Breadth and depth of curriculum are important for success in science teaching and learning. Curriculum theorists recommend less breadth and more depth than overloaded, superficial science curricula. This study investigates breadth and depth in the official biology syllabi in the seventh to eighth or ninth years in four diverse jurisdictions,…

Inquiry-Based Teaching Practice (IBTP) is an essential component of science education, and promoting its implementation is at the heart of various reform efforts. Even though science teachers regard IBTP as an essential pedagogical method, they rarely use it for various reasons. This study utilizes Bronfenbrenner's ecological framework to examine…

In poor-performing, resource-constrained education systems, such as South Africa, solutions to improve academic achievement have tended to focus on resources and cognitive factors. An area that requires more attention is the importance of non-cognitive, psychosocial factors and their relationship with academic performance. These factors are…

In conversations about pedagogy, researchers often overlook how physical space and movement shape teacher sensemaking. This article offers a comparative case study of classroom videos using a dynamic visual method to map embodied interaction called "interaction geography." Our analysis proposes an integrative framework to study classroom…

In this study, we investigated the relationships between three pivotal factors that influence student performance, including opportunity-to-learn (OTL) factors, which included proximal indicators that represent science-specific learning opportunities, student motivation (propensity factor), and crucial student and teacher antecedent factors by…

Concept-based teaching is presumably more effective than popular procedure-based instruction in helping students develop conceptual understanding, an important conceptual base for mathematics teaching reforms in many countries. This study examined the extent to which this assumption is true by controlling the influences of student socioeconomic…

When analyzing large-scale assessments (LSAs) that use complex sampling designs, it is important to account for probability sampling using weights. However, the use of these weights in multilevel models has been widely debated, particularly regarding their application at different levels of the model. Yet, no consensus has been reached on the best…

This study investigated how domain specificity of academic motivation related to the connection between instructional clarity and academic achievement in science and mathematics. It focused on three aspects of domain-specific academic motivation--self-concept, intrinsic value, and utility value--drawing from the Expectancy-Value Theory model. The…

Data from PISA and TIMSS have recently fuelled the debate on the efficacy of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching (IBST). Some analyses of these data show that the effects of different scientific activities related to IBST carried out with students vary according to the frequency of their implementation. Extending this research, the present study…

Developing mathematical connections for pupils continues to be at the forefront of educational policies worldwide. One strategy suggested to support the connections pupils make is the idea of developing "coherence". Research regarding coherence has increased within mathematics education, however, the term is used widely. It therefore…

A wide range of reforms to improve the teaching capacities of pre-service and in-service teachers have been carried out in Kosovo. In assessing the success of these previous interventions, large-scale assessment data is invaluable. In 2019, 4754 students from 145 schools participated in the TIMSS assessment. Results reveal that student's…

Digital technologies have the potential to revolutionize education by enhancing quality, fairness, and efficiency. However, equitable access to these technologies remains a challenge. ILSAs (international large-scale assessments) have shown that the relationship between digital use and performance varies across countries and over time. To fully…

This open access book presents original research on effective and equitable teacher practice in mathematics and science education across Nordic countries. It focuses on three key aspects of teacher practice: what teachers teach, how teachers teach, and how teachers assess their students. To provide a comprehensive understanding of teacher…

Students living in poverty tend to perform worse in school than their peers from better-off families. This paper examines whether computer availability helps narrow down educational inequalities in Slovakia, using TIMSS and PIRLS data. The results show that computer availability in reading lessons improves reading scores and that the effect is…

Children possess different beliefs regarding their ability to succeed in math and science, as well as different levels of enjoyment and interest in these topics. These motivational processes are important because they often shape learning-related behaviours which in turn predict academic outcomes, over and above previous performance. But, what are…