This paper investigates the relationship between educational achievement and the motivation to learn. We used the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that contains representative samples from 55 nations. A strong negative correlation between educational achievement and motivation toward science learning emerged at the…

In this paper, we analyse the gender differences between the educational performance of 15-year-old children of migrants from specific regions of origin countries living in different destination countries with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 wave. We study whether this gender difference of migrant pupils deviates…

This study investigates the relative roles of home and school variables in accounting for achievement gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in Australia and New Zealand. Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] 2009, our findings show that achievement gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous…

We estimated the invariance of educational achievement (EA) and learning attitudes (LA) measures across nations. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to estimate the invariance of educational achievement and learning attitudes across 55 nations (Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] 2006 data, N = 354,203). The…

Many American authors expressed their concern that US competitiveness in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is losing ground. Using the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2007 data, this study investigated how academic self-concept and instrumental motivation influence science test performance among…

Setting international benchmarks for education systems of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is one of the goals of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, some countries are not able to participate in PISA, despite their desire to set international benchmarks for their…

Several current international comparative large-scale assessments of educational achievement (ICLSA) make use of "Rasch models", to address functions essential for valid cross-cultural comparisons. From a historical perspective, ICLSA and Georg Rasch's "models for measurement" emerged at about the same time, half a century ago. However, the…

When comparing data derived from tests or questionnaires in cross-national studies, researchers commonly assume measurement invariance in their underlying scaling models. However, different cultural contexts, languages, and curricula can have powerful effects on how students respond in different countries. This article illustrates how the…

The average quality of available educational resources varies significantly across Europe. This not only affects school success and failure but also subsequent labour market outcomes. The main research question in this paper is to what extent this compositional variation among early school leavers (ESLrs) in particular can account for the…

This paper adopts the stratification-standardization framework proposed by Allmendinger (1989) to analyze the effects of educational institutions and the organization of education on the inequality of opportunity and effectiveness of national education systems. The analyses are conducted on OECD countries participating in the Programme for…

In this article, we investigate whether adolescent girls are more determined to enter professional careers compared to boys across countries. To this end, we analyse the data from the 2006 survey of OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). First, we establish whether girls are more ambitious than boys net of their academic…

This study examines the effects of media resources in the parental home on the science performance of 15-year-old students. It employs data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) containing information on 345,967 respondents from 53 countries. Results show that media assets in the family home are indeed meaningful for…

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…

A set of 5 reaction time tests of increasing cognitive complexity were administered to 35 secondary school pupils in Zimbabwe and The Netherlands at 4 consecutive school days in order to explore the existence and nature of cross-cultural differences on reaction time tests measuring basic cognitive operations. No cross-cultural differences were…

The cultural capital in families, more specifically, the educational level of parents, has during the last decades been shown to be the most important dimension of socioeconomic influence on school performance in many countries. Less is known about the factors that actually mediate this influence. The aim, therefore, is to investigate the relative…