Globally, the private school share of enrollment increased from about 14 percent in 2000 to about 18 percent in 2019. We estimate the systemic effect of private enrollment share on learning outcomes. Estimates of the systemic effect of private school enrollment capture any competitive effects as well as any differences between public and private…

School disciplinary climate influences student outcomes. As a result, examining differences in principals' perceptions of disciplinary climate within and across countries and regions may shed some light on decreasing achievement gaps. The quantitative study examined how principals from different geographical locations perceive school disciplinary…

This study comparatively examines variation among the expectations of parents worldwide for the educational attainment of their children. The data are from the 2011 Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (PIRLS). A two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was used to estimate multilevel and multi-contextual effects on such…

On international comparisons, the development of Oman's education system in terms of the increase in educational enrolment rates and in the level of teacher qualifications has been remarkably rapid. Almost 100% access to basic education has been achieved, and almost all students progress onto post-basic education. A report from the World Bank in…

Reading for personal interest and acquiring and using information using various reading processes are important parts of reading literacy that students need to develop in order to progress successfully through their schooling and fully function in the information society. Computer assisted reading instructional activities are assumed useful in…

Background: Large-scale cross-national studies designed to measure student achievement use different social, cultural, economic and other background variables to explain observed differences in that achievement. Prior to their inclusion into a prediction model, these variables are commonly scaled into latent background indices. To allow…

Background: While existing evidence strongly suggests that immigrant students underperform relative to their native counterparts on measures of mathematics, science, and reading, country-level analyses assessing the homogeneity of the immigrant achievement gap across different factors have not been systematically conducted. Beyond finding a…

Classmates can influence a student's academic achievement through immediate interactions (e.g., academic help, positive attitudes toward reading) or by sharing tangible or intangible family resources (books, stories of foreign travel). Multilevel analysis of 141,019 fourth-grade students' reading achievements in 33 countries showed that…

International large-scale assessments of achievement often have a large degree of differential item functioning (DIF) between countries, which can threaten score equivalence and reduce the validity of inferences based on comparisons of group performances. It is important to understand potential sources of DIF to improve the validity of future…

Instructional written materials play important roles as teachers' agents in effective teaching practices. Worksheets are one of the most frequently used materials. In this exploratory study, the relationships between worksheet usage and science achievement in 32 countries were examined through the use of TIMSS and PIRLS data and multiple…

Instructional written materials play important roles as teachers' agents in effective teaching practices. Worksheets are one of the most frequently used materials. In this exploratory study, the relationships between worksheet usage and science achievement in 32 countries were examined through the use of TIMSS and PIRLS data and multiple…

The prevalence of women in the teaching profession has been claimed by various scholars to be responsible for the low school performance among boys. Based on this claim there have been widespread calls for increasing the share of male teachers as a means of improving boys' school performance. There is, however, very little empirical evidence…

Worldwide, the interest of policy-makers in participating in studies from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been growing rapidly over the past two decades. These studies offer the opportunity to relate the teaching and…