When analyzing large-scale assessments (LSAs) that use complex sampling designs, it is important to account for probability sampling using weights. However, the use of these weights in multilevel models has been widely debated, particularly regarding their application at different levels of the model. Yet, no consensus has been reached on the best…

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is often used to estimate the effects of socioeconomic status (SES) on academic achievement at different levels of an educational system. However, if a prior academic achievement measure is missing in a HLM model, biased estimates may occur on the effects of student SES and school SES. Phantom effects describe…

Motivational constructs and students' engagements have great impacts on students' mathematics achievements, yet they have not been theoretically investigated using international large-scale assessment data. This study utilized the mathematics data of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2011 to conduct a comparative and…

Teacher motivation is one of the factors that affect the realization of the teaching objectives, motivation and academic achievement of student. This study aimed to answer to the question "How is the relation between the students' academic (sciences and mathematics) achievement and teachers' morale/motivation in Singapore, Japan, Finland and…

Purpose: There is a tendency to assess educational systems in terms of their efficiency in gaining high scores on cognitive skills. Schools perform, however, also a socializing function. The whole policy debate tends to ignore the impact of educational systems on attitudes or democratic values. This contribution focuses on the impact of the…

Although countries worldwide are emphasizing the importance of science education for technological development and global economic competition, comparative findings from standardized international student assessments reveal a huge gap in science scores between developed and developing countries. Certain developed economies too have made little…

Empirical analysis of secondary biology classrooms revealed that, on average, 68% of teaching time in Germany revolved around processing tasks. Quality of instruction can thus be assessed by analyzing the quality of tasks used in classroom discourse. This quasi-experimental study analyzed how teachers used tasks in 38 videotaped biology lessons…

In this study, students' understanding of chemical changes was investigated in relation to four individual differences, related to logical thinking, field dependence/independence, convergence and divergence thinking. The study took place in Greece with the participation of students (n = 374) from three grades (8th, 10th and 12th grades) of…