments show that U.S. students consistently score below many of their peers, especially those in East Asia. Similar math achievement disparities exist across ethnic/racial groups within the U.S., where Asian American students routinely…

The relationships among future-oriented motivation, self-efficacy, task values of science, and achievement outcomes were investigated among 15-year-olds across four Asian nations who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The factor structure of…

The degree of equality in the delivery of education is an important dimension of variation. Some nations believe that the provision of a highly stratified system enhances quality, at least for the minority who are able to gain entry to the elite academic stream. In contrast, other nations prefer a more egalitarian approach to education where all…

In the past 40 years, the proportion of women in science courses and careers has dramatically increased in some nations but not in others. Our research investigated how national differences in women's science participation related to gender-science stereotypes that associate science with men more than women. Data from ~350,000 participants in 66…

This paper makes an in-depth comparison of the PISA (OECD) and TIMSS (IEA) mathematics assessments conducted in 2003. First, a comparison of survey methodologies is presented, followed by an examination of the mathematics frameworks in the two studies. The methodologies and the frameworks in the two studies form the basis for providing…