Cross-national comparisons of educational achievement rely upon each participating country collecting nationally representative data. While obtaining high response rates is a key part of reaching this goal, other potentially important factors may also be at play. This paper focuses on one such issue--exclusion rates--which has received relatively…

Previous researchers have identified socioeconomic status as a significant predictor of achievement/literacy. However, it is important to recognize that the influence of socioeconomic status on literacy may vary at different levels of socioeconomic status. Thus, this study analyzes the relationship between socioeconomic status and literacy scores…

This study assesses whether student exclusions from PISA 2018 in Sweden followed the criteria set by the OECD. We do this using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Our conclusion is that the exclusions made in PISA 2018 in Sweden did not follow OECD criteria and were much too high. Furthermore, interviews with school coordinators indicate…

International large-scale assessments have gained much attention since the beginning of the twenty-first century, influencing education legislation in many countries. This includes Spain, where they have been used by successive governments to justify education policy change. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the PISA 2018 reading scores for…

We analyse the PISA-reported convergence in the performance of private and public schools in Portugal. When PISA sampling weights are used, the number of students enrolled in those types of schools and specific grades/tracks of study differs significantly from official population figures. To account for those differences, we apply a…

The purpose of this research is to determine whether PISA 2018 mathematical literacy test items show a differential item functioning across countries. For this purpose, only the items in booklet number three were examined using the MIMIC method with Latent Class Analysis (LCA) approach. PISA 2018 tests are mostly developed in English. Therefore,…

International large-scale assessments (ILSA) are an important source of information for education policymakers across the globe. Despite sponsors' warnings, when results are published, media attention focuses on country rankings and changes in scores. Score changes are evaluated using a two-sided z-statistic, with statistical significance declared…

Bayesian Networks (BNs) are probabilistic graphical statistical models that have been widely used in many fields over the last decade. This method, which can also be used for educational data mining (EDM) purposes, is a fairly new method in education literature. This study models students' science success using the BN approach. Science is one of…

In international large-scale assessments, students may not be compelled to answer every test item: a student can decide to skip a seemingly difficult item or may drop out before the end of the test is reached. The way these missing responses are treated will affect the estimation of the item difficulty and student ability, and ultimately affect…

School autonomy has been and continues to be one of the most important education reform strategies around the world despite ambiguity about its theoretical and empirical effects on students learning. We use international data from PISA to test three country-level factors that might account for inconsistent results in prior literature: (1) the…

This paper aims to identify and compare key factors influencing US States' or an OECD country's decision to employ student test scores or test score value-added (VAM) in evaluating teacher effectiveness. Analysis using multiple linear probability model and logistic regression frameworks indicates that the use of VAM/student test scores was…

Group differences in test scores are a key metric in education policy. Response time offers novel opportunities for understanding these differences, especially in low-stakes settings. Here, we describe how observed group differences in test accuracy can be attributed to group differences in latent response speed or group differences in latent…

Achievement tests are commonly used in education to evaluate students' academic performance and proficiency in specific subject areas. However, there is a major problem that threatens the validity of achievement test scores which is test-taking disengagement. Respondents provide answers that are inconsistent with their true ability level and can…

Aggregated data meta-analyses indicate a correlation between instructional leadership and student achievement. However, it is unclear to what extent this relationship can be generalized across cultural contexts, as most primary studies stem from Anglophone regions. Drawing on international large-scale assessment data, this 3-level individual…

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children-Short Form (PANAS-C-SF) in a diverse sample of 15-year-olds in the United States [N = 4382]. Multiple measurement models, including a one-factor model, two-factor orthogonal and oblique models, a three-factor model (PA, Fear, and Distress),…