The "Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes"--funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation--aimed to determine whether students attending high schools with a mature and at least moderately well implemented approach to promoting deeper learning actually experienced greater deeper learning opportunities and outcomes…

The aim of the study was to explain the difference between the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 reading results for Finland and Estonia using characteristics of teaching and learning, and characteristics of the overall development of these countries. PISA data were collected via a reading test and student questionnaires…

Reports of international large-scale assessments tend to evaluate and compare education system performance based on absolute scores. And policymakers refer to high-performing and economically prosperous education systems to enhance their own systemic features. But socioeconomic differences between systems compromise the plausibility of those…

The aim of this study was to improve the criterion-related test score interpretation of a text-based assessment of scientific reasoning competencies in higher education by evaluating factors which systematically affect item difficulty. To provide evidence about the specific demands which test items of various difficulty make on pre-service…

The use of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) across nations, cultures, and languages has been criticized. The key criticisms point to the linguistic and cultural biases potentially underlying the design of reading comprehension tests, raising doubts about the legitimacy of comparisons across economies. Our research focused…

The purpose of this study was to examine the connections between national culture and student achievement. Using Hofstede's six cultural dimensions and the two dimensions from the World Values survey, we conducted multiple regressions to determine the most significant predictors of student achievement as measured by the 2009 Program for…

Very little Canadian research has examined the academic achievement of private school students. Data from The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 were used to examine the achievement of private school students. The study found that private school students outperformed their public school peers. In addition, the students'…

Pundits and bureaucrats use the results from international tests, particularly the PISA, to make claims about the quality of the public education system in the United States and make policy recommendations. In this article I argue, with evidence, that the scores and rankings from PISA are not important and that they cannot give policy makers or…

In the new millennium, the Indian education system has experienced a major shift and the issue of the quality of education has taken centre stage in policy discussion fora. Globally, assessment has become an important means of improving the quality of education, both at the systemic level and at the level of individual students. It necessitates…

Secretary of Education Duncan (2010) lamented the state of U.S. education in 2010 after the release of the results from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). He wrote: "Unfortunately, the 2009 PISA results show that American students are poorly prepared to compete in today's knowledge economy. President Obama has…

Independent schools are, for the most part, exempt from mandatory participation in standardized tests designed for state and federal comparisons, nor are they required to take part in comparative international assessments. The anxiety in the broader culture, however, is driving a growing interest among independent school parents (and prospective…

Questions remain about how to best prepare students to be environmentally literate. Although Canada and U.S. share similarities in education systems, diversity in student population, and historical roots in formalizing environmental education, Canada is one of the top performing countries in international science assessments while U.S. matches…

Widening access to higher education is clearly part of the European policy agenda. Higher education ministers in the Bologna countries, as well as the European Commission, have all expressed a wish to make higher education more representative of national populations. This policy objective has been echoed at national level. One approach to widening…

In this paper, we analyse the gender differences between the educational performance of 15-year-old children of migrants from specific regions of origin countries living in different destination countries with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 wave. We study whether this gender difference of migrant pupils deviates…

Over the past thirty years, the modern workplace has changed radically, and the demands on those making the transition from the classroom to the workforce continue to rise. Students from Baltimore and Boston no longer compete against each other for jobs; instead, their rivals are well-educated students from Sydney and Singapore. But as…