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The purpose of this paper is to examine what factors affect student achievement in reading and mathematics. The research questions addressed the perceptions of school principals and background characteristics related to student achievement in Korea and the USA with respect to differences among students in low, middle and high quantiles.

Data were taken from the Program for International Student Assessment 2012. Scores in the reading and mathematics were analyzed in conjunction with a principal survey. The Quantile Regression method was used for data analysis with three quantile points. T-statistics were used to test for significance. The predictor set consisted of seven school-leadership variables, and four to six additional covariates.

The most important finding for the USA was a relationship between organizational hindrance (HND) and low student achievement for the middle and upper quantiles in mathematics and for all quantiles in reading. The (HND) variable included poor teacher-student relations, low expectation of students, overly strict enforcement of rules, lack of attention to student needs, resistance to change, lateness to class, and lack of preparation. The most important finding for Korea was that there were significant associations across all groups between teacher attitude (TCHATT) and student reading achievement and with the low group in mathematics.

This study adds to knowledge about school capacity and suggests that the leadership role of the principal is to overcome negative environmental factors and create a positive organization.

The non-Gaussian approach of regression analysis allowed us to identify significant differences that we otherwise might not have found.

The purpose of this paper is to combine seemingly unrelated factors to explain global competitiveness. The study argues that school discipline and education investment affect competitiveness with the association being mediated by educational performance. Crucially, diachronic effects of discipline on performance are tested to demonstrate effects over time.

Partial least square (PLS) modelling is used to analyse the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. The study further draws from World Bank data on Government Expenditure and World Economic Forum data on competitiveness. Five PISA dimensions of school discipline (students listening well, noise levels, teacher waiting time, students working well, class start time) are hypothesised to affect academic performance in reading, math and science, and to ultimately impact competitiveness.

Findings confirm the relative importance of school discipline (88 per cent) in comparison to education investment (12 per cent) on educational performance, with both variables also being found to be significantly associated with competitiveness directly.

This study demonstrates the time effects of discipline, more specifically that discipline dimensions (students listen well in 2003 and students work well in 2009) are associated with competitiveness in 2012. Implications for school policy and further research are discussed.

Increased school autonomy and accountability have been a common denominator of national reforms in otherwise heterogeneous governance systems in Europe and the USA. The paper argues that because schools serving disadvantaged communities (SSDCs) often have lower average performance, they are more often sanctioned or under closer scrutiny, but might also receive more additional resources. The purpose of this paper is to therefore analyze whether SSDCs have more or less autonomy than schools with a more advantageous context in four countries with heterogeneous autonomy and accountability policies.

The paper is based on the data from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 school and student questionnaires from Finland, Germany, the UK, and the USA. The choice of countries is based on different governance models described by Glatter et al. (2003). The data are used to identify SSDCs and analyze the reported autonomy in resource allocation and curriculum and assessment. Using regression analyses, patterns are analyzed for each country individually. They are then juxtaposed and compared. Differences are related back to the governance models of the respective countries.

The results indicate an association between the communities the schools are serving and the autonomy either in the allocation of resources, or the curriculum and assessment. SSDCs appeared to have a little more autonomy than schools with a more advantageous context in Finland, Germany, and the UK, but less autonomy in the USA. The comparison suggests that in the USA, autonomy is rather a reward for schools that have the least amount of need, whereas in the other three countries it could be a result of strategies to improve schools in need. The paper discusses possible explanations in the policies and support structures for SSDCs.

The effects of increased school autonomy and accountability on student achievement have been discussed at length. How different accountability policies affect the autonomy of schools with the highest needs has so far not been studied. The study can be understood as a first step to unravel this association. Following steps should include in-depth investigations of the mechanisms underlying increased or diminished autonomy for SSDCs, and the consequences for school improvement in these schools.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise and analyse empirical research on protective factors that promote academic resilience in ethnic minority children mainly aged between 13 and 18 years attending schools in the Nordic countries.

This paper was opted for a literature review of 23 peer-reviewed quantitative articles published between 1999 and 2014. The analysis entailed protective factors at both the personal and environmental levels in ethnic minority children.

Some minority children’s school performance may be just as good if not better than majority children when having similar or even lower socioeconomic status than majority children. Protective factors at the personal level included working hard, having a positive attitude towards school, and having high educational aspirations. Protective factors at the environmental level included supportive school systems, supportive schools, and supportive networks including parental qualities and support. The findings are comparable to the findings outside the Nordic countries with one exception; minority children in the Nordic countries performed better than expected despite socioeconomic disadvantages.

Protective factors affecting academic resilience need further attention in a time with an increased global migration. Research implications may be related to how schools and policy makers develop supportive school systems, supportive schools, and supportive networks to contribute to making a difference for minority children’s educational opportunities in the Nordic countries.

Academic resilience is a relatively new research field in the Nordic countries. This review is the first review which has summarised and analysed existing findings on academic resilience in the Nordic countries in minority children.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) measured 15-year-olds’ performance in mathematics, reading, and science. The purpose of this paper is to use the assessment results of PISA 2006, 2009, and 2012 to benchmark the compulsory education performance of 65 countries and economies with emphasis on two benchmarking steps: identifying benchmarks and determining performance gaps.

The authors use a multi-criterion and multi-period performance categorization method to identify a group of best performers as benchmarks. Then, the authors use two-sample t-tests to detect against benchmarks whether each country or economy has significant performance gaps on individual performance measures.

Based on the mean scores of three assessment subjects in PISA 2006, 2009, and 2012, six best performers (Top-6) are identified from 65 participating countries and economies. In comparison with Top-6’s weighted averages, performance gaps are found for most countries and economies on the mean score of each subject, the percentage of top-performing students in all three subjects, and the percentage of lowest-performing students in each subject.

For compulsory education systems around the world, this paper provides an original categorization of performance based on the results of three PISA cycles, and provides new insights for countries and economies to prioritize improvement efforts to increase average performance, pursue excellence, and tackle low performance. For benchmarking applications involving multi-criterion and multi-period data, this paper presents a novel method of using statistical control charts to identify benchmarks and then using two-sample t-tests to determine performance gaps on individual performance measures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative academic effectiveness of vocational education in three countries with early tracking systems: Austria, Croatia, and Hungary.

The authors use an instrumental variables approach to estimate vocational education’s relative academic effectiveness in terms of achievement on an international test, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program of International Student Assessment (PISA), and two possible indicators of non-cognitive outcomes – self-efficacy in mathematics and intrinsic motivation in mathematics, both also available from the PISA student survey.

The results show few, if any, differences in student gains from attending the vocational track in secondary school as opposed to the academic track. Specifically, the results show that attending the vocational or academic track results in similar achievement gains in the tenth grade and generally similar gains in self-efficacy and motivation in mathematics.

The study is unique because in the three countries, the authors can use a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach based on school systems’ age entrance date rules to estimate the gain in test scores over an academic year and to compare the gain for students in the vocational and academic tracks. The results contradict almost all other studies by showing that in these countries student academic gains in vocational education are about the same as in the academic track.

This paper aims to focus on how reading for pleasure is transmitted within the family. Using data taken from the Programme for International Student Assessment test of 2009, which dealt in depth with the reading proficiency of students, the authors show that children of parents who read for pleasure are better readers. Within the extensive research and published results on reading performance, the authors focused on the transmission of parents’ reading attitudes to their children.

In this study, the authors have opted for an approach of “difference in differences”, applied to a population that represents all 15-year-olds from five countries (Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Italy and Portugal). To support this study, the authors chose as a response variable the difference between reading performance and maths performance of each student, taking into account five plausible values for each student. The authors have several explanatory variables, among them what we call the “treatment”, which is the parents’ enthusiasm for reading.

The calculated estimations clearly indicate that there is a positive effect for four out of the five countries analysed, ranging from 4 points for Italy to 6.5 points for Germany and Portugal. As for the significance of the effect, with the exception of Hungary, the result is reliable and robust. It should also be noted that the variable that indicates the existence of a reading habit by children (daily reading for pleasure) is seen as a factor that positively affects the difference between competence in reading and mathematics in four out of the five countries analysed.

The results show positive effects on children whose parents read for pleasure, and this fact should be used to further encourage parents to promote their own reading time for pleasure. In view of the already quantified trend in international reports that adults are reading less, it seems crucial to involve educational authorities in reversing this phenomenon, knowing the impact that adult reading habits have on the reading competence of young people.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how gender equality influences difference in cognitive skills between genders. For the closer examination of Guiso et al. (2008), restricting the sample to immigrants allows us to reduce the possibility of reverse causality.

Using PISA 2012 matched with the gender wage gap sourced from World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Index 2011, the author compares the effect of the wage gap among the areas of mathematics, science and reading.

Decreased gender wage gap leads to girls exhibiting a reduced incidence of lateness and skipping school compared with boys, which in turn improves girls’ test scores in mathematics, science and reading. The direct effect of the decreased wage gap on test scores exceeds its indirect effect on performance owing to influencing school attendance.

The findings of this paper provide evidence that higher female wage level relative to male wage level incentivizes female students to attend school, resulting in their achieving higher test scores not only for mathematics, but also for science and reading.

This paper presents a moderated discussion on popular misconceptions, benefits and limitations of International Large-Scale Assessment (ILSA) programs, clarifying how ILSA results could be more appropriately interpreted and used in public policy contexts in the USA and elsewhere in the world.

To bring key issues, points-of-view and recommendations on the theme to light, the method used is a “moderated policy discussion”. Nine commentaries were invited to represent voices of leading ILSA scholars/researchers and measurement experts, juxtaposed against views of prominent leaders of education systems in the USA that participate in ILSA programs. The discussion is excerpted from a recent blog published by Education Week. It is moderated with introductory remarks from the guest editor and concluding recommendations from an ILSA researcher who did not participate in the original blog. References and author biographies are presented at the end of the article.

Together, the commentaries address historical, methodological, socio-political and policy issues surrounding ILSA programs vis-à-vis the major goals of education and larger societal concerns. Authors offer recommendations for improving the international studies themselves and for making reports more transparent for educators and the public to facilitate greater understanding of their purposes, meanings and policy implications.

When assessment policies are implemented from the top down, as is often the case with ILSA program participation, educators and leaders in school systems tend to be left out of the conversation. This article is intended to foster a productive two-way dialogue among key ILSA actors that can serve as a stepping-stone to more concerted policy actions within and across national education systems.

This paper aims to analyse contrasting discourses on education and competitiveness from four countries to show the different national values that are a key driver in economic development.

The paper uses content analysis to compare and contrast the newspaper discourse surrounding the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in four countries with above OECD average performance: Japan and South Korea (improving performance) and Australia and Finland (declining performance). PISA has attracted much government and public attention because it reflects education and the economic value of that education.

There are key contrasts in the discourses of the four countries. Despite shifts to globalised perspectives on education, strong national and cultural differences remain. Educational competitiveness and economic competitiveness are strong discourses in Japan and South Korea, while in Australia and Finland, the focus is on educational competitiveness. The media in Finland has few references to economic competitiveness and it does not feature in Australia. The discourse themes on PISA from 2001 to 2015 are presented with trends in educational attainment and shifting national perspectives on education.

Analysis is limited to the top two circulation newspapers in English language in each country over 2001 to 2015. These newspapers in Finland, Japan and South Korea include translated content from local language papers.

The paper provides longitudinal perspectives to understand the contrasting societal values placed on education and how these relate to perspectives on competitiveness. This media evidence on national discourses can inform education policy orientations in the four countries examined.