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The purpose of this paper is fivefold: to identify the various results of previous empirical studies on the effect of mastery learning and students achievement in Nigeria schools; determine the effect size for each of the studies examined; determine the mean effect size of the overall studies examined; find out the mean effect size of studies that examined the effect of gender on academic achievement in mastery learning strategy; and determine the mean effect size of studies that examined the effect of school locations on academic achievements using mastery learning strategy.

This study adopted survey research design using the ex post facto procedure. This study being meta-analytical used already existing data (research results). The sample of research reports included both published and unpublished research reports on the effects of mastery learning on students’ academic achievements in Nigeria between 1980 and 2016. The study adopted a purposive sampling technique in selecting the sample. This was to ensure that studies: were centered on mastery learning and students’ academic achievements; were carried out in Nigeria; appeared in published and unpublished literature between 1980 and 2016; have the statistical values of the research results of each independent variable to be considered (e.g. t-test values, χ² values and correlation values).

The study revealed that the mean effect size for all the studies was 0.536, indicating a positive mean effect size. The strategy, thus, has a significant effect on students’ achievements. School location, also, did not mediate in the use of the strategy.

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were made: teachers should use this teaching strategy to enhance students’ achievements in difficult concepts in different subject areas. Since the result of this study has shown that the strategy has positive and large effect size, government and school proprietors should, with the collaboration of higher institutions concerned with teacher education, endeavor to organize seminars and workshops to serving teachers to enable them embrace effectively the principles and processes of implementing the strategy in the classroom. Since the result of this study has established the size of the effect of mastery learning strategy on the academic achievements, subsequent researchers should no longer direct their efforts in determining its effects on academic achievements but on the ways of improving the use of the strategy in teaching at all levels of education.

Available literature has shown that though most previous research findings revealed that mastery learning approach has an effect on academic achievements of students, no efforts have been made toward resolving the inconsistencies of those results by integrating them and establishing the extent of the effect of the strategy on academic achievements. This study, therefore, was designed to fill these gaps created by the non-existence of integrated studies on effects of mastery learning and academic achievements of students in Nigerian schools.

The aim of this study was two‐fold: to demonstrate a general construct of schools called academic optimism and to show it was related to student achievement in urban elementary schools, even controlling for socioeconomic factors, and school size.

Data were collected from 99 urban elementary schools in Texas and multiple regression and factor analyses were used to test a series of hypotheses guiding the inquiry.

The major hypotheses of the study were supported; academic optimism was a second‐order construct comprised of collective efficacy, faculty trust, and academic optimism. Moreover, academic optimism is a school characteristic that predicts student achievement even controlling for socioeconomic status.

The results support Bandura's social cognitive theory, Coleman's social capital theory, Hoy and Tarter's work on organizational climate, and demonstrate the existence of a cultural property of schools called academic optimism. Further, the findings have practical implications for developing strategies to improve the academic performance of urban schools.

The findings demonstrate the existence of a new collective construct, academic optimism, which has the potential to help improve the effectiveness of schools.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model on students’ academic achievement that is well grounded in the academic research in the domain. The paper aims to weave together the divergent research findings into a comprehensive model for use by all the stakeholders.

It is a literature review-based paper wherein research papers on the factors that influence the academic achievement of the students were studied. The empirical evidence from literature that fits the context of this study was analyzed and used to propose a workable model.

A framework to understand the role of factors affecting students’ academic achievement was proposed. It was found that school leadership and climate together affect the academic achievement of the students, but mediated by the involvement of the parents of the students.

As this paper is a literature review, a framework on the determinants of academic achievements of the students has been proposed but yet to be tested empirically.

The schools leadership and the policy-makers can effectively leverage the findings of the study to enhance the academic achievement of students in a school context.

There are few research-based studies on the determinants of the academic achievement of students. This paper has identified key variables which play a significant role in helping enhance academic achievement of the students.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the extent of equity in the academic achievement distribution by analyzing Israeli students’ high school matriculation scores, controlling for background characteristics (e.g. parental education) and for previous achievement. Second, it analyzes the trends in equity during the examined period from 2001 to 2011.

Nationwide extensive data sets, at the student level, of 11 cohorts are analyzed using logistic regression models.

Major findings reveal that the odds ratios (ORs) are in favor of students from families with a high level of parental education (an increment of one year of parental education increases the odds of student’s success by 3 percent). In addition, the ORs are less favorable for Arab students (30 percent lower). Furthermore, a high previous achievement level increases the odds of success (an increment of 1 percent in achievement increases the odds by 6 percent). In addition, the extent of inequity remains stable throughout the examined period.

Israel serves as an interesting case study, as its student achievement distribution in international examinations is characterized by the highest gap compared with other OECD countries, although its policy aspires to achieve equity. This puzzle, is the motivation for this study. Moreover, insights from this research might assist policy makers to promote equitable education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among academic optimism, community engagement, and student achievement in urban elementary schools across one district.

Data were collected from all 35 urban elementary schools across one district in Virginia, USA. Correlation, multiple regression, and factor analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

In schools where the faculty are optimistic that their students can succeed despite the obstacle of low socioeconomic status (SES) and where the community is engaged, students are more likely to achieve at higher levels. Findings of this study also supported that community engagement, collective efficacy, trust in clients, and academic press do act as predictors to collectively influence student achievement.

The Goddard measure for collective efficacy was replaced with one developed for more challenging settings such as urban schools.

Academic optimism and community engagement were found to work in ways that improve student achievement. Understanding the social contexts in classrooms and schools allows education leaders to work with faculty in examining current practice, in an effort to improve the educational outcomes for all students, even those who must overcome the obstacles to learning posed by their low SES.

With only one previous study of this construct in an urban elementary setting, the current study sought to test those findings in an effort to continue pushing this research agenda into urban settings.

The purpose of this research is twofold: to test a theory of academic optimism in Taiwan elementary schools and to expand the theory by adding new variables, collective responsibility and enabling school structure, to the model.

Structural equation modeling was used to test, refine, and expand an organizational path model of student achievement first developed in the USA.

The proposed organizational model was supported in Taiwan and was consistent with the initial studies done in the USA. Further, two concepts were added to the model, enabling structure and collective responsibility, both of which had significant indirect effects on student achievement through academic optimism. Moreover, the theoretical foundations (efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis) of the latent construct of academic optimism were confirmed again in this sample of schools in Taiwan.

The findings support an organizational model of student achievement, which has application in both the USA and Taiwan. The original model was supported, refined, and extended. Academic optimism is at the center of the model and explains student achievement for all students. Collective responsibility and enabling school structure both predict academic optimism directly and student achievement indirectly.

Social psychological perspectives on educational stratification offer explanations that bridge the macro and micro social worlds. However, while ethnoracial disparities in academic achievement are evident during the earliest grade levels, most social psychological research in this area has examined high school or college student samples and has used a black–white binary to operationalize race.

We use longitudinal structural equation models to examine links between academic self-efficacy beliefs and school performance among a national sample of diverse third- through eighth-grade students in the United States.

Contrary to hypotheses derived from the student identity literature, we find no evidence that elementary and middle school students from different ethnoracial backgrounds vary in the degree to which they selectively discount evaluative feedback in their academic self-efficacy construction, nor in the extent to which they demonstrate disrupted links between academic self-efficacy and subsequent academic performance.

The study examines the extent to which race-linked social psychological processes may be driving academic achievement inequalities during the primary schooling years.

This paper aims to propose and examine the relationship between students’ perception of service quality and dimensions and their academic achievement.

Based on the resource-based view, a conceptual relationship between service quality and dimensions and academic achievement is proposed and tested with a sample of 380 STEM university students who attended secondary schools in a region of Spain.

Service quality and four of its dimensions (i.e. empathy, reliability, responsiveness and assurance/confidence) could contribute to students’ academic achievement. The expected effect of tangible elements on academic achievement was not supported by the data. Results were controlled for student’s personal factors that have proven important in explaining academic achievement in previous studies (i.e. need for cognition, need for emotion and self-efficacy).

Previous research has extensively studied factors affecting students’ academic achievement. However, the direct relationship between service quality and student’s academic achievement has been rarely proposed and examined. Service quality has been mostly viewed as a precursor of student satisfaction and loyalty. This research views service quality as a school higher-order capability that supplements students’ capabilities.

This research aims to add to the literature on Academic Optimism, a composite measure composed of teacher perceptions of trust in students, academic press, and collective efficacy by exploring a similar set of constructs from the student perceptive. The relationships between student trust in teachers, student perceptions of academic press, and student identification with school were examined as well as how they were individually and collectively related to student achievement in the schools in an urban school district.

This study assessed the perceptions of students in 49 elementary, middle, and high schools in one urban district. The measures used included the Student Trust in Teachers Survey (Adams and Forsyth), the Identification with School Questionnaire (Voelkl), and an adaptation of Academic Press (Hoy, Hannum and Tschannen‐Moran). Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to explore whether these three observed variables would form a latent variable called Student Academic Optimism. Finally, the relationship of Academic Optimism to student achievement, controlling for SES, was examined using SEM.

Strong and significant relationships were found between all three of the observed variables. A CFA analysis confirmed that they formed a latent variable the authors called Student Academic Optimism. Student Academic Optimism had a significant direct effect on student achievement (b=0.73, p<0.01) while SES (percent of students eligible for the free and reduced lunch program) had a significant negative effect on student achievement (b=−0.37, p<0.01). Together student academic optimism and SES explained 67 percent of the variance in student achievement with student academic optimism making the largest contribution to the explanation.

The findings that Student Academic Optimism was unrelated to SES and that Student Academic Optimism has a significant effect on achievement over and above the effects of SES and student demographic characteristics leads the authors to consider the possibility that SES may not be as influential as once thought when other conditions of the school environment are taken into consideration.

This study makes a unique contribution to the literature by focusing on the perspectives of students and by linking the measures of three important dynamics within schools to form a new construct: Student Academic Optimism.

This study aims to better understand how students’ academic strains and multilevel strengths relate to their math achievement, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented students of color and girls given the need to broaden science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) participation for these groups.

National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 data was used for a historical examination of the various student academic strains and multilevel strengths that relate to math achievement in high school. T-tests and chi-square tests were conducted to examine differences in strains and strengths across policy-relevant student subgroups. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to examine how students’ strains and strengths related to their math achievement and the relative importance of each of these factors.

The findings suggest that both the academic strains and multilevel strengths that students’ experience in middle school are related to their high school math achievement and the prevalence of these factors varies across different policy-relevant student subgroups. Furthermore, the relative importance of these factors on achievement differs.

Studies which focus on either students’ academic challenges or their adaptive strengths fall short of a more nuanced discussion about how both factors relate to math outcomes. This study addresses this limitation and emphasizes that stakeholders who are interested in STEM diversity should consider holistic strategies for alleviating gender and racial/ethnic discrepancies in secondary math achievement.