Although International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement-pioneered international large-scale assessment (ILSA) of education is now a well-established science, non-practitioners and many users often substantially misunderstand how large-scale assessments are conducted, what questions and challenges they are designed to…

This volume offers insights from modeling relations between teacher quality, instructional quality, and student outcomes in mathematics across countries. The relations explored take the educational context, such as school climate, into account. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's Trends in Mathematics and…

It has long been thought that the United States education system is the great equalizer, lifting less advantaged children out of poverty and improving their chances for success in adulthood. The opportunity for economic and social mobility depends heavily, however, on access to high quality education. Recent research has raised concerns about…

Since its inception more than four decades ago, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has served as a key indicator of what the nation's students know and can do in academic subjects. NAEP assessments provide a mechanism for putting the achievements of students in all states on a common scale; the assessments also serve as…

This supplement describes national adaptations made to the international version of the TIMSS 2011 background questionnaires. This information provides users with a guide to evaluate the availability of internationally comparable data for use in secondary analyses involving the TIMSS 2011 background variables. Background questionnaire adaptations…

The TIMSS 2011 International Database includes data for all questionnaires administered as part of the TIMSS 2011 assessment. This supplement contains the international version of the TIMSS 2011 background questionnaires and curriculum questionnaires in the following 10 sections: (1) Fourth Grade Student Questionnaire; (2) Fourth Grade Home…

Study abroad programs have proven beneficial for both the international student as well as the domestic community and school population interacting with the student. In an effort to promote cultural awareness, intercultural communications as well as opportunities for future study abroad program success, universities must take care to provide…

This dissertation comprises three essays that empirically examine the educational outcomes of for-profit college students, military enlistees and immigrant youth. All of these are groups of "non-average" students that, in different contexts, pose challenges to the traditional provision of education. Therefore, their outcomes need to be…

In 2006, a consortium of state departments of education, led by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the Council of Chief State School Officers, was awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to investigate methods of determining comparability of variations of states' assessments used to meet the requirements of the…

Higher Education and Civic Engagement provides an original and challenging contribution to contemporary debates on the civic purpose of higher education. It explores teaching and learning, research, and service in a range of international contexts. This book is essential reading for higher education leaders, faculty, administrators, and members of…

The essays in "Globalization on the Margins" explore the continuities and changes in Central Asian education development since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Reflecting on two decades of post-socialist transformations, they reveal that education systems in Central Asia responded to the rapidly changing political, economic, and…

Education-Based Incarceration and Recidivism: The Ultimate Social Justice Crime Fighting Tool takes a penetrating look at the needs and challenges of society's disenfranchised jail populations. It is incumbent to encourage public awareness of the causes that underlie the destructive cycles plaguing these populations, including the abuse and…

Americans like to believe that theirs is the land of opportunity, but the hard facts are that children born into poor families in the United States tend to stay poor and children born into wealthy families generally stay rich. Other countries have shown more success at lessening the effects of inequality on mobility--possibly by making public…

Research messages 2010 is a collection of summaries of research projects published by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). The summaries are clustered under five broad themes used by NCVER to organise its research and analysis: Industry and employers; Students and individuals; Teaching and learning: VET system; and VET in…

The studies in this volume explore a number of issues in education today. One paper reveals what actually motivates teachers to develop their career, another, how to teach primary teachers to talk about visual art. Children's artworks were explored in one article to see how they relate to their adjustment to school. In another, a case study was…