Extending recent analyses using PISA data, the current study utilises the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) to test the central claims of knowledge capital theory. PIAAC has a distinct advantage over PISA in that it more directly tests levels of purported 'knowledge capital' across an entire national workforce, rather than offering…

Workplace learning in vocational education and training (VET) is often claimed to be an important metric to define "high-quality" programs, but outcomes beyond initial employment are not well understood. In this study, we estimate outcomes of upper-secondary-school VET programs with different levels of workplace learning in…

The Program for International Student Assessment Young Adult Follow-up Study (PISA YAFS) is a new study that allows research into the characteristics, cognitive skills, and other life outcomes of young adults as they transition from high school to postsecondary life. This Research and Development report provides a snapshot of outcomes at the…

STEM education was a systematic teaching and/or learning process in the STEM fields and a positive correlation existed between STEM education, and the economic prosperity and power of a nation in the globalized world. In recent years, rising concerns have emerged about American STEM education. Many stakeholders wondered that whether the nation has…

Pundits and bureaucrats use the results from international tests, particularly the PISA, to make claims about the quality of the public education system in the United States and make policy recommendations. In this article I argue, with evidence, that the scores and rankings from PISA are not important and that they cannot give policy makers or…

Around the world we hear considerable talk about creating world-class schools. Usually the term refers to schools whose students get very high scores on the international comparisons of student achievement such as PISA or TIMSS. The practice of restricting the meaning of exemplary schools to the narrow criterion of achievement scores is usually…

Despite significant increases in spending on child care and education during the last decade, PISA scores suggest that educational performance remains static, uneven and strongly related to parents' income and background. Better educational performance could improve labour market outcomes, raise growth, lower the consequences of a disadvantaged…

The "Programme for International Student Assessment" (PISA) examines the extent to which 15-year-old students who are near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the competencies essential for participation in the labor market and society. Given that this participation hinges on educational attainment, it is crucial to…

Due to the poor performance of US students in international math and science tests, many authors worry that the US lead in science is in jeopardy. A recent study by Chen and Luoh ("Soc Indic Res" 96: 133-143, 2010) challenged this pessimistic view by delinking test performance and labor force quality. It was found that measures such as…

Over the last decade, Canada has experienced a substantial increase in the number of individuals participating in post-secondary education (PSE). This trend emphasizes the importance of understanding the pathways leading to PSE enrolment and the competencies that are associated with them. This chapter describes a range of possible education and…

The Oaxaca-Blinder technique was originally used in labor economics to decompose earnings gaps and to estimate the level of discrimination. It has been applied since in other social issues, including education, where it can be used to assess how much of a gap is due to differences in characteristics (explained variation) and how much is due to…

The primary purpose of the report is to explore the impact of PISA reading scores on the early labour market outcomes of young Canadians of the Youth in Transition Survey. This inquiry is complicated by two facts. First, family and school characteristics that are positively correlated with PISA scores are also correlated with labour market…

Using data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS), this paper provides an up-to-date description of educational and labour market pathways (or transitions) among Canadian youth. It also estimates the effect of academic abilities, measured by PISA math and reading scores, on such transitions. Descriptive statistics show that educational success…

Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), we investigate the link between test scores (mathematics and science) and cross-country income differences. We would like to know whether test scores are good indicators of labor-force quality. The…

The average quality of available educational resources varies significantly across Europe. This not only affects school success and failure but also subsequent labour market outcomes. The main research question in this paper is to what extent this compositional variation among early school leavers (ESLrs) in particular can account for the…