Developing students' reading and numeracy skills remain key goals of contemporary schooling. In Australia, the National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests have assessed these skills since 2008. Previous research found a significant gender gap in favour of females for the NAPLAN writing test, yet no study has examined…

This study investigates the levels of anxiety regarding testing and math in 2 nd and 4 th graders (N= 273) in the context of Romanian National Evaluations (NE), concentrating on differences before and after the assessments. The research purpose is to understand how the pressure of national testing impacts primary school students' emotional…

The results of total testing from the years 2015-2022 on the mathematical and verbal achievement of Lithuanian pupils (N [approximately equal to] 250,000) are presented. These are the standardised tests from grades 4 to 12. The K-Means method has discovered six types of achievement. The highest achievement type is dominated by girls (61.1%) who…

This paper provides an analysis of how Swedish 15-year-olds perform on the high-stakes national assessments in geography. It explicitly addresses which item characteristics produce differential item functioning (DIF) in favor of boys and girls respectively. The findings show that DIF occurs in favor of girls in items with constructed response and…

This report provides estimates of the lifetime earnings return associated with marginal improvements in attainment at KS2 in England. KS2 assessments take place at the end of primary school, when pupils are aged 10-11. They are a key marker of children's educational progress, and have been a compulsory part of the national curriculum since 1995.…

Students' prior achievements in school have significant correlations with their later achievements. Specifically, students' prior numeracy achievement is the most important predictor of later numeracy success. However, the assessment of this predictor across gender and its trend across students' year levels is often overlooked or not adequately…

Supportive school and classroom climates can add to student achievement and compensate for the negative contribution of low-socioeconomic status (SES) to academic achievement. We tested the added contribution of school and classroom climate to Chilean students' mathematics test scores. We performed a secondary analysis of 151,015 eighth-grade…

The current study expands on previous research on gender differences and similarities in science test scores. Using three different approaches -- differential item functioning, differential distractor functioning, and decision tree analysis -- we examine a high school science assessment administered to 3,849 10th-12th graders, of whom 2,021 are…

Background: This empirical study aims to investigate the association between mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics achievement gaps among students in Grades 4, 8, and 12, utilizing data from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The study also considers student-level (e.g., mathematics self-efficacy, gender,…

In 2024, half of California's K-12 students met the state standard in English, while one in three were proficient in math. Post-pandemic learning recovery and longstanding disparities in proficiency rates remain key challenges for the state's public schools. This fact sheet discusses the numbers involved with these achievement gaps.

The study examines how students in Grade 9 handle conceptual knowledge through the concept of continuity and change in the context of large-scale assessment. The research questions address: (1) what strategies the students use when they use the two parts of the concept concomitantly; and (2) any gender-related differences regarding these…

This research delves into the educational landscape in Maya City Secondary Schools, focusing on the outcomes of the Grade 12 National Examination through a mixed-method case study approach. It scrutinizes student performance in different modalities and fields of study while pinpointing factors that contribute to low pass rates and high failure…

Extended testing time is a common accommodation given to students with disabilities. However, little is known about whether students who are eligible for the accommodation actually use it, and with what effect. The present study used process data available from the digitally delivered 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)…

Gender differences in math-related professional achievements have been identified as a worldwide problem. Academic achievement assessments, however, have repeatedly revealed gender similarities. The observed gender similarity might be due to biased assessments that heavily rely on reading skills, which favors girls. The current study analyzed 29…

This Data Appendix provides the data behind the Fact Sheet, "California's K-12 Test Scores."