Validity of a measurement refers to appropriate test score meanings, uses, and interpretations (Messick, 1989; Kane, 1992). There are different approaches to validity: an evidentiary aspect of validity is one requiring gathering statistical evidence to evaluate test score meaning. A common approach to validation is comparisons of test score equity…

This article examines the extent to which parental socioeconomic status (SES) affects the likelihood of a child becoming a top-performing student, offering an international perspective by reporting this relationship in 31 developed countries. The impact of 3 important educational system characteristics (differentiation in terms of early tracking,…

This study aims to understand the predictive role of attitudes towards problem solving, such as perseverance and openness for problem solving, as well as of gender and country for Canadian and Finnish students' academic achievement in mathematics and science. We examined the data of students from Canada (n = 21,544) and Finland (n = 8,829) who…

International achievement measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have traditionally reported a significant gap between non-migrant and immigrant student groups--a result that is often referred to as the "immigrant performance disadvantage". This article examines first- and second-generation immigrant…

The literature on the immigrant-native educational achievement gap is suggestive of a better performance of immigrant students in countries practising selective immigration policies. However, the origin of such differences has not been investigated. I considered both important observed characteristics as well as the role of unobservables in the…

The impact of socio-economic background on mathematics performance in England can be seen from the most to least disadvantaged. As socio-economic background of pupils increases, so does average mathematics performance; the gap between the most and least disadvantaged is equivalent to over three years' of schooling. However, many factors other than…

This paper investigates achievement gaps between low and high socioeconomic students in 19 high-income countries. On average, math scores of students with indicators of high socioeconomic status (SES) are over one standard deviation above those with low SES indicators. The paper estimates the extent to which these achievement gaps can be…

Although a positive relationship between socio-economic status and academic achievement is well-established, how it varies with age is not. This article uses four data points from Canada's National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY) to examine how the academic achievement gap attributed to SES changes from childhood to adolescence…

Background: Socially disadvantaged children with academic difficulties at school entry are at increased risk for poor health and psychosocial outcomes. Our objective is to test the possibility that participation in childcare--at the population level--could attenuate the gap in academic readiness and achievement between children with and without a…

This article examines equity in national systems of education in terms of differences in student outcomes, as measured by mathematics achievement scores on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. The author uses four measures for assessing equity in student outcomes: (1) the strength of the relationship between student…

Utilizing data on approximately 16,000 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten Cohort and a rich set of mediating factors on 16 immigrant groups, this paper examined the associations between children's immigrant generation status and their academic performance. The changes in academic achievements during kindergarten and…