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The study’s objective was to ascertain the connection between secondary school students' test anxiety, academic self-concept, motivation and academic performance in mathematics. The difference between the academic performances of male and female secondary school students who exhibit high and low test anxiety, academic self-concept and motivation levels in mathematics.

Four hypotheses and four research questions were adopted. The design is a correlation. 42,299 mathematics students in senior school year two (SS2) made up the research population. A sample of 1,650 students was selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure. The main instruments used were the Mathematics Test Anxiety Questionnaire (MTAQ), Academic Self-Concept Questionnaire (ASQ) and Academic Motivation Questionnaire (AMQ) and students’ math scores. These instruments were validated by three experts and the reliability coefficients of 0.69, 0.68 and 0.68 were obtained for MTAQ, ASQ and AMQ, respectively, using Cronbach alpha. Pearson product moment correlation was used to analyze the data.

The study’s results showed a correlation between secondary school students' academic performance in mathematics and test anxiety, academic self-concept and motivation. There was a significant difference between secondary school male and female students' test anxiety; there was a significant difference between secondary school male and female students' self-concept and academic performance in mathematics, and there was a significant difference between secondary school male and female students' motivation and academic performance in mathematics.

The major contribution of this study is to investigate the connection between test anxiety, academic self-concept motivation and students’ mathematics performance. There is a difference between psychological variables, gender and mathematics performance.

Background: Most children in low-income countries complete their elementary education with low competency in essential reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. Besides, about 250 million students are not learning the basics, most of whom have spent at least four years in school, and this failure is coined the global learning crisis. This study aimed to examine educational quality management practices perceived by secondary school teachers.

Methods: The study employed a multilevel mixed-method design. Employing a simple random sampling technique, the researcher selected 251 teachers from 10 secondary schools in the research regions. He collected data through a researcher-designed questionnaire, school standards, and student achievement records from November 2018 to March 2019. He analyzed data from a questionnaire using frequency, percentage, mean, Pearson correlation, and exploratory factor analysis. The document review concerning quality management was analyzed using content analysis to triangulate the quantitative findings.

Results: At the school level, the study revealed the impracticality of laboratories. Besides, incompetent and unmotivated teachers and students ran the education business from the input side. At the same level, principals' management practices on staff development and encouraging parents to support their schools were low. The principals' management practices in the teaching-learning process were also undesirable at the classroom level. Overall, the study revealed incredibly insufficient input, process, and output management in the study context.

Conclusion: Hence, the study concluded that it is difficult to achieve the very objectives of producing creative, critical, and problem-solving individuals through this type of educational provision and its management. Due to this, it is not easy to achieve quality education for all goals.

The purpose of this article is to analyse first-generation Chilean students' transition experiences from secondary school to university.

This article presents the analysis results of 12 visual narratives of first-generation Chilean university students, who provided an account of their transition experience from secondary school to university. Participants explored the connections between their most valuable learning experiences during photo-elicitation interviews. The study used Quinn's notion of imagined social capital to understand the transition experience.

The analysis reveals the significance of secondary school experiences in understanding students' attitudes toward the university. In an extremely segregated school system, participants' secondary school experiences demonstrated a strong bond with classmates from their social class and a feeling of distance from institutions and their hierarchical structure. In this context, the university space is symbolically recreated into a learning space consistent with their social background.

The research study highlights the need to increase understandings of school experiences and how these shape university transitions in order to effectively support students during the first years of university. In addition, it draws attention to the need to develop strategies that recognize the complex, collective and contextualized understandings of students' transition.

The research aimed to understand the experience of transition of first generation students from their own narratives and relational perspectives in contrast with the prevailing paradigms which are often individualized and linear.

Building on the introduction to positive psychology and positive education in Chapter 1, the aim of Chapter 3 is to focus on wellbeing and positive education in secondary schools. This includes an overview of approaches to intervening in mental health (‘traditional’ and those which draw on the principles of positive psychology) that have been used in schools, and the factors that can influence their outcomes. When and how to apply interventions across three levels: the system, the community, and the individual, are also explored, alongside four different approaches: whole school, whole class, small group, and one-to-one. The chapter draws on up-to-date research and practical experience in secondary school settings, and includes a case study of Positive Psychology in Practice, based on the delivery (by the author) of a multi-component PPI (mPPI) – The Hummingbird Project, which has now been delivered to approximately 4,000 students in 24 secondary schools across the North West of England. The effectiveness of the mPPI, key lessons learned and insights gained are shared, including how to overcome the challenges of working in a culture not conducive to positive education.

Education can be classified into formal and informal sectors—the first category as a regular schooling system and the latter category as private tutoring. After completing secondary education, students in many countries receive education from private tutoring to get admission into the university. This study examines the effect of private tutoring on university admission and subsequent students' academic achievement at the university level.

Using survey data from Bangladesh as a case study, this study employs a two-stage least squares (2SLS) methodology.

Considering that coaching centers offer services such as private tutoring, this study finds that an informal education for admission greatly helps academic achievement. Students who benefit from informal schooling are more likely to achieve higher grades in subsequent programs.

This study strongly suggests that formal education at the secondary school level is unable to meet the academic expectations that are demanded at the tertiary level. This forces the development of private tutoring, which supports the students from more financially well-off families to perform well at the cost of educational disparity.

This chapter delves into the education of Kosovo's Roma community, shining a light on the obstacles they encounter and the initiatives taken by the government to enhance their educational prospects. The Roma community represents just 0.5% of Kosovo's entire population and faces significant challenges with low literacy rates and high dropout rates, particularly at lower levels of education. Since Kosovo's independence proclamation in 2008, there have been institutional advancements and partnerships with local, central, and worldwide organisations to improve the education system for the Roma community.

This study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the educational situation of the Roma community in Kosovo. It recognises their challenges and proposes practical solutions to accelerate their integration and improve their social, educational, and cultural welfare. Various analytical methods, including descriptive statistics and historical analysis, are utilised to conduct comparative and quantitative assessments.

The Roma community in Kosovo continues to encounter numerous challenges, such as economic hardships, lack of education opportunities, and early marriages that often result in school dropouts. However, research highlights the government's dedication to enhancing education conditions and enabling better access to the labour market for the Roma community through proper education and qualifications. Additionally, Kosovo's constitutional and legal framework safeguards the rights of all communities, including the Roma community, regarding education and employment with high standards.

The purpose of the research was to, first, investigate if the use of maps as instructional resources will boost scholarly performance and, second, examine if gender can moderate the effect of map usage on scholarly performance.

The study was a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test. A sample of 260 JSS II Students from 8 schools were selected through the purposive sampling technique. A Social Studies Scholarly Performance Test (SSSPT) with a reliability index of 0.79 was the instrument for data collection. The students were assigned into two groups: control and experimental. Both groups were pre-tested taught for a timeline of six weeks and thereafter post-tested.

The study reported a significant increase in the scholarly performance of students taught with maps; a significant difference occurred in the scholarly performance of both groups and gender did not moderate the effect of maps.

The social studies teachers used for the study did not have previous knowledge or map skills; this could have affected the outcome. Secondly, the treatment took place for just six weeks, and the time allotted for social studies in the school timetable was used. This may not have given the students enough time to master map interpretation.

A major implication of the study is that results will show that maps can promote the scholarly performance of students in social studies. Secondly, the fact that gender did not moderate the effect of maps suggests that maps are gender-friendly.

The results of the study, if implemented, would make social studies teachers to become inventive and resourceful in the use of maps as instructional resources for junior secondary students' scholarly performance in social studies without taking gender into consideration.

This study is a product of the researcher’s doctoral thesis; therefore, it is original and has value. The results are the product of a painstaking study carried out by the author for a period of three years on the effect of instructional resources on social studies students’ scholarly performance. Maps were one of the instructional resources studied for the award of a Ph.D. degree.

Mexico is a large, culturally and linguistically diverse country. More than half of its population lives below the poverty line, a fifth is of indigenous origin, and 5% have a disability. This chapter offers a brief description of the general characteristics of the country and the legislative changes toward inclusion and presents the status and progress toward the 2030 Agenda educational goals toward inclusive education. Although efforts have been made to improve the quality of education and inclusion, the country's complexities: poverty, cultural diversity, and political adjustments, among others, have held back progress, as will be explained in this chapter.

Key international and intergovernmental organizations assess the size of the Roma population in Serbia to be around 4–600.000, rendering Serbia among the five countries in Europe with the highest percentage of Roma population. Although Roma in Serbia have a long history of self-organization, cultural and media organizations, and are formally recognized as national minorities with a National Council of the Roma National Minority as a body with political decision-making influence, the Roma community in Serbia, as in most other European countries, is the most disadvantaged and underprivileged group in the country, often living in underdeveloped neighbourhoods with limited access to social services, especially education and health.

The educational attainment of the Roma population in Serbia, as in other countries in Europe, is far below the attainment of the general population. The education indicators are showing a developing trend, albeit slow. Roma integration policies evolved in Serbia from the early 2000s in the general policy framework of Equity of Education and Inclusive Education and a comprehensive education reform agenda, promoted and legally endorsed by the 2009 Law on the Foundations of the Education System. As the consequence of such an approach, the Roma integration policies intertwined and mutually reinforced with other reform policy areas. The most important post-2000 policies supporting the integration of Roma students into education are the introduction of pedagogical assistants in elementary schools and preschool institutions as a profession, paid from the budget, abolishing the system of school readiness assessment, introducing individual education plans and intensifying affirmative action and scholarships for enrolment in secondary and tertiary education.