The overall aim of this study is to investigate the effect of school-related factors and early learning experiences on mathematics achievement. In this causal-comparative research, HLM analysis was performed on the data of 6378 students, their parents, and 241 school principals and primary school teachers. As a result of the HLM analysis, at the…

The traditional discourse in the scholarship on cultural capital theory has focused on how exclusive participation in elite status culture by students from higher socioeconomic status families benefits their learning in schools, the effects of which are most evident in linguistic subject areas such as reading achievement. However, some scholars…

This original research examined the intersection of school leadership and teacher to parent communication. The analysis used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to determine how principal actions and school level factors were related to teacher actions and the focus of communication. Secondary educators in four district school boards were surveyed…

This paper explores parental involvement using principal and parent survey reports to examine whether parents' involvement in their children's schools predicts academic achievement. Survey data from principals and parents of seven countries from the PISA 2012 database and hierarchical linear modelling were used to analyse between- and within-…

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…

The purpose of the present study is investigating the correlation between school quality and family socioeconomic background and students' mathematics achievement in the Middle East. The countries in comparison are UAE, Syria, Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Lebanon, Jordan, and Bahrain. The study utilized data from IEA's Trends in International…

Experiential education is a child-centered educational framework that is popular in Flemish kindergartens. In this study, the impact of five experiential practices (autonomy support, stimulation, emotional support, time for choice activities, and interest-based activities) and the moderating influence of initial achievement (language and…

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine the influence of a range of factors on the science performances of Hong Kong students in PISA 2006. Hong Kong has been consistently ranked highly in international science assessments, such as Programme for International Student Assessment and Trends in International Mathematics and Science…

International mathematics assessments have established students in East Asia as among the best in the world and their U.S. counterparts as mediocre. What is not clear is why this "achievement gap" exists. The last major study to address this question, Stevenson and Stigler's (1992) "The Learning Gap," was published prior to…

The State of the Science conference was held in May, 2007 as part of the ongoing series of national conferences, "Building on Family Strengths," conducted by the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health at Portland State University. The theme of this State-of-the Science conference was "Effective…