In the study presented in this article, the aim is to further the understanding regarding the differences between pupils (aged 15-16) from schools with low or high socio-economic status (SES), regarding the amount and diversity of content knowledge in history that they have acquired by the end of compulsory schooling. Following a definition of…

Globalisation and policy transfer in education make it incumbent upon decision makers to prioritise among competing policy options, select policy initiatives that are appropriate for their national contexts, and understand how system-specific factors moderate the relationship between those policies and student outcomes. This study used qualitative…

The aim of this paper was to examine the relationship between Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) mathematics achievement and the two school achievement measures of grades and national test results in Sweden. A further aim was to examine the association of TIMSS mathematics achievement with different subgroups of students. The results…

Reading comprehension is often treated as a multidimensional construct. In many reading tests, items are distributed over reading process categories to represent the subskills expected to constitute comprehension. This study explores (a) the extent to which specified subskills of reading comprehension tests are conceptually conceivable to…

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 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an important cross-national study of 15-year-olds' academic knowledge and skills. Educationalists and public policymakers eagerly await the tri-annual results, with particular interest in whether their country has moved up or slid down the international rankings, as compared to earlier…

The main aim of this study was to investigate the impact of formal teacher competence on pupils' reading achievement. The data comes from the Swedish participation in PIRLS 2001 in grade 3. Information was obtained from pupils (n = 5271) and teachers (n = 351). The analyses were conducted using 2-level structural equation modeling. Teacher…

Developing the skill to form derivatives is a slow incremental process even for native speakers of English, starting in elementary school and continuing through high school. In fact, it appears to be a universally challenging area of the lexicon. Nevertheless, studies have shown that it is one of the most important skills to possess for a learner…

Many students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate comprehension difficulties. In the present study, 12 high-functioning Swedish students with ASD (aged 10-15 years) took part in a naturalistic classroom-based intervention to support comprehension of connected narrative discourse. An effective approach for supporting discourse…

This study investigates the effects of weekly heritage language (HL) classes on first language (L1) proficiency in speakers who arrived in the second language (L2)-dominant setting before the onset of puberty. Two groups of L1 Spanish--L2 Swedish bilingual high school students living in Sweden participated in the study. One group currently…

In this commentary, the author discusses some of the issues she finds interesting from a Swedish perspective, and also makes some comparisons between the systems. The English and Swedish education and assessment systems have some fundamental differences, but also similarities. Some are becoming even more evident after learning about the…

The present study investigated whether two summated rating scales used in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2003), Mathematics Self-Concept (MSC), and Students' Valuing of Mathematics (VoM) seemed appropriate, meaningful, and useful in a Swedish context. The 4,256 Swedish eighth-grade students involved in TIMSS 2003…

The Swedish school system comprises: (1) Pre-primary school (Forskola), typical age 1-5; (2) Preschool class in the compulsory school (Grundskola) typical age 6 (participation voluntary); (3) Compulsory school, typical age 7-16, grades 1-9, and (4) Upper secondary school, 17 programmes (4 mainly academic, 13 vocational), typical age 16-19, grades…