We investigated the extent to which home literacy activities during the preschool year would predict the development of children's language and literacy skills in primary school, in a highly transparent Finnish language. Also, the correlates of maternal literacy activities during preschool were examined. Literacy and language skills of 1,880…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of teachers' professional learning opportunities on instructional quality, which represents a combined approach of behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist principles in teaching. We incorporated professional learning communities (PLCs), professional development (PD) days, as well as 3 PD…

Although the importance of primary schools in the long term is of interest in educational effectiveness research, few studies have examined the long-term effects of schools over the past decades. In the present study, long-term effects of primary schools on the educational positions of students 2 and 4 years after starting secondary education are…

In light of the emergence of statistical analysis techniques based on data mining in education sciences, and the potential they offer to detect non-trivial information in large databases, this paper presents a procedure used to detect factors linked to academic achievement in large-scale assessments. The study is based on a non-experimental,…

This article focuses on the use of a value-added approach for promoting school improvement. It presents yearly value-added estimates, analyses their stability over time, and discusses the contribution of this methodological approach for promoting school improvement programmes in the Portuguese system of evaluation. The value-added model is applied…

Few studies with respect to grade retention and school-disruptive behavior have focused on adolescence. Moreover, previous retention research has ignored multilevel issues. This study aims to fill these research lacunae by addressing the role of grade retention in adolescent students' school misconduct. Furthermore, we explore the role of the…

The present study explored the developmental changes of teacher-student interpersonal relationships as well as that of academic motivation among first-grade secondary school students. In addition, the link between teacher-student interpersonal behaviour and academic motivation across the school year was investigated. The data were collected 5…

In this study, a comprehensive educational effectiveness model is tested in relation to student's civic knowledge. Multilevel analysis was applied on the dataset of the IEA Civic Education Study (CIVED; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001), which was conducted among junior secondary-school students (age 14), their schools, and their…

Over the past 3 decades, a substantial body of scholarship has examined the effects of school leadership on student learning. Most of this research has framed leadership as an independent variable, or driver for change, in relation to school effectiveness and school improvement. Yet, scholars have observed that leadership is also influenced by…

This study examined the school and student predictors of early reading outcomes for kindergarten students enrolled in schools that participated in a beginning reading reform program. The study employed a nested design with students nested within schools and applied hierarchical linear modeling analyses to account for the organizational structure…

Several factors in the H. J. Walberg Educational Productivity Model, which assumes that 9 factors affect academic achievement, were examined with a limited sample of 1st-year students in the University of Groningen. Information concerning 8 of these factors--grades, motivation, age, prior achievement, home environment, support from peers,…