Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development is a shared action plan for people, for the planet and for prosperity, adopted in September 2015 by the 193 United Nations (UN) Member States. The guidelines ...of this journey are summarized by 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the associated 169 Targets approved by the UN, with the shared aim to reach them by 2030. The volume, composed of 7 chapters, discusses 3 of the SDGs: to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, to achieve gender equality and to reduce economic inequality within and across national borders. The INVALSI database provided a valuable resource to the authors to investigate the characteristics of the Italian school system. We wish the volume reading encourages the discussion about possible ameliorative interventions and it is a starting point to measure potential progress.
We use longitudinal data from over 1.5 million Italian students to examine differences in the mathematics and reading achievement of students who completed primary and lower secondary school in ...2020–21 (COVID cohort) and those who completed it in 2018–19 (non-COVID cohort). We also examine the evolution of inequalities by gender, socio-economic condition, and prior academic achievement during the pandemic. On average, the primary school COVID cohort experienced a small increase in reading achievement and a drop in mathematics achievement compared to the non-COVID cohort. The lower secondary school COVID cohort experienced a large reduction in mathematics achievement and a smaller reduction in reading achievement compared to the non-COVID cohort. Previously middle-achieving students suffered the most from the pandemic, while high achievers gained. Socio-economic inequalities in achievement remained stable for secondary school students and somewhat decreased for primary school students between the non-COVID and COVID cohorts. Gender disparities were broadly reduced across domains and school levels, except for primary school math
Dalle principali rilevazioni nazionali e internazionali emerge una forte disparità nei risultati di maschi e femmine nelle prove di matematica: gli studenti ottengono risultati migliori delle ...studentesse nella maggior parte delle nazioni e a tutti i livelli scolastici. Nel panorama internazionale, l’Italia risulta essere uno dei Paesi in cui i risultati relativi alle differenze di genere in matematica sono più allarmanti e i dati delle prove INVALSI confermano un gender gap molto marcato a favore dei maschi, presente a tutti i livelli scolastici. Questo articolo presenta la situazione internazionale relativa alle differenze di genere in matematica a partire dalle prove standardizzate, prestando particolare attenzione alla situazione italiana; quindi viene presentato un excursus dettagliato sulle cause alla base del gender gap in matematica, analizzando i principali studi sull’argomento e cercando di fornire una chiave di lettura completa, seppur complessa, di questo fenomeno.
National assessments can be used to explore the strictness of teachers in grading students by comparing student grades to their scores on standardised tests. Several factors influence teacher-given ...grades, including student gender, school type, geographical regions, and socioeconomic status. In this paper, we used data from the Italian institute INVALSI, responsible for the organisation of national mathematics assessments, to investigate how these factors influence teachers' grading standards. We considered a sample of 36,589 Grade 13 Italian students from 2,062 classes at 990 high schools. The relationships between the variables were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling. The findings reveal that teacher-given grades are related to student-level variables (e.g. gender, socioeconomic status, and score on the INVALSI test) and school-level variables (e.g. school type and location). When the difference between teacher-assigned grades and scores on the INVALSI test was considered, only student gender, school type, and location accounted for the gap in student achievements. Therefore, student socioeconomic status has a lower influence on their performance on the INVALSI test, suggesting that using standardised assessments might improve equity in assessment.
Le competenze argomentative stanno assumendo oggigiorno un ruolo sempre più cruciale in ambito educativo all’interno di una società in continuo mutamento, che richiede al singolo capacità critiche e ...comunicative sempre più sviluppate. Come è possibile far evolvere e valutare competenze così strutturate alla scuola elementare? Questo lavoro descrive un percorso sviluppato con una classe quinta di scuola elementare quasi completamente estranea alla pratica di argomentare per iscritto in matematica. Un aspetto centrale della metodologia implementata risiede nel fatto che i criteri validi per produrre e valutare un’argomentazione sono costruiti con gli allievi, in una serie di lezioni incentrate sul feedback, sulla valutazione tra pari e sull’autovalutazione. In particolare, abbiamo sperimentato le potenzialità di un uso formativo di quesiti INVALSI, nati per una valutazione esterna, di sistema, qui reinterpretati come un’occasione per discutere e argomentare in classe, tracciando un possibile percorso per lo sviluppo delle competenze argomentative in matematica.
This study seeks to measure teachers’ readiness to use ICT in Italy by exploiting the data collected by the National Institute for the evaluation of education and training system (INVALSI) in ...2018–2019. We propose a fuzzy set approach to provide a multidimensional picture of how much teachers were ready to integrate ICTs into educational practice. In addition, we use empirical bootstrap intervals to test whether significant differences exist in teacher readiness over several personal and socioeconomic characteristics. The study reveals that teachers’ readiness for ICT is composed of three dimensions and varies by teachers’ characteristics and regions. These results are a useful tool for understanding the relationship between teachers and ICTs so as to develop more appropriate educational policies.
•Gender gap in mathematics of Italian students is investigated by performance levels.•Comparing the overall performance, boys outperform girls already at primary school.•The quantile regression ...analysis shows different gaps depending on the score levels.•The impact of gender is different on the three main latent performance classes.•In the highest scholastic grades, most differences are at the intermediate levels.
Amongst the extensive research conducted about girls’ lack of interest in STEM subjects, an issue that is frequently examined is the learning of mathematics. This research investigates the gender gap in mathematics among Italian students based on performance levels, using standardised large-scale data from INVALSI tests. We performed a quantile regression to better understand the differences along the entire score distribution. A latent class model was then estimated to identify groups of students with similar performance levels, taking into account the gender covariate. The results indicate that boys are already ahead from primary education and that there is a general decrease in the performance as students progress through the education stages.
This paper explores the relationship between the presence of organised crime into the local socio-economic fabric and educational outcomes in Southern Italy. For this purpose, we rely on different ...indices of organized crime, the main of which is the well-established Mafia Presence Index (IPM), a composite indicator capturing manifold dimensions (activities, violence, political, and economic infiltration) of the presence of Mafia-type organizations on the national soil. These indices proxy the (scale of) negative Mafia-type values that permeate a local society and that are likely to hinder educational achievements, distorting the incentives of both the youngsters (and/or their parents) to invest in human capital and the local firms to employ those who decide to make this investment. Furthermore, combining contemporary individual-level educational outcomes with historical data on Mafia infiltration, we control for endogeneity concerns through an IV strategy. We provide evidence that the presence of organised crime at local level significantly decreases the scores achieved by primary school students, undertaking the INVALSI test for literacy in Southern Italy. Our results are robust to the use of different measures of organised crime, to the inclusion of different sets of controls, different subsamples and to relaxing the exclusion restriction in the IV strategy.
•We explore the link between organized crime (OC) and education outcomes (EO) in Italy•We claim that OC can hinder EOs by distorting incentives to invest in human capital•We rely on different indices of OC at the local level•We find that an increase in OC leads to a decrease in EOs•Results are robust to different controls, subsamples and to IV strategy
Mathematical fuzzy logic (MFL) specifically targets many-valued logic and has significantly contributed to the logical foundations of fuzzy set theory (FST). It explores the computational and ...philosophical rationale behind the uncertainty due to imprecision in the backdrop of traditional mathematical logic. Since uncertainty is present in almost every real-world application, it is essential to develop novel approaches and tools for efficient processing. This book is the collection of the publications in the Special Issue “Mathematical Fuzzy Logic in the Emerging Fields of Engineering, Finance, and Computer Sciences”, which aims to cover theoretical and practical aspects of MFL and FST. Specifically, this book addresses several problems, such as:- Industrial optimization problems- Multi-criteria decision-making- Financial forecasting problems- Image processing- Educational data mining- Explainable artificial intelligence, etc.
The essay presents the results of a survey aimed at evaluating how the time variable influences the performance of Invalsi math tests in the Italian secondary school. It is worth to say that these ...tests are intended to detect not specific knowledge or skills but how students can use what he/she has learnt in order to solve new problems. The survey wants to find out in which terms the time available variable influences a different expression of competences. Indeed it offers a pedagogical-didactic interpretation space that gives qualitative and not just quantitative meaning to results. L’influenza della variabile tempo nelle Prove Invalsi di matematica Il contributo espone i risultati di un’indagine volta a valutare l’influenza della variabile tempo nelle performance alle Prove Invalsi di matematica nella scuola secondaria di primo grado. Premesso che tali prove non hanno l’obiettivo di rilevare specifiche conoscenze o abilità, ma come l’allievo riesce ad usare ciò che ha appreso per risolvere problemi nuovi, lo scopo dell’indagine è rilevare in che termini la variabile tempo influenzi una differente espressione delle competenze e, pertanto, offrire uno spazio di interpretazione pedagogico-didattica che dia senso qualitativo e non solo quantitativo ai risultati.
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