One of the main objectives of international large-scale assessments is to make comparisons between different countries, education policies, education systems, or subgroups. One of the main criteria for making comparisons between different groups is to ensure measurement invariance. The purpose of this study was to test the measurement invariance…

Measurement invariance is crucial for making valid comparisons across different groups (Kline, 2016; Vandenberg, 2002). To address the challenges associated with invariance testing such as large sample size requirements, the complexity of the model, etc., applied researchers have incorporated parcels. Parcels have been shown to alleviate skewness,…

This study examines gender differences in students' attitudes to mathematics in Irish post-primary schools. Large-scale international assessments have shown the achievement gap between boys and girls to be narrowing in recent years, particularly in lower post-primary education. However, women and girls remain significantly under-represented in…

This study compares Malaysian and Korean geometry content in mathematics textbooks to help explain the differences that have been found consistently between the achievement levels of Malaysian and South Korean students in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Studies have shown that the use of textbooks can affect…

This research is a secondary analysis with Korean students' data collected in the TIMSS 2015 to describe the moderation effects of instructional practices on the relationships between students' emotional dispositions toward mathematics and mathematics achievement. From the TIMSS 2015 database, we collected mathematics achievement scores, a…

Australia has seen declining numbers of students choosing mathematics and science subjects in the senior secondary years, running counter to economic projections of an accelerating need for science and mathematics skills. Many students become less engaged with these subjects in the junior secondary years but attitudes such as self-concept, utility…

Questionnaires in educational research assessing students' attitudes and beliefs are low-stakes for the students. As a consequence, students might not always consistently respond to a questionnaire scale but instead provide more random response patterns with no clear link to items' contents. We study inter-individual differences in students'…

Background: This paper discusses a framework for analyzing the dependence on mathematical theory in test items, that is, a framework for discussing to what extent knowledge of mathematical theory is helpful for the student in solving the item. The framework can be applied to any test in which some knowledge of mathematical theory may be useful,…

"U.S. Performance on the 2015 TIMSS Advanced Mathematics and Physics Assessments: A Closer Look" expands upon the results described in NCES' [National Center for Education Statistics'] initial "Highlights" report on TIMSS Advanced. This new report provides in-depth analyses that (1) examine the demographics, school…

Family-related factors, like parent's educational level, their values and expectations have a significant impact on child's early skills and later educational outcomes. Further, parents provide their child, alongside with other learning environments, a broad mathematical and early literacy input. This study investigates the relationship between…

The aim of this study is to determine how the TIMSS mathematics success of the 8th grade students differentiates according to the school type, gender, mathematics report mark, parents' education level, cognitive domains and cognitive domains by gender. Relational survey method was used in the study. Six-hundred fifty two 8th grade students…

The influences on governments for policy changes in schools range across many agencies, including the political party in power. When policies change, the sources of these influences are not always clear. The project whose work is presented in this special issue examines what these changes look like in terms of the differences in assessment tasks…

There is no doubt that a lesson plan is a necessary product of Lesson Study. However, the collaborative work among teachers that goes into creating that lesson plan is largely under-appreciated by non-Japanese adopters of Lesson Study, possibly because the effort involved is invisible to outsiders, with our attention going to its most visible…

Studies aiming to make cross-cultural comparisons first should establish measurement invariance in the groups to be compared because results obtained from such comparisons may be artificial in the event that measurement invariance cannot be established. The purpose of this study is to investigate the measurement invariance of the data obtained…

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of formative testing and self-directed learning on mathematics learning outcomes. The research was conducted at an elementary school in central Jakarta during the 2014/2015 school year. Seventy-two fourth-grade students who were selected using random sampling participated in this study. Data…