Students' prior achievements in school have significant correlations with their later achievements. Specifically, students' prior numeracy achievement is the most important predictor of later numeracy success. However, the assessment of this predictor across gender and its trend across students' year levels is often overlooked or not adequately…

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…

The results of total testing from the years 2015-2022 on the mathematical and verbal achievement of Lithuanian pupils (N [approximately equal to] 250,000) are presented. These are the standardised tests from grades 4 to 12. The K-Means method has discovered six types of achievement. The highest achievement type is dominated by girls (61.1%) who…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

Australian children from regional, rural and remote (RRR) areas exhibit lower educational outcomes than their peers in metropolitan areas. The mechanisms driving the comparatively poorer educational outcomes of children in RRR areas, however, are not well understood. This paper proposes and tests two sets of factors that may be responsible for…

We focus on two types of centralised national examinations (the 10th grade tests and Matura examination) that are being carried out in Lithuania for two decades. The aim of the paper is to analyse assessments of mathematics for the entire Lithuanian secondary school population that have no sampling errors while considering the factors of location,…

Prior achievement is essential to estimating the role of schools and school factors on student outcomes because it measures students' pre-existing knowledge and skills. However, its very strong effects and their implications for research and policy are not widely appreciated. Analyses of student achievement in five domains shows that prior…

This paper provides an analysis of how Swedish 15-year-olds perform on the high-stakes national assessments in geography. It explicitly addresses which item characteristics produce differential item functioning (DIF) in favor of boys and girls respectively. The findings show that DIF occurs in favor of girls in items with constructed response and…

High-stakes assessments are a common feature of many education systems. One argument often made against their use, however, is that they have a negative impact on wellbeing across the education sector, including teachers. We present new evidence on this matter by examining how the Statutory Assessment Tests (SATs) conducted in England's primary…

Supportive school and classroom climates can add to student achievement and compensate for the negative contribution of low-socioeconomic status (SES) to academic achievement. We tested the added contribution of school and classroom climate to Chilean students' mathematics test scores. We performed a secondary analysis of 151,015 eighth-grade…

This paper provides evidence on the differences among Spanish regions, regardless of other factors, in student achievement -- in Language, Mathematics, Science and Citizenship -- of fourth graders. This is the first paper in Spain that analyses these differences for Primary Education in all Spanish autonomous communities. The data in the Spanish…

Relative age effects (RAEs), where older children within an age-based group have better academic, sporting, self-concept and mental health outcomes than their younger peers, have been demonstrated in multiple countries. Australian research has found self-concept and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder RAEs, but academic RAEs have not been…

This research delves into the educational landscape in Maya City Secondary Schools, focusing on the outcomes of the Grade 12 National Examination through a mixed-method case study approach. It scrutinizes student performance in different modalities and fields of study while pinpointing factors that contribute to low pass rates and high failure…

This article analyses whether Brazilian graduates feel that their higher education programmes have contributed to the development of civic competences (ethics, critical thinking and respect for diversity), necessary to become active citizens in a democratic and fair society. The analysis considers disciplines and students' socioeconomic and…

Gender differences in math-related professional achievements have been identified as a worldwide problem. Academic achievement assessments, however, have repeatedly revealed gender similarities. The observed gender similarity might be due to biased assessments that heavily rely on reading skills, which favors girls. The current study analyzed 29…