Introduction: As technology progresses, individuals will be increasingly expected to solve digital tasks. At the same time, many worry that a high use of connected devices will reduce young people's ability to perform with accuracy long cognitively challenging tasks online. Methods: We examine whether 15-year-old students' ability to accurately…

The study examined the relationship between teacher support and reading performance via the multiple mediation effects of reading engagement (emotional engagement and cognitive engagement). Data were extracted from Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) 2018, with a sample of 171,429 adolescents from 5,692 schools across 22…

Developing students' reading and numeracy skills remain key goals of contemporary schooling. In Australia, the National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests have assessed these skills since 2008. Previous research found a significant gender gap in favour of females for the NAPLAN writing test, yet no study has examined…

Teacher feedback in reading class is closely associated with students' reading achievement. However, the underlying mechanisms of their relationship has been underexplored, especially in cross-cultural contexts. Using Control Value Theory of Achievement Emotions (CVTAE), this study tested the cross-cultural generalizability of reading enjoyment as…

International studies have established that reading for enjoyment is linked to higher reading outcomes however there are local variations of the relationship and nuances associated with gender and economic contours. The aim of this study was to examine 318 Australian Year 3 (7 to 8-year-olds) boys' and girls' self-reported enjoyment for reading,…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education worldwide as educational systems made the decision to close schools to contain the spread of the virus. The duration of school closures varied greatly internationally. In this study, we use representative trend data from more than 300,000 students in 29 countries to examine whether the cross-country…

By the end of 2021, more than 168 million students across the globe had missed a year of face-to-face schooling due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In NSW, Australia, most students engaged in learning from home for eight weeks during 2020 and a further 14 weeks during 2021. This study provides robust empirical evidence on how two years of disruptions to…

Surveys such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) enable educators, policymakers and the wider community to compare Australian students with each other, as well as their counterparts across the…

This longitudinal study used regression path models to predict the influence on students' reading comprehension ability of three self-perception variables (reading self-concept; reading/English effort; academic self-handicapping); three teacher rating behaviour variables (attentive behaviour; sociable behaviour; and settled behaviour) and past…

Apprenticeships remain an important source of skilled workers in Australia; however, commencements have not kept pace with the skills demand projected in the previous decade. During that same decade, undergraduate university enrolments grew considerably. In investigating whether young people who would previously have chosen an apprenticeship have…

Student well-being has emerged as a topic of considerable interest to researchers and educators. Recent work has sought to examine relationships between measures of student well-being and other constructs such as academic achievement, physical health, relationships with peers, and engagement in learning. Reading assessment and context…

Acceleration of digital communication has changed the nature of reading and young people today need to engage multimodal skills for reading success in the digital world. While historically there have been social justice issues for marginalised students in terms of reading, the digital age is creating new equity issues across the globe. This…

The reading literacy skills of Australian adolescents, as measured in successive PISA waves, have declined since 2000. Literacy achievement is not low by international standards, but it is lower in Australia than it is in Anglophone countries with which we compare ourselves, e.g. Canada. Using PISA 2018 and PIRLS 2021 data, we investigated both…

The dual-factor model of mental health proposes that high wellbeing and low distress are necessary to define mental health. This study used latent profile analysis to identify mental health profiles in a sample of 3,587 Australian grade 6 students and explored the association between mental health profiles and school outcomes measured in grades 7…