In this paper, we develop an information distortion model (IDM) of social class differences in self-beliefs and values. The IDM combines psychological biases on frame-of-reference effects with sociological foci on ability stratification. This combination is hypothesized to lead to working-class children having more positive math self-beliefs and…

The aim of this study was to investigate the comparability of feedback across culturally diverse countries by assessing the measurement invariance in PISA 2015 data. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis showed that the feedback scale implemented in PISA 2015 was not invariant across countries. The intercepts and residuals of the factor model…

The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has become one of the key studies for evidence-based education policymaking across the globe. PISA has however received a lot of methodological criticism, including how the test scores are created. The aim of this paper is to investigate the so-called 'conditioning model', where…

This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link…

The unification of South Korea and North Korea is a plausible idea yet it requires a comprehensive preparation in advance. As a method to achieve fiscal efficiency in public services, decentralization theory is consistently applied. However, the current literature and political reality argue that decentralization does not always hold its…

Patience and risk-taking -- two cultural traits that steer intertemporal decision-making -- are fundamental to human capital investment decisions. To understand how they contribute to international differences in student achievement, we combine PISA tests with the Global Preference Survey. We find that opposing effects of patience (positive) and…

This article examines whether the way that PISA models item outcomes in mathematics affects the validity of its country rankings. As an alternative to PISA methodology a two-parameter model is applied to PISA mathematics item data from Canada and Finland for the year 2012. In the estimation procedure item difficulty and dispersion parameters are…

Recently, students' interest in science has been conceptualized as a network model: the science interest network model (SINM) in which affective, behavioural and cognitive components interact together; building on science interest being a dynamic relational construct. In the current study, we combine the Australian Programme for International…

Cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) are psychometric models developed mainly to assess examinees' specific strengths and weaknesses in a set of skills or attributes within a domain. By adopting the Generalized-DINA model framework, the recently developed general modeling framework, we attempted to retrofit the PISA reading assessments, a…

Aiming to collect various concepts, approaches, and strategies for improving computer science education in K-12 schools, we edited this second special issue of the "ACM TOCE" journal. Our intention was to collect a set of case studies from different countries that would describe all relevant aspects of specific implementations of…

Students' difficulty in learning and suitably understanding the concept of the algebraic variable has been studied with a number of tools and documented for several populations. Little research has been conducted, however, using the same tool to explore understanding of the notion among populations from different countries in an attempt to…

Based on the PISA data in 2003 and 2006, this paper develops a hierarchical linear model to identify multi-level explanatory variables of the divide of adolescents' self-reported digital skills. At the country-level, the study finds a generally negative relationship between the ICT penetration rate of a country and adolescents' digital skills,…

We investigated the relationship between four inquiry-based teaching practices (use of: (1) models or applications, (2) hands-on activities, (3) interaction and (4) independent investigations) and science achievement for 15-year olds across eight countries participating in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006. Within each…

Gränsöverskridande Nordisk Undervisning/Utdanelse (GNU, meaning Cross-Border Nordic Education), the larger Nordic project, under which this case study was carried out, aims at developing innovative, cross-border teaching models in different subject domains in elementary school, including mathematics, language, science, social studies and history.…

This article reports a case study that described and analyzed the changes in the Danish school culture induced and encouraged by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results. The educational policy and reforms that were temporally connected with the publication of the PISA 2000 results are outlined and the related…