This brief examines Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) science achievement of the 20% highest and the 20% lowest performing fourth and eighth graders in 11 countries. To do so, the authors compare achievement distributions across countries, using measures of relative equality within countries. Such an examination…

International comparative assessments of student achievement are constructed to assess country-level differences and change over time. A coherent understanding of the international trends in educational outcomes is strongly needed as suggested by numerous previous studies. Investigating these trends requires long-term analysis, as substantial…

Like all school textbooks, geography textbooks are authored. Almost all textbook research in and beyond geography has neglected their authors. This questionnaire-based multinational research project investigated the perceptions of 71 primary and secondary school geography textbook authors from seven countries in five continents. Though not…

Modelling ability is one of the essential elements of the latest educational reforms, and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is a curriculum-based assessment which allows educational systems worldwide to inspect the curricular influences. The aims of this study were to examine the role of modelling ability in the…

A reform of public education in Japan took place from the 1980s, coming to a de facto end in 2013. The reform, which affected large numbers of Japanese children, focused on creating a more flexible, relaxed form of education by reducing the amount included in the curriculum. However, the effects of this reform have been ambiguous, and we therefore…

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…

(Erin Duez: Global Applications of the Japanese ?Lesson Study" Teacher Education and Training Model): "Lesson study" has been used for over a century in Japan (Makinae, 2010). However, only recently, in 1999 with the release of The Teaching Gap by Stigler and Hiebert, did the practice begin to spread globally (Fujii, 2013; Ebaeguin…

In 1997, the Industrial Technology Education Association of Taiwan (ITEA-Taiwan) hosted the 1997 International Conference on Technology Education in the Asia-Pacific Region (ICTE) in Taipei. The ICTE constitution was signed and the Association to Association mode was formed at that conference. This mode has provided the technology educators in the…

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data reveal that setting high standards for the overall mathematics curriculum and ensuring teachers adhere to these standards may not necessarily lead to better learning outcomes for students. There are significant gaps between the intended and implemented grade 8 mathematics curricula…

With the proliferation of video-based professional development (PD) courses for mathematics teachers, understanding the role of the facilitators of these courses has become an emerging field of theoretical and empirical study. The purpose of this article is to address some of the challenges and opportunities that facilitation of discussions…

In recent years, content integrated language education has taken center stage in Japanese university English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) settings. The emphasis on content has created an opportunity for students to demonstrate analytical thinking, assessment, inference, and problem-solving skills through oral communication activities in English…

The selection of an appropriate word counting unit (WCU) for the purpose of second/foreign language vocabulary acquisition (SLVA) in the last decade has become a very important and relevant topic in academic circles. However, few studies address on-the-ground teaching practices and perspectives. This mixed-approach study, conducted through an…

The aim of this study was to analyse and compare teachers' attitudes towards inclusive education in two culturally different countries: Finland and Japan. A sample of 362 Finnish and 1518 Japanese teachers participated in this survey. The teachers' attitudes varied and were rather critical. The Finnish teachers were more worried about teachers'…

This study analyzed the responses of Korean students to interest, confidence, value, and instructional clarity in science and mathematics. To achieve this, the raw data of the recent student survey of TIMSS were analyzed. A one-way ANOVA was performed, and a post hoc test was performed. Additionally, a cohort analysis was performed to determine…

In the literature, response style is one of the factors causing an achievement-attitude paradox and threatens the validity of the results obtained from studies. In this regard, the aim of this study is two-fold. Firstly, it attempts to determine which item response tree (IRTree) models based on the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) approach…