Constructing explanations of scientific phenomena is a high-leverage practice that promotes student understanding. In the context of this study, we acknowledge that children are used to receiving explanations from teachers. However, they are rarely encouraged to construct explanations about the causes and consequences of phenomena. We modified a…

Studies regarding school composition have been highly influential in the design of policies. However, methodological and conceptual controversies have hindered the emergence of a consensus on the existence, size, and direction of peer effects. Drawing on four cohorts of Chilean students (n = 620,044), this work analyses the extent to which the…

Background: Cognitive and linguistic factors have been incorporated into models to explain reading comprehension beyond classical models of reading. This study explores the contribution of executive functions, mainly domain-general and reading-specific cognitive flexibility, in reading comprehension of science texts in monolingual Spanish speaking…

When in doubt, asking a peer can be very helpful. Students learn a lot of social strategies from peers. However, stated preference studies have found that for elementary school students with math questions, they prefer to ask their teacher for help. In this paper, we study revealed preferences instead of stated preferences. We analyzed the…

High-stakes testing pressures schools to raise test scores, but schools respond to pressure in different ways. Some responses produce real, broad increases in learning, but other responses can raise reported test scores without increasing learning. We estimate the effect of an accountability program on reading scores and math scores in Chile. Over…

In studies of academic resilience, the concept is typically operationalized by pre-defined cutoff values of students' achievement level and their social background. A threat to the validity of such arbitrary operationalizations is that students around the cutoff values may be misclassified. The main objective of the current study is to apply a…

Family socioeconomic status (SES) has a significant influence on children's academic success and is related to parents' attitudes toward education. Moreover, according to the expectancy-value theory, parental expectations are linked to their children's perceptions of school, which, in turn, influences the way their children invest themselves in…

Readers' theatre is a teaching strategy that consists of the interpretative reading of theatrical texts in which readers use their voices to give life to the characters. This strategy promotes the development of various skills related to fluency, among which there is prosody. This research aimed to check the efficacy of a reader's theatre program…

Although prior knowledge is an important predictor of future performance in mathematics, few studies have analyzed which areas of the subject are most critical. Most evidence is based on small- and medium-scale studies from developed countries, with results that cannot be generalized. We explore which areas of mathematics are the most important…

The purpose of this mainly descriptive study was to investigate teachers' perceptions about how they teach writing as well as their beliefs about preparation and efficacy to teach this skill. It also examined if preparation and efficacy beliefs along with teaching experience (years teaching the language arts) predicted teachers' reported writing…

This study examined the role of reading motivation in reading comprehension achievement of 1070 Chilean third, fourth, and fifth-grade students enrolled in public and private schools. Students were assessed in Spanish reading comprehension and were administered the Motivation to Read Profile from Gambrell, Palmer, Codling and Mazzoni (1996), at…

Mathematics classrooms in which students engage in argumentation constitute a favourable context to analyse how teachers recognize and incorporate student contingencies. Through exploratory case studies, we examined three mathematics lessons in which teachers support argumentation in contingent situations triggered by student errors. Teachers'…

Academic resilience is difficult to define in an international setting, since economic levels and achievement standards vary across countries and over time. In studies of academic resilience, the concept is typically operationalized using pre-defined cut-offs of achievement and social background. The main objective of the current study is to apply…

The objective of this study was to identify trajectories of school improvement experienced by Chilean elementary schools over the last decade. Using econometric analysis and controlling for potential confounding factors, we created an index of school performance combining outcome indicators focused on different school dimensions, and estimated the…

Women's underrepresentation in mathematics-related careers continues to concern policymakers, economists, and educators. This study addressed the issue by examining data from two international databases, namely IEA's "Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2015," and the World Economic Forum's "Global Gender Gap…