This critical and reflective literature review examines international research published over the last decade to summarise the different kinds of measures that have been used to explore cognitive load and critiques the strengths and limitations of those focussed on the development of direct empirical approaches. Over the last 40 years, cognitive…

Using 3 waves of the TIMSS data, this study investigates the relationship between 8th-graders' mathematics and science achievement and their self-perceptions on these 2 subjects. For within-country data, there is generally a positive relationship between students' achievement and the following 3 measures of their self-perception: how much they…

This paper highlights the dynamics that led to the narrowing of the achievement gap between students in the Hebrew-speaking and Arabic-speaking schools in Israel. Instead of looking at one point of time (Zuzovsky, 2005), this paper examines changes between 1999 to 2003 in certain school/class-level variables and relates them to the uneven increase…

South Africa's education system is still deep in the throes of reform under its third Minister of Education since 1994. Poor communities, in particular those of rural Africans, bear the brunt of the past inequalities. The challenge was to explore the extent of the "gap" in students' scores by comparing the advantaged and disadvantaged communities…

The aim of the present contribution is to investigate similarities and differences of strengths in science competences between countries, based on TIMSS 2003 data. Analyses are based on systematic investigation of patterns of p values for individual science items. Hierarchical cluster analysis was applied to establish meaningful groups of…

This study examines the effects of public preschool expenditures on the math and science scores of 4th graders, holding constant child, family, and school characteristics, other relevant social expenditures, and country and year effects, in 7 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries--Australia, Japan, the…

Algebra knowledge is a critical part of middle-school mathematics achievement, and success in algebra is necessary for taking higher level mathematics courses and leads to higher scores on standardized tests. The purpose of this study was to simultaneously examine relationships between mathematics beliefs, classroom instructional strategies, and…

The discussion of the gap between theory and practice has a long tradition in educational psychology and especially in research on learning and instruction. Starting with a short analysis of more or less elaborated approaches focusing on this problem, a complex procedure called "integrative research approach", specialized in reducing the gap…

Using multivariate discriminant analysis and the data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999, this paper made 5 individual comparisons between the U.S. middle school system and 5 Asian middle school systems, which have typically been top ranked in mathematics and science achievement scores. The discriminant…

In this article, we have studied the effect of student social background, classroom social context, classroom organisation, and teacher behaviours on mathematics achievement and attainment in English and Welsh primary schools. Data were collected over 2 years as part of a programme evaluation, for which we observed 138 teachers and tested and…

This study is intended as a resource and a tool for those involved in the evaluation, monitoring, or self-review of school management teams. The information presented is based on first-hand experiences of n = 838 elementary and middle school teachers from 55 schools who were directly involved with the implementation and operations of school…

While many aspects of educational careers have been examined in the literature on ethnic minorities, such as truancy, turnover and grades, downward mobility has rarely been studied. Using data on more than 10,000 students who entered secondary school in The Netherlands in 1989, we develop an event-history model for secondary school careers and we…

Reviewed the literature on the questionnaire developed by M. Schommer to assess epistemological beliefs and studied the factor structure of the questionnaire in 2 studies involving 117 junior college students and 148 university students. In neither study could Schommer's factor structure be retrieved. Results reveal counter-indications to the use…

Reviews methods for handling missing data in a research study. Model-based methods, such as maximum likelihood using the EM algorithm and multiple imputation, hold more promise than ad hoc methods. Although model-based methods require more specialized computer programs and assumptions about the nature of missing data, these methods are appropriate…

Reviews research concerning within-class grouping of students for learning and addresses some issues related to the integration of research on small group instruction raised by S. Prais (1998, 1999). Elaborates on pedagogical techniques that encourage effective small group instruction. (SLD)