In studies of educational achievement, students' self-reported number of books in the family home is a frequently used proxy for social, cultural, and economic background. Absent hard evidence about what this variable captures or how well, its use has been motivated by strong associations with student outcomes. I show that these associations rest…

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…

Mathematics competency is fast becoming an essential requirement in ever greater parts of day-to-day work and life. Thus, creating strategies for improving mathematics learning in students is a major goal of education research. However, doing so requires an ability to look at many aspects of mathematics learning, such as demographics and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine what factors affect student achievement in reading and mathematics. The research questions addressed the perceptions of school principals and background characteristics related to student achievement in Korea and the USA with respect to differences among students in low, middle and high quantiles.…

This study makes an important contribution to an expanding body of international comparative studies by exploring factors predicting differences in science and mathematics achievement by students in Turkey and the Republic of Korea on the 2011 TIMSS assessment. While these countries are similar with regards to population size, cultural beliefs…

This study investigates the relationship between school-level accountability practices and science achievement of 15-year-olds, across four counties: Australia, Korea, Portugal, and the United States. We used PISA 2006 data, since 2006 is the only administration that has focused on science. School-level accountability practices are here defined as…

This study investigated the predictiveness of preferred learning styles (competitive and cooperative) and classroom climate (teacher support and disciplinary climate) on learning strategy use in mathematics. The student survey part of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2003 comprising of 4633 US observations was used in a weighted…

Large-scale studies, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), provide data to understand cross-national differences and similarities. In this study, we aimed to identify factors predicting mathematics achievement of Turkish students by comparing to Australian students. First, construct equivalence and item bias…