Excellence gaps are differences in advanced education outcomes among student groups. This study replicates and extends an earlier study on the prevalence and magnitude of excellence gaps based on student sex and immigrant status using Grade 8 TIMSS data. Data were included for the 12 countries that have participated in each TIMSS administration…

Grit, a non-cognitive skill that indicates perseverance and passion for long-term goals, has been shown to predict academic achievement. This paper provides evidence that grit also predicts student outcomes during the challenging period of the COVID-19 pandemic. We use a unique dataset from a digital learning platform in the United Arab Emirates…

The ability to relate physical concepts and phenomena to multiple mathematical representations--and to move fluidly between these representations--is a critical outcome expected of physics instruction. In upper-division quantum mechanics, students must work with multiple symbolic notations, including some that they have not previously encountered.…

The purpose of this study was to compare virtual school students' learning outcomes with traditional school students' learning outcomes in Texas. The research design was a quantitative study using a retrospective causal-comparative design. The researcher used archival state assessment data to compare the learning outcomes of K-12 virtual school…

Predicting student performance in international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) is crucial for understanding educational outcomes on a global scale. ILSAs, such as the Program for International Student Assessment and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, serve as vital tools for policymakers, educators, and researchers to…

In Eastern cultures, teaching is challenging due to students' increasing needs for autonomy and refusal to be controlled in traditional ways. Understanding the relationship between autonomy-supportive practices and students' learning outcome is essential for assisting teachers to create supportive learning environment to satisfy the needs for…

Students' mathematics and science motivational beliefs are crucial determinants of their school academic achievement in math and science. The current study aimed to identify the group memberships of students' motivational beliefs in math and science, which are closely related. Furthermore, this study probed the predictive effects of individual…

International large-scale assessments (ILSA) are an important source of information for education policymakers across the globe. Despite sponsors' warnings, when results are published, media attention focuses on country rankings and changes in scores. Score changes are evaluated using a two-sided z-statistic, with statistical significance declared…

Brazil's education system lags behind international standards, with two-fifths of students scoring below the minimum level of proficiency in mathematics, science, and reading. Thus, this study combined machine learning with traditional statistics to identify the most important predictors and to interpret their effects on proficiency in the PISA…

The question of precollege physics access and performance has been a persistent concern when considering the goal of diversifying participation in post-secondary STEM study and careers. This observational study examined school-level academic and demographic predictors of high school physics enrollment and performance in the USA. Due to the…

Most states responded to the onset of the pandemic by temporarily granting teachers Emergency licenses. These licenses allowed teachers to work in classrooms without passing the typical licensure exams. Since then, several states have extended their use of Emergency licenses, raising questions about how these policies impact the composition of the…

Globally, the private school share of enrollment increased from about 14 percent in 2000 to about 18 percent in 2019. We estimate the systemic effect of private enrollment share on learning outcomes. Estimates of the systemic effect of private school enrollment capture any competitive effects as well as any differences between public and private…

This study focused on the relationships between teacher characteristics and students' mathematics achievement in EU countries, including Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, Sweden, and Turkey, which are the only EU countries participated in TIMSS 2015 at the eighth-grade level. The data consisted of the sample of 31,969 eighth-grade…

In this study, we investigated how gender and implicit theories of mathematics and science abilities interacted to predict mathematics and science achievements in a sample of elementary (primary) school students from the United States. Study participants came from six elementary schools (Grades 2 to 5) and were a part of a larger sample that…

Initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in predominantly White contexts, including STEM fields, have primarily relied on approaches to increase the representation of minoritized individuals. However, an increase in the representation of minoritized individuals is only one step of the process, as the present study suggests that…