This dissertation in practice explores the intersection of computer science education, specifically computational thinking and programming, with mathematics achievement among 15- year-old students in selected English-speaking countries. The research addresses a gap in understanding whether skills developed through computer science can positively…

The aim of this study was to investigate current trends in research of math anxiety (MA) through bibliometric perspective. Three main clusters were formed based on author keywords: cognitive correlates (working memory, attention, numerical cognition, mental arithmetic), psychological factors and effects (self-concept and self-efficacy, motivation,…

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] is a global policy organization that includes the United States and about half of the Western Europe countries. It administers international comparison tests, called Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), for 15 year-old students in Mathematics and other subjects. I…

Recent data have suggested that despite massive outlays on educational reform Qatar consistently ranks as one of the least academically proficient countries in key areas of literacy. Of the seventy-four countries that participated in PISA 2009 Qatar ranked between sixty-seven and sixty-nine in mathematics, reading and science literacy. Although…

This paper describes the development and intended uses of the Early Grades Mathematics Assessment (EGMA), which measures essential early mathematical knowledge and skills that are foundational to more sophisticated mathematical abilities, predictive of later achievement, and teachable. Administering the EGMA can provide policy makers,…

Full-information item bifactor analysis is an important statistical method in psychological and educational measurement. Current methods are limited to single-group analysis and inflexible in the types of item response models supported. We propose a flexible multiple-group item bifactor analysis framework that supports a variety of…

The aim of the present paper is to examine the observed differences in Students' test performance across public and private-voucher schools in Spain. For this purpose, we explicitly consider that education is a multi-input multi-output production process subject to inefficient behaviors, which can be identified at student level using a parametric…

There are large differences across countries in instructional time in public schooling institutions. For example, among European countries such as Belgium, France and Greece, pupils aged 15 have an average of over a thousand hours per year of total compulsory classroom instruction while in England, Luxembourg and Sweden the average is only 750…

Reciprocal determinism is a central premise of Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory. Studies of the relationship between self-beliefs and performance tend to draw on this or related theories and usually endorse the notion of reciprocal determinism at a substantive-theoretical level. However, attempts to model this postulated mutual influence…

Examining a popular political notion, this article presents results from a series of Spearman Rho calculations conducted to investigate relationships between countries' rankings on international tests of mathematics and science and future economic competitiveness as measured by the 2006 World Economic Forum's Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI).…