Science academic achievement is a key construct for examining students' science learning outcomes. While international comparative assessments like TIMSS and PISA have shown high science achievement of Korean middle school students, there is a lack of comprehensive investigation of factors influencing the achievement using domestic data.…

In educational and psychological research, it is common to use latent factors to represent constructs and then to examine covariate effects on these latent factors. Using empirical data, this study applied three approaches to covariate effects on latent factors: the multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) approach, multiple group confirmatory…

Professional development (PD) has been widely implemented to shift mathematics instruction practices from teacher-centered (traditional practice) to studentcentered. As such, a study examining mediating factors on the relationship between PD and student-centered instruction is of great importance in enhancing the effectiveness of PD and shifting…

Given that teacher shortage is an international problem, teacher job satisfaction merits closer attention. Not only is job satisfaction closely related to teacher retention, but it also contributes to the well-being of teachers and their students, overall school cohesion and enhanced status of the teaching profession. This study investigates the…

This study provides a comparison of the results of latent class analysis (LCA) and mixture Rasch model (MRM) analysis using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study -- 2011 (TIMSS-2011) with a focus on the 8th-grade mathematics section. The research study focuses on the comparison of LCA and MRM to determine if results…

The purpose of the study is to analyze the affective traits that affect mathematics achievement through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) as a traditional regression model and Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS), as one of the data mining methods. Structural Equation Modeling, one of the regression-based methods, is quite popular for…

For many countries, inequitable access to rigorous content and instruction at the early grades leads to the low academic performance for students with fewer resources at home. One way to assess these inequities, and identify possible mediators, is to consider the role of instructional leadership as a means for schools to set educational goals for…

In the current study, the appropriateness of the Mathematics Attitude Questionnaire administered to middle school 8th grade students in the TIMSS 2015 application to the exploratory structural equation and confirmatory factor analysis models was examined. The study was conducted on 6079 students making up the sample of Turkey. In the TIMSS 2015…