The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's (IEA) mission is to enhance knowledge about education systems worldwide, and to provide high-quality data that will support education reform and lead to better teaching and learning in schools. In pursuit of this aim, it conducts, and reports on, major studies of student…

This study aims to determine if primary school children's environmental attitudes can be predicted by whether their school had been designed or adapted for sustainability. A New Ecological Paradigm ("NEP") scale for children was adopted to measure attitudes, with supplementary questions added to align this scale to the Australian context…

Values are conceptualized as the standards individuals use to determine the status of events and actions and are considered to influence individuals' behaviours, reasoning, and perceptions. Based on a synthesis of six school-based student values enhancement programs, this paper reports on the development of the Children's Values Questionnaire…

This mixed methods study examined the effectiveness of a virtual world curriculum for teaching elementary students complex science concepts and skills. Data were collected using pre- and post-content tests and a student survey of engaged learning, An additional survey collected teacher observations of 21st century competencies conducive to…

Large-scale studies, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), provide data to understand cross-national differences and similarities. In this study, we aimed to identify factors predicting mathematics achievement of Turkish students by comparing to Australian students. First, construct equivalence and item bias…

TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) is an international assessment of mathematics and science at the fourth and eighth grades that has been conducted every four years since 1995, with the most recent assessment in 2011. PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is an international assessment of reading…

As environmental changes become a significant societal issue, elementary science curricula need to develop students' understanding about the key concepts of energy and climate change. For teachers, developing quality learning experiences involves establishing what their students' prior understanding about energy and climate change are. A survey…