Previous studies differed largely in their findings concerning the relationship between principal leadership and students' mathematics achievement because of the complexity of principal leadership. As Hallinger and Heck's theoretical framework showed, principal leadership was comprised setting vision/goal, school management, and school climate…

Previous research findings indicate that young children from East Asia outperform their counterparts from Europe and North America on executive function (EF) tasks. However, very few cross-national studies have focused on EF development during middle childhood. The current study assessed the EF performance of 170 children in grades 2 and 4 from…

Background: Numerous studies have investigated the relationships between various student, home and contextual factors and reading achievement. However, the relationship between such factors and reading attitudes has been investigated far less, despite the fact that theoretical frameworks of large-scale assessments and school effectiveness research…

This cross-national scenario based study examined fourth-grade students' perceptions of high-performing classmates in terms of their expected intellectual abilities, positive social qualities and popularity among their peers across seven countries. The overall results show that high academic achievements predominantly lead to positive expectations…

In 19 (sub)samples from seven countries (United States, Austria, Germany, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Vietnam, Brazil), we analyzed the impact of parental education compared with wealth on the cognitive ability of children (aged 4-22 years, total N = 15,297). The background of their families ranged from poor indigenous remote villagers to academic…

Background: The dynamic model of educational effectiveness (DMEE) is a comprehensive theoretical framework including factors that are important for school learning, based on consistent findings within educational effectiveness research. Purpose: This study investigates the impact of teacher and school factors of DMEE on mathematics and science…

The current study examines the personal epistemology of fourth-grade elementary school teachers from Germany (n = 10) and the United States (n = 10) to gain a more nuanced understanding of teachers' beliefs about knowledge and knowing through a cross-cultural lens. Analyses of semi-structured interviews reveal similarities and differences in the…

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…

The paper reports a cross-cultural investigation conducted in 2001-2002 that seeks to reveal students' alternative ideas in two countries, Taiwan and Germany. It was carried out by means of semi-structured interviews in a story form. The targeted students were arbitrarily selected from grades 3 to 6 in both countries and amounted to 64. The…

The International Commission on the Teaching of Mathematics created by the International Congress of Mathematics at Rome, Italy, in 1908, submitted a large body of reports to the congress at Cambridge, England, in 1912. Those for the United States have been published as bulletins for the Bureau of Education. The material in this bulletin shows…