Excellence gaps are differences in advanced education outcomes among student groups. This study replicates and extends an earlier study on the prevalence and magnitude of excellence gaps based on student sex and immigrant status using Grade 8 TIMSS data. Data were included for the 12 countries that have participated in each TIMSS administration…

The reading literacy skills of Australian adolescents, as measured in successive PISA waves, have declined since 2000. Literacy achievement is not low by international standards, but it is lower in Australia than it is in Anglophone countries with which we compare ourselves, e.g. Canada. Using PISA 2018 and PIRLS 2021 data, we investigated both…

Higher academic performance is almost universally considered a good thing, and most quantitative studies show that performance is positively, although weakly, related to mental health. Simultaneously, however, qualitative studies consistently find that high-performing students and students attending high-performing schools report high levels of…

Because standardized tests in science are not given to PreK-3 students in Ohio, this report examined the longitudinal effects of learning from a teacher who had participated in the NURTURES professional development program. Specifically, it looked at the effects on students' mathematics and reading learning in grades 2-5 and science learning in…

We used the generalized propensity score method to estimate the differential effects of five Early Child Care and Education (ECCE) experiences (Prekindergarten, Head Start, Center-based Child Care, Home-based Child Care, and Parental Care) in reducing math and reading achievement gaps between boys versus girls, Latinx versus Whites, and Blacks…

The present study examined Latinx school readiness and 3rd grade student achievement, considering differences based on social categories of gender, race, ethnicity, and home language. The sample included 683 racially diverse children (M[subscript age] = 4.94; SD = 0.57) of Dominican- or Mexican-origin from Spanish-English or Spanish-only…

We investigated two research questions: which students are more likely to respond inconsistently to mixed-worded questionnaire scales, and which country samples have larger shares of inconsistent respondents? We defined an inconsistent response as strongly agreeing or disagreeing with both positively and negatively worded items of the same scale.…

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…

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significant disruption in schooling worldwide. Global test score data is used to estimate learning losses by modeling the effect of school closures on achievement by predicting the deviation of the most recent results from a linear trend using data from all rounds of PISA. Mathematics scores declined an average of…

For students who perform inconsistently across subjects, teachers face challenges in formulating track recommendations, as their achievement will not point to one secondary school track. This issue may be more prominent for students from diverse backgrounds, given the achievement differences between specific subject domains within these groups.…

The study draws on the theory of 'migrant optimism' and anticipated discrimination to examine whether a gap in educational expectations and achievement exists between immigrant and native students in Qatar and explores whether the impact of educational expectations on educational achievement is contingent upon the migratory status of students…

While a large body of evidence suggests that gender inequality in access to primary education has reduced significantly in India, there has been relatively little research on gender gap in learning outcomes, particularly math scores. Using a nationally representative household dataset, this study examines the role of parental resources in…

Women, especially Black and Latina women, are marginalized in physics, including in high school classrooms. Recognition is one of the ways women and girls experience marginalization in physics. This dissertation is comprised of three distinct but related studies examining how students experience recognition in an AP Physics 1 classroom. The first…

We investigated effects of tracking students into higher, more academic, and lower, less academic, school types immediately after primary school (early tracking) instead of having a comprehensive secondary school system (late tracking) on school gender segregation and gender gaps in achievement outcomes. We assumed that, in early tracking…

Bebras tasks are considered to develop Computational Thinking (CT) and are currently used for this purpose in many studies. However, the relationship between Bebras tasks and CT is recent and, given the scarcity of validated instruments for assessing CT that are not associated with a specific learning environment, the expected development of CT…