In Ireland, while, on average, students have performed well on national and international assessments of mathematics and science, the low proportions of high achievers in these subjects are ...noteworthy. Given these patterns and the multifaceted benefits in individual and societal terms that expertise in mathematics and science has been associated with, policymakers in Ireland have begun to place an increasing emphasis on high achievement in these subjects. This emphasis has coincided with ongoing efforts during the last decade to raise interest and improve academic performance within the realm of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.
Despite this policy attention, research on high achievement in mathematics and science nationally, but also internationally, has been particularly scarce. In an attempt to provide research evidence that could add further impetus to the ongoing efforts, this study examines high achievement in mathematics and science among post-primary students in Ireland using data from the 2012 and 2015 cycles of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Specifically, the study aimed to evaluate the contribution of various contextual characteristics stemming from students, their families, teachers, and schools in the prediction of high achievement in mathematics and science within a two-stage analysis that included a series of bivariate tests and multilevel binary logistic regression modelling.
The results showed that variables related to students’ self-beliefs, engagement, and socioeconomic background were consistently associated with high achievement in mathematics and science. Overall, the significant role of students’ homes and families in predicting students’ chances of being high achievers in the two subjects was highlighted. In turn, this indicated that further efforts to enhance collaboration between teachers, schools, and parents may be warranted if progress in the area of high achievement in mathematics and science is to be made. The implications of these findings for policy and practice within the Irish context, the limitations of the study, and recommendations for future research are discussed.
Boys in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia consistently and significantly underperform compared to girls across different grades and subjects, forming one of the largest gender gaps in student achievement ...in the world. Saudi Arabia offers a unique setting in which boys and girls attend separate schools on a universal basis starting from grade 1. This means that boys and girls are educated only by male and female teachers, respectively, in effect inhabiting parallel education systems. In this context, this study examines the factors that are associated with student achievement in mathematics and science in grades 4 and 8 and the extent to which these associations are different for boys and girls, in an effort to gain insights into boys’ underachievement in mathematics and science in Saudi Arabia. The paper employs data from two recent large-scale assessments of education: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 and Saudi Arabia’s National Assessment of Learning Outcomes (NALO) 2018. A series of hierarchical two-level linear regression models showed that in grade 4, school climate was more strongly associated with boys' compared with girls' achievement in both mathematics and science, with boys attending schools of poorer school climate having a considerably lower performance compared with girls attending such schools. The findings also indicated that although greater literacy and numeracy readiness was linked with higher science achievement among boys and girls, grade 4 boys tended to benefit more from this readiness than girls. In addition, the results show that student absenteeism in grade 4 is particularly strongly associated with decreases in mathematics achievement among boys. In grade 8, significant interactions between gender and the extent to which students feel confident in science, the degree of schools’ emphasis on academic success, and teachers’ age are observed. The paper concludes by discussing some of the implications of these findings for educators and policy makers in Saudi Arabia.
Bullying victimisation is a reality in most schools around the world, with thousands of students being victimised on a daily basis. Given the prevalence of bullying victimisation at school, ...examination of what might prompt or prevent such behaviours is required. Therefore, this study examined the relationship of a number of individual and socio-contextual variables with bullying victimisation among fourth- and eighth-grade students in Ireland and Lithuania using the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 data. Data from a total of 17,924 students were analysed (with mean ages of 10.6 years for fourth-grade students and 14.6 years for eighth-grade students). Results of multilevel analysis showed that higher levels of student sense of school belonging were associated with lower levels of bullying victimisation across both grades and countries. Further predictors of student bullying victimisation, including student gender, parental education, school safety and location and the percentage of students in each school having the language of the test as their native language, varied across grades and countries. Overall, the findings of this study highlighted the importance of taking individual as well as socio-contextual factors into consideration when investigating bullying victimisation. This study also showed that the context, whether this refers to the country or the education level, matters with regard to the formation of anti-bullying policies and programmes. Implications of these findings for anti-bullying policies and programmes in a cross-national context are discussed.
Being school-ready when transitioning to the primary school system has been associated with favourable outcomes during schooling and adult life. While children living in socio-economically ...disadvantaged areas may be at a higher risk of being less school-ready, research in the area has highlighted that not all children experience such a delay. This study examined a range of factors that may account for differences in outcomes across five school readiness domains (physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communications skills and general knowledge) within a sample of children living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas. Drawing on data from a sample of five-year-old children involved in the Preparing for Life (PFL) evaluation in Ireland, this study explored the role of child and early environmental factors in facilitating or hindering children's development across these school readiness domains. Statistical analysis identified child's sex, parental involvement and learning materials at home, parent-child interactions, mother's attempt to breastfeed, and mother-child attachment as significant predictors of school readiness after accounting for other factors. Findings contribute to the Irish and international literature on the role of early demographical and environmental factors in shaping school readiness, especially for children from socio-economically disadvantaged areas.
The purpose of this paper was to determine the readiness of kindergarten teachers in Bulgaria in anticipation of impending inclusion-driven reforms in the education system. Data on 922 kindergarten ...teachers' attitudes towards inclusion across three dimensions (cognitive, affective, and behavioural), their concerns, and self-efficacy were analysed. Overall, teachers reported being willing to adapt their behaviour to promote inclusion in their classroom, despite not feeling particularly positively about inclusion. Inclusion-related training, which is critical for teachers to meet the demands of reforms, was a robust, positive predictor of teachers’ attitudes across all three dimensions.
•This paper examined the attitudes towards inclusion of 922 teachers in kindergartens in Bulgaria across three dimensions (cognitive, affective, behavioural), their concerns, and self-efficacy in this regard.•Teachers were most likely to hold negative affective attitudes and positive behavioural attitudes towards inclusion.•Inclusion-related training significantly predicted positive attitudes towards inclusion across cognitive, behavioural, and affective domains.•The findings accentuate the importance of continuous professional development for teachers already teaching in the system in fostering more positive attitudes towards inclusion.
The importance of motivation-related factors in shaping students' academic achievement across a range of areas, including science, has been consistently acknowledged by the existing research ...literature. In an effort to improve students' science achievement, many education systems put particular emphasis on the enhancement of intrinsic (i.e. enjoyment and interest) and instrumental motivation in the subject. However, based on the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, many of the countries that managed to increase their motivation indices between 2006 and 2015 did not necessarily note a rise in science performance, with many still performing below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average. Interestingly, although students' motivation increased in some of these countries (e.g. Luxembourg, Iceland and Greece), their average performance in science decreased. Using the PISA 2015 data for Greece, this study examined the case of high motivation and low achievement in science by incorporating epistemic beliefs in the discussion. The multilevel analysis confirmed the importance of 15-year-old students' motivation for learning science in predicting their science achievement and highlighted the positive predictive power of their epistemic beliefs. Policy and practice recommendations are provided based on the study findings, stressing the key role of students' epistemic beliefs.
Non-cognitive factors have been considered as particularly important aspects in shaping students' academic achievement. The current study aimed to examine a number of these factors in relation to the ...prediction of mathematics achievement among a representative sample of students in Greece. The sample consisted of 5125 15-year-old students who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. The study considered the extent to which students' mathematics self-beliefs, motivation to learn mathematics and attitudes towards school contributed to the prediction of their mathematics achievement. Multilevel modelling assessed both individual and school level variation, revealing that students' mathematics self-efficacy, anxiety, self-concept, instrumental motivation and attitudes towards school were statistically significant predictors of their mathematics achievement, even after controlling for their gender and school socio-economic status (SES). Policy implications are discussed based on the findings of the current research study.
•The role of non-cognitive factors in predicting Greek students' mathematics achievement was examined•'Students' self-beliefs, motivation and attitudes were statistically significant predictors of their mathematics achievement•Boys statistically significantly outperformed girls in mathematics•Socio-economic status at school level was a statistically significant predictor of students' mathematics achievement•The final multilevel model explained a large proportion of the variance in mathematics achievement
Save for the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shock, Ireland has recorded strong average scores in mathematics, science, and reading on national and international ...large-scale assessments. Despite this, percentages of high achievers in mathematics and science in these assessments have remained stubbornly lower than those of some countries with average performance similar to that of Ireland. Reflecting the multifaceted benefits to individuals and society of knowledge and skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), increasing prioritisation in educational policy in Ireland of high achievers in mathematics and science over the past decade in particular is not unexpected, albeit this was not always the case. This paper offers a chronology of Irish educational policy documents since 1995 illuminating why, when, and how high achievement in mathematics and science has emerged as a key component and driver of educational policy reform.
The present study investigated the home learning environment of three to five-year-old children (n = 429) living in an area designated as socio-economically disadvantaged, involved in the Area Based ...Childhood (ABC) programme, compared to a nationally representative sample of three-year-old children (n = 9793), from the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) Study. Statistical analysis of the frequency of engagement in home learning activities across both samples, revealed a significant difference in the environments to which children are exposed, with families from the GUI sample engaging more frequently in these activities than families from the ABC sample. Among the family demographic factors investigated, parent's age and household type were significantly related to the frequency of engagement in home learning activities. Based on these findings, policy and practice implications are discussed.
Evidence suggests that the quality of teachers' instructional practices can be improved when these are informed by relevant assessment data. Drawing on a sample of 1,300 primary school teachers in ...Ireland, this study examined the extent to which teachers use standardized test results for instructional purposes as well as the role of several factors in predicting this use. Specifically, the study analyzed data from a cross-sectional survey that gathered information about teachers' use of, experiences with, and attitudes toward assessment data from standardized tests. After taking other teacher and school characteristics into consideration, the analysis revealed that teachers with more positive attitudes toward standardized tests and those who were often engaged in some form of professional development on standardized testing tended to use assessment data to inform their teaching more frequently. Based on the findings, policy and practice implications are discussed.
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