Parents have the option of enrolling their children in the first stage of early childhood education (from 0 to 3 years of age). However, not all parents decide to do so, waiting until the second stage of early childhood education to enrol them in the education system (from 3 to 5 years of age), or even until compulsory education when their…

Trend results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) show a decline from 2001 through 2016 in most countries in fourth graders' and their parents' reading attitudes, as measured by students like reading and parents like reading scale scores. Average students like reading scale scores, as reported by the students…

Women's underrepresentation in mathematics-related careers continues to concern policymakers, economists, and educators. This study addressed the issue by examining data from two international databases, namely IEA's "Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2015," and the World Economic Forum's "Global Gender Gap…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

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…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is the fourth assessment in the current trend series, following PIRLS 2001, 2006, and 2011. There were 61 participants in PIRLS 2016, including 50 countries and 11 benchmarking entities (e.g., regions of countries as well as additional grades or language groups from the participating…

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's (IEA's) Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2011 provided evidence which showed differences in the reading achievement of students who spoke the language of assessment at home and those who did not for many countries including a selection of the…

"Methods and Procedures in PIRLS 2016" documents the development of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assessments and questionnaires and describes the methods used in sampling, translation verification, data collection, database construction, and the construction of the achievement and context questionnaire…

In a recent paper, Reardon found that the relationship between family income and children's academic achievement grew substantially stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. We provide an international context for these results by examining the income-achievement association in 19 other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and…

Romania's education system has made impressive strides over the past two decades, with an increasing share of students mastering the basic competencies that they need for life and work. But these average improvements mask significant disparities in learning outcomes and attainment, with an increasing share of students leaving education early…

Classmates can influence a student's academic achievement through immediate interactions (e.g., academic help, positive attitudes toward reading) or by sharing tangible or intangible family resources (books, stories of foreign travel). Multilevel analysis of 141,019 fourth-grade students' reading achievements in 33 countries showed that…

This report summarises Year 6 pupils' attainment in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) survey of 2016 in Northern Ireland and explores the context of that attainment. PIRLS is an international comparison study of reading at ages 9-10. PIRLS has a five-yearly cycle. Northern Ireland took part in PIRLS for the second time…

This summary accompanies the national report for Northern Ireland (Sizmur et al., 2017). It outlines the attainment of Year 6 pupils in Northern Ireland in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 survey and explores the context of that attainment. PIRLS is a study of reading at ages 9-10 and has a five-yearly cycle.…

As more primary and secondary students worldwide seek after-school tutoring in academic subjects, concerns are being raised about whether after-school tutoring can raise average test scores without widening the variability in student performance, and whether students of certain ability levels may benefit more than others from after-school…

This study, through multilevel analyses of the data of four English-speaking nations (i.e., Canada, England, New Zealand and the United States) from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001 database, investigated the relationship between teachers' uses of various types of classroom assessments and their fourth-graders'…