The initial results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicated that Finnish and Swedish students are among the best readers in all OECD countries. However, the literacy performance of 7% of Finnish and 12% of Swedish students remains at a level which is not sufficient for further studies or active citizenship. This…

This article examines the relationship between the cultural, social and economic capital of students from the Nordic countries and their level of scientific literacy, based on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 study. The analysis shows that the relationship between the home's economic capital and students'…

The article presents the literacy achievement of Norwegian minority students, their reading habits, and their enjoyment of reading based on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 study. Aspects of their family background and attitudes towards school are related to literacy achievement results. A comparison between Denmark,…

There has been an increasing effort to integrate use of self-reports and a more profile-oriented approach with observations and interviews conducted during the actual learning process. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how students with different goal orientation profiles involve themselves in actual learning situations over four…

This article analyses and compares the learning environment in smaller and bigger rural schools by focusing on the arenas of both formal and informal learning; the lessons and the recesses between. Relational patterns are both analysed using complete network data from 19 schools in four different municipalities in four Norwegian counties and by…

The literature describes research comparing scholastic success in the morning and afternoon in elementary and high schools. The present study examines the relationship between time of day and scholastic performance in middle school. The progress of 850 seventh and eighth grade students in academic subjects taught at different hours of the day was…

The ways boys and girls (N = 119) at different grade levels rated and explained their potential for improvement in mathematics and the mother tongue were compared in order to examine their subject-specific notions of the malleability of their academic ability. The findings indicate that children perceive their potential to improve their…

Reliability is a problem inherent in all educational assessments, but the amount of attention this particular problem should be given is related to the function and use of the assessment. In this article, classification accuracy is put forward as a conceptualization of reliability that is meaningful for a large number of educational assessments.…

In this study, occupational life histories of Montessori teachers in Sweden have been constructed in collaboration with a group of them. Data exploration and analysis have included journals, interviews, written reflections and conversations. Of interest has been to shed light on underlying values, ways in which professional roles reflect personal…

This study investigated how 60 teachers' in Swedish nurse education, in higher education, understood and taught internationalization. The teachers answered a self-administered questionnaire. A phenomenographic, contextual and content analysis approach was used. The results show that teachers were found to experience and understand…

A group of senior high school students, 18 years old, answered a questionnaire about their perceptions of their school situation. Around one-third of the group seemed to like school very much and another third seemed to hate or dislike school very much. This group was followed up until they were 25 years old. Of the original sample 82%, 462…

The main purpose of this study was to explore the relations between coping styles and emotional and behavioural problems among adolescent students. The study was conducted as a survey among a representative sample of 2006 Norwegian 9th graders. The results show that emotional problems are associated with self-blaming as well as aggressive coping.…

The purpose of the study was to bridge the gap between situational and more general measures in investigating university students' studying. More precisely, the aim was to establish a connection between students' situational reaction tendencies and their general study orientations. Furthermore, situational reaction tendencies were related to the…

In criticisms of children's literature, notions of 'fantasy' and 'realism' are pivotal. In school 'booktalk' conversations pupils referred to what is 'real' in three different ways: (i) by referring to feelings of or semblance to 'real' life, (ii) by invoking shared facts and (iii) by making references to personal experiences. In cases when…

Course management systems (CMSs), such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, or WebCT, have become a common resource at universities, colleges, and distance learning organizations. Research into how these systems are used for learning is in an early state. Currently, this research focuses on technical features in a CMS more than research about how people…