Empirical research on teachers' professional knowledge is mostly conducted worldwide with reference to the construct 'pedagogical content knowledge' (PCK) introduced by Lee S. Shulman. In the 'Consensus Model' (CM) and the 'Refined Consensus Model' (RCM), PCK was further developed and differentiated. Nevertheless, neither PCK nor CM and RCM…

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…

School socio-economic compositional (SEC) effects have been influential in educational research predicting a range of outcomes and influencing public policy. However, some recent studies have challenged the veracity of SEC effects when applying residualised-change and fixed effects models and simulating potential measurement errors in hierarchical…

Two different tools for assessing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of mathematics teachers used in the framework of the COACTIV study are systematically compared in this paper, namely the paper-and-pencil test consisting of items on the three facets "knowledge of explaining and representation," "knowledge of student thinking and…

Since there is limited research on the applicability of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model in educational contexts, the current cross-national comparison study aimed to investigate how non-cognitive factors, specifically, the TPB model components, affect students' math outcomes in USA and their peers in three other countries, Germany,…

This study examined a theoretical model hypothesizing that reading strategies mediate the effects of intrinsic reading motivation, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension. Using path analytic methods, we tested the direct and indirect effects specified in the hypothesized model in a sample of 1105 fifth-graders. In…

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…

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…

According to Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological model, school is an essential microsystem of the developing child. Schools provide important developmental contexts for children and adolescents, as they constitute environments that might either foster or evoke students' emotional instability. In particular, less is known about the precise and…

This article focuses on analysing the effect of educational differentiation policies of OECD educational systems on socioeconomically disadvantaged students, based on data from PISA 2009. The analysis is conducted on the basis of a definition of two subgroups of disadvantaged students: those that achieve high scores, and those obtaining scores…

It is well known that teachers frequently observe a decline in the scholastic motivation of many adolescent students, which in turn is often associated with a decline in students' individual school self-concept. In contrast, less is known about the association between students' individual school self-concept and school engagement, or the related…

We study how the relationship between students' cognitive ability and their school grades depends on institutional contexts. In a simple abstract model, we show that unless competence standards are set at above-school level or the variation of competence across schools is low, students' competence valuation will be heterogeneous, with weaker…

The PISA survey influences educational policies through an international competitive process which is not wholly rationally-oriented. Firstly, PISA league tables act normatively upon the definition of formal educational aims while the survey tests cannot evaluate the educational systems' relative strengths with regards to such aims. We argue that…

The 21st-century work environment places strong emphasis on nonroutine transversal skills. In an educational context, complex problem solving (CPS) is generally considered an important transversal skill that includes knowledge acquisition and its application in new and interactive situations. The dynamic and interactive nature of CPS requires a…

This study extends previous research on teachers' self-efficacy by exploring reciprocal effects of teachers' self-efficacy and instructional quality in a longitudinal panel study. The study design combined a self-report measure of teacher self-efficacy with teacher and student ratings of instructional quality (assessing cognitive activation,…