Grammatical and lexical cohesion are necessary conditions to guarantee a text's coherence (Halliday and Hasan 1976). Grammatical cohesion is classified into four types of relation: reference, conjunction, substitution, and ellipsis. This study aims to investigate the use of the cohesive device of reference in written discourse produced by…

Education systems across the globe have enacted national testing regimes to monitor and report student achievement progress as an outcome of teaching performance. This paper reports on an investigation of strategies that Principals of high achieving schools use to achieve school results, based on NAPLAN reports (the National Assessment Program in…

Private tutoring is not a new phenomenon for education in both developed and developing countries. However, English private tutoring (EPT) attracted a limited number of studies, although English is viewed as the key to success in non-English speaking countries like Cambodia. By observing EPT as a choice, this mixed-method study, using the…

Academically engaging adolescents with learning difficulties continues to be a challenge for teachers and education authorities around the world. This paper reports on one part of a broader study to address the impasse present between research and practice in meeting the needs of adolescents with learning difficulties. Drawing on the mounting…

Parents, one of the primary stakeholders in their child's performance in tests, can play a vital role in assessment. As these high-stakes tests are likely to bring life-changing consequences to students' lives, most parents try their best to help their children to prepare for them. However, almost no research has explored the nature of parental…

This paper presents a single-country case study of the use of large scale assessment (LSA) data to generate actionable knowledge at school and system levels. Actionable knowledge is data-informed insight into school and system processes that can be used to direct corrective action. The analysis is framed from the perspective of the country's…

Building on the rich tradition of 'teacher as researcher' in mathematics education, I describe a study undertaken whilst working as a mathematics specialist in an Australian primary school. The focus of the study was on examining whether explicitly teaching students test-taking strategies ('test-wiseness') improved their performance on a…

In this study, we analyse 126 secondary pupils' responses to national test questions designed to make them think and care about the history of national minorities in Sweden. Using a mixed method approach we find that historical thinking and empathy as caring are tightly interlinked in the responses. In particular, the cognitive act of…

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…

Many systems have been developed on teacher selection and appointments procedures throughout history in Turkey. Latest teacher appointments and selection systems in Turkey is Oral Exam Evaluation. This new system is discussed in detail in this study. Basically, the study is to analysis what the positive and negative reflections of the system might…

Due to the spread of applying standardized national examinations in addition to the normal centralized formal exams in English language teaching, EFL teachers have been urged to reshape their teaching pedagogies to respond to the demands and competencies which EFL students are required to fulfil in these exams. This study sheds light on this…

This paper investigates how and why test-based accountability (TBA), a global model for education reform, began to dominate educational debates in Norway in the early 2000s, and how this policy has been operationalised and institutionalised over time. In examining the adoption and retention of TBA in Norway, we build on the cultural political…

There is significant research addressing identities in mathematics focusing on school children and maximizing testing scores. However, mathematics confidence in preservice teachers is something that needs further attention as they will have foundational roles in students developing lifelong mathematics identities. Hence, mathematics confidence in…

Since its introduction in 2017, NFER has been contracted by Ofqual to develop, deliver and analyse the results of the National Reference Test (NRT) in English and maths. The NRT is administered annually and shows if student performance in English and maths at GCSE level has changed from year to year. The NRT results are based on analysis of data…

Students' overall performance in country wide national examinations in Kenya has recorded below mean achievement as attested by Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results. The number of students scoring grade D+ and below has consistently remained high compared with those attaining grade C+ and above which is the country's minimum…