Why are contractors keen to develop, implement, and analyse International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) when they appear to make no financial gains? What, if not monetary profit, makes ILSA contracts so attractive? Almost all ILSA contractors interviewed as part of this project state that their ILSA work is an investment, either in the form of a…

Knowledge and abilities with social media technologies are perceived as critical premises for human development. Familiarity with different types of social media technologies has become pivotal for collaborative learning and successfully solving problems. This study examined the impact of social media technologies, compartmentalized into social…

Competitiveness and cooperativeness are important predictors of social and learning outcomes at school. Drawing on evidence suggesting that contexts with high income inequality foster an ethos of competitiveness and inhibit cooperativeness in the economic environment, we examine whether income inequality is also associated with more…

This paper investigates the relationship between secondary school students' reading metacognition and summary writing skills--which represent a part of their academic language skills--within a network of psychological and sociocultural factors consisting of positivity, tolerance and respect, resilience, and culture and cooperation. We used data…

Development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is widely emphasized worldwide. In the past decades, China has become the largest rising economy with a strong forward momentum in STEM advancement and education, which has profoundly impacted the global economy. This study investigates the current trends in STEM career…

Effective collaborative problem solving comprises cognitive dimensions, in which men tend to outperform women, and social dimensions in which women tend to outperform men. We extend research on between-country differences in gender gaps by considering collaborative problem solving and its association with two indicators of societal-level gender…

This purpose of this resource is to support state and local education agencies in identifying reliable and valid instruments that measure collaboration, perseverance, and self-regulated learning among secondary school students. This resource, developed by the Regional Education Laboratory Northeast & Islands in collaboration with its Social…

Educational institutions have been among the most active social organisations responding to and facilitating processes associated with globalisation. This has primarily been undertaken through the attempts of schools and universities to 'internationalise' their student intake, staffing, curricula, research, and assessment systems. Amongst the many…

This article examines how Chinese education officials interpret and utilise selective information from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to legitimate and consolidate contested reform messages and initiatives in Shanghai. A content analysis of data obtained from newspaper articles, official documents and education essays…

Solving unfamiliar problems on one's own is important, but in today's increasingly interconnected world, people are often required to collaborate in order to achieve their goals. Teamwork has numerous benefits, from a diverse range of opinions to synergies among team members, and assigning tasks to those who are best suited to them. Collaboration…

This article seeks to unpack the taken-for-granted notion of low performance, arguing that performance and competency are not a given categories; rather they are "objects-for-thought" that receive their discursive and material contours through a chain of translations. As suggested previously by Gorur, PISA is analyzed through the lens of…

This article presents an overview of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 Problem-Solving assessment. The assessment examined the capabilities of 15-year-olds in 40 nations and four large international cities, as well as the Canadian Provinces, to solve a set…

This paper examines the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) "PISA for Schools," a new variant of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that compares school-level performance on reading, math and science with international schooling systems (e.g., Shanghai-China, Finland). Specifically, I…

This paper analyses how the impact of international student achievement studies and the recent economic crisis in Europe are influencing the development of educational policy transfer and borrowing, from East to West. This is contrasted with education reform movements in East Asia, which have long legacies of borrowing from so-called…

In this paper we will try to demonstrate that the educational institution is a cultural artifact, a living entity that also develops a different way of teaching. We will try to imagine another type of school where interpersonal relations are also a teaching aim; a school that goes from being obsessed with teaching for PISA testing to a school…