Grade inflation, involving comparisons between public and independent schools, is presently under discussion in Sweden. This paper reports on discrepancies between national test results and the final course grade in social sciences, in year 9. Open data at school level were used in OLS regression analyses to scrutinise systematic differences…

PISA presents a new image for academic achievement, which has prompted Japanese education reforms over the past decade to innovate teaching and learning for 'PISA-style literacy'. Supported by theoretical foundations, particularly with regard to the concept of 'PISA literacy' and 'authentic assessment', these reforms have accomplished progress in…

Item Response Theory (IRT) is a ubiquitous model for understanding humans based on their responses to questions, used in fields as diverse as education, medicine and psychology. Large modern datasets offer opportunities to capture more nuances in human behavior, potentially improving test scoring and better informing public policy. Yet larger…

Curriculum and its associated assessment are at the heart of educational systems worldwide. In light of perceived national educational stagnation or decline, as well as of performance in international league tables such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), countries have embarked on curriculum and assessment reforms. This is…

Comparative international tests of students' achievements have become increasingly popular over the past decade. An outcome of this widespread practice is the tendency of various countries to evaluate their national status according to their pupils' international ranking in such achievement tests, partly due to the common belief that high ranking…

We study how the relationship between students' cognitive ability and their school grades depends on institutional contexts. In a simple abstract model, we show that unless competence standards are set at above-school level or the variation of competence across schools is low, students' competence valuation will be heterogeneous, with weaker…

Based on a sample of 312 high school teachers who participated in the Israeli PISA assessment of student academic achievement in 2002, the current study examines the mediatory role of their perception of the subject matter (as "open/flexible'" or "closed/hierarchical") in the relation between their disciplinary expertise…

Subject-matter experts reviewed the content, rigor, and clarity of the first public drafts of the "Common Core" standards released in September 2009 by the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) of the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers. Using the same criteria, the same experts also…

This paper examines the integration of Turkish labour migrant children in four countries across Europe in terms of their educational performance. By looking at the PISA 2003 (Programme for International Student Assessment) data pertaining to mathematics achievement of 15-year-olds, it explores the effects of ethnicity, gender and family…

The 7th International Conference on Education Data Mining held on July 4th-7th, 2014, at the Institute of Education, London, UK is the leading international forum for high-quality research that mines large data sets in order to answer educational research questions that shed light on the learning process. These data sets may come from the traces…