Educational quality is defined and shaped by the classroom practices implemented by teachers in our schools. The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)-PISA link presents a unique opportunity to explore what takes place in the classroom by listening to the voices of teachers and students. Teachers, with their professional training and…

Resilience refers to the capacity of individuals to prosper despite encountering adverse circumstances. This paper defines academic resilience as the ability of 15-year-old students from disadvantaged backgrounds to perform at a certain level in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading, mathematics and science that…

This article describes an innovative teaching approach that can offer the changes needed for school improvement. When entering an Education: Basic and Interactive (EBI) classroom, one will see students focused on accomplishing self-guided tasks and eager to move on to the next challenge in their self-paced learning. The EBI Project described here…

Analysis of differential item functioning (DIF) is often used to determine if cross-lingual assessments are equivalent across languages. However, evidence on the causes of cross-lingual DIF is still evasive. Expert appraisal is a qualitative method useful for obtaining detailed information about problematic elements in the different linguistic…

On May 24, the National Center for Education Statistics released Financial Literacy of 15-year-olds: Results from PISA 2015. The PISA assessment of financial literacy measured students' knowledge and understanding of fundamental elements of the financial world, including financial concepts, products, and risks, and their ability to apply what they…

In this paper we explore the views and opinions of four secondary education science teachers regarding the teaching of scientific competences. Their views were gathered in the context of a training programme in which they had to design, implement, and assess their own teaching unit for developing students' scientific competences by means of…

The increasing presence of technologies at school has triggered a vivid debate on the way ICT influences students' learning process. Using PISA 2018 data for 15-year-old students and hierarchical linear models, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between ICT use at school and students' performance in mathematics in 22 OECD countries. In all…

In the last two decades, the great technological advances sweeping society have made inroads into the educational sphere. The use of information and communication technology and social networks has opened up new possibilities for student learning, which require appropriate treatment by family and teachers. This quantitative study takes a new…

Background: The growth of teaching practices conducted to promote cognitive activation and active participation in the classroom in recent years has become the epicentre of an active debate regarding their effectiveness. Objectives: This study is aimed to shed some light on this topic by empirically analysing the causes and consequences of more…

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether parents' utility value perceptions predicted their children's utility value perceptions, demonstrating social contagion effects. We also examined whether utility value would predict achievement. This is a cross-sectional study that utilized data from a subsample of adolescent students from…

Teachers are the most important school resource. In every country, teachers' salaries and training represent the greatest share of expenditure on education; and this investment in teachers can have significant returns. Research shows that being taught by the best teachers can make a real difference in the learning and life outcomes of otherwise…

This volume offers a comprehensive, up-to-date, empirical and methodological view over the new scenarios and environments for language teaching and learning recently emerged (e.g. blended learning, e-learning, ubiquitous learning, social learning, autonomous learning or lifelong learning), and also over some of the new approaches to language…

Research has shown that foreign languages can be an important driver towards better job opportunities. This is more likely to be the case if young people take foreign languages into account when developing their career and educational expectations. These expectations depend greatly on the context and the opportunities students perceive to be…

This report uses the most recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data, primarily from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 and Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013 cycles, and seeks to evaluate the Ibero-American, countries where Spanish or Portuguese are the predominant…

Since 2000, the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, has tested 15-years-olds throughout the world in reading, math, and science. Developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, and administered every three years, PISA is designed to yield evidence for governments on which education policies…