| 1. |
- Kristensen, Rune Müller, et al.
(författare)
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Content Coverage: Development Over Time and Correlation with Achievement
- 2024
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Ingår i: Springer book series IEA Research for Education, 25. - : Springer Cham.
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Alignment between educational goals (intended and implemented curricula) and educational outcomes (attained curriculum) is an essential characteristic of effective teacher practice. IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) distinguishes between the intended curriculum prescribed at the system level, the implemented curriculum at the classroom level, and the attained curriculum as students’ learning outcomes. This chapter first comments on the agreement between the TIMSS assessment and the curriculum in participating countries based on the Test-Curriculum Matching Analysis (TCMA). It finds that the TIMSS measure of student ability to be in accordance with a measure based on national curricula. This is followed by an overview of changes in the respective curricula. Next, the chapter analyzes the intended curriculum across cycles as reported by National Research Coordinators in the curriculum questionnaire, finding variations across cycles. The implemented curriculum as measured in the teacher questionnaire and its relation to student scores is also discussed. The finding shows variations between years and cycles that are only partially explained by curriculum revisions. The chapter concludes that there are inconsistencies in how curricular content is conceptualized across different types of measures. Furthermore, the way these measures are reported introduces uncertainty as they are based, to some degree, on expert opinion or ambiguous survey questions.
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| 2. |
- Natasha Glassow, Leah, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing the comparability of teacher-related constructs in TIMSS 2015 across 46 education systems: an alignment optimization approach
- 2021
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Ingår i: Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1874-8597 .- 1874-8600. ; 33, s. 105-137
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Research related to the "teacher characteristics" dimension of teacher quality has proven inconclusive and weakly related to student success, and addressing the teaching contexts may be crucial for furthering this line of inquiry. International large-scale assessments are well positioned to undertake such questions due to their systematic sampling of students, schools, and education systems. However, researchers are frequently prohibited from answering such questions due to measurement invariance related issues. This study uses the traditional multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) and an alignment optimization method to examine measurement invariance in several constructs from the teacher questionnaires in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 across 46 education systems. Constructs included mathematics teacher's Job satisfaction, School emphasis on academic success, School condition and resources, Safe and orderly school, and teacher's Self-efficacy. The MGCFA results show that just three constructs achieve invariance at the metric level. However, an alignment optimization method is applied, and results show that all five constructs fall within the threshold of acceptable measurement non-invariance. This study therefore presents an argument that they can be validly compared across education systems, and a subsequent comparison of latent factor means compares differences across the groups. Future research may utilize the estimated factor means from the aligned models in order to further investigate the role of teacher characteristics and contexts in student outcomes.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Rolfe, Victoria, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Delays and Dropouts: Identifying Risks of Suboptimal Post-Compulsory Educational Pathways in Sweden
- 2022
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Ingår i: Studia Paedagogica. - 1803-7437 .- 2336-4521. ; 27:4, s. 45-77
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Successful completion of upper secondary education is increasingly vital for participation in the labor market. Rates of school dropout in Sweden are below the EU average but remain a concern for policymakers. This quantitative study used the Swedish register covering 22 birth cohorts to establish the pathways available for students following compulsory school graduation and to identify the socio-demographic risks of taking a suboptimal pathway. The results showed that immigrant students arriving after the beginning of compulsory schooling and students from low-education households had the most elevated risks of engaging with upper secondary school in a suboptimal way, indicating sustained inequalities in the Swedish school system.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Rolfe, Victoria, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Does inequality in opportunity perpetuate inequality in outcomes? International evidence from four TIMSS cycles
- 2021
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Ingår i: Studies in Educational Evaluation. - : Elsevier BV. - 0191-491X .- 1879-2529. ; 71
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Entrenched socioeconomic inequalities in achievement have been observed in international assessments for decades, with previous research suggesting that these inequalities may be exacerbated by differentiation in the opportunities provided to various social groups. Much previous research in this field has been US-based or subject to measurement issues. This study investigated socioeconomic inequalities in outcomes and opportunities using four cycles of international assessment data across 78 countries. Further, the paper questions whether inequalities in opportunities are related to inequalities in outcomes. The findings indicate global social inequalities in mathematics and science outcomes, while inequality of opportunity was particularly concentrated in economically advanced countries. Little evidence of the perpetuation of socioeconomic inequality in achievement through differentiated educational provision was found.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Rolfe, Victoria, 1987
(författare)
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Exploring socioeconomic inequality in educational opportunity and outcomes in Sweden and beyond
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis aims to explore Sweden’s achievement gap in international assessment and how this may have developed in the context of a network of educational inequalities. Theoretically grounded in the Model of Potential Educational Experiences (Schmidt, Raizen, Britton, Bianchi, & Wolfe, 1997), the thesis investigates how the relationship between the intended and attained curriculum is moderated by actions at the classroom level. Teacher implementation of the curriculum provides opportunities for students to learn yet is a source of inequity in the school system. Student socioeconomic background and the amount of subject content (or Opportunity to Learn – OTL) they are exposed to are judged to significantly influence student outcomes. Socioeconomic inequality of outcomes has been perennially observed in educational assessment and has been a topic of investigation since the mid-twentieth century, while a body of literature suggests that there is an equality gap in OTL, with more advantaged students offered more content coverage through their mathematics lessons. This compilation thesis features an integrative essay and three empirical studies, which apply statistical analysis to data from two international large-scale assessments, PISA and TIMSS. Study I investigated the measurement of socioeconomic status over time in Sweden. After establishing which questionnaire items consistently appeared in PISA, a measurement model bespoke to Sweden was constructed from 2000 data. The model was found to be replicable and trustworthy over time, establishing an alternative measure of SES applicable to 15 years of Swedish PISA data. In Study II socioeconomic inequalities in opportunity and outcomes in mathematics and science, and the question as to whether unequal opportunities perpetuate unequal outcomes were investigated in 78 countries using 4 cycles of TIMSS data. Achievement gaps were observed near universally. These achievement gaps were strong and increased across the cycles of TIMSS. Opportunity gaps were less frequently observed, and evidence that schooling exacerbates socioeconomic inequalities in outcomes was confined to a select group of countries including England, Malta, Scotland, and Singapore. Sweden’s achievement gap was consistent across the time points, and an opportunity gap was only observed in half the cycles. Finally, schooling mediated the effects of SES on achievement in only the 2003 cycle for Sweden, suggesting equitable mathematics provision in Sweden. Teachers are essential to the implementation of the curriculum, and their actions affect the experiences of students. Multiple inequalities in Swedish classrooms were explored in Study III. The 2015 TIMSS cycle was grouped by whether or not teachers were mathematics specialists. Overall, Swedish mathematics students experienced substantial gaps in achievement, opportunity and teacher quality. However, differing patterns of inequalities emerged in the grouped model. Among classes with specialist teachers there was a moderate opportunity gap, while those with non-specialists had a teacher quality gap. In both groups there was a socioeconomic gap in teacher perception of school ethos towards academics. The findings of this study underscore the importance of having high-quality teachers in mathematics classrooms as a temper of outcome inequity. Collectively, the findings of the constituent studies confirm the persistence of the achievement gap in Sweden and globally, contextualize the opportunity gap in Sweden, and underline the importance of item choice and construct measurement when modelling inequality using international data. Suggestions are made for further research integrating the thesis’s contribution to construction measurement into trend analyses of opportunity gaps, and combining register and international data to parse how changes in teacher education may affect equality in Swedish classrooms.
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| 9. |
- Rolfe, Victoria, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Integrating educational quality and educational equality into a model of mathematics performance
- 2022
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Ingår i: Studies in Educational Evaluation. - : Elsevier BV. - 0191-491X .- 1879-2529. ; 74
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using data from TIMSS 2015, this study investigated determinants of inequality between classrooms in mathematics performance in Sweden. Applying multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance frameworks to identify latent constructs with which to build a two-level structural equation model, this study integrated teacher certification, teacher preparedness and school emphasis on academic success into a model of inequality of outcomes and opportunities. The study found evidence that more socioeconomically advantaged classes had better prepared mathematics teachers. School culture towards academic achievement was not associated with mathematics achievement. Finally, the analyses indicated that substantial inequalities exist for students taught by specialist and non-specialist teachers.
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| 11. |
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| 12. |
- Rolfe, Victoria, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Tackling Unobserved Heterogeneity in Socioeconomic Status and Opportunity to Learn, and their Effects on Academic Achievement
- 2017
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Ingår i: Paper presented at ECER 2017 Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The TIMSS 2015 results revealed an improved mathematics score for 8th graders in Sweden. However, the achievement gaps with respect to socioeconomic and ethnic background also have increased dramatically (Mullis, Martin, & Loveless, 2016). It is thus interesting and important to examine the factors that might be lying behind the observed trends in educational equity and quality. A possible precursor of this period of fluctuation in achievement and the noted achievement gap is the influence of wide-ranging structural school reforms implemented since the late 1980s. These reforms, notably the free school choice policy, decentralization and deregulation, have transformed the school system creating a marketplace for providers and may have triggered changes in the characteristics in school compositions, in turn have an influence on student outcomes (Thrupp, 1995; Thrupp & Lupton, 2006). Another possible explanation is that changing opportunities to learn (OTL) have had differential effects on equity and efficiency. Many countries have revised their curricula, and other reforms, such as choice of schools have changed the social and ethnic composition of the schools. Changes in the learning and teaching environment may, furthermore, constrain or strengthen the OTL (e.g., Authors, 2016a; 2016b). In the study we focus on changes in OTL of mathematics content and SES between 1995 and 2015 in Sweden. We try to establish a causal link between the changing SES, OTL and the changing achievement gaps between unobserved subgroups of students. This theoretical framework opportunity to learn (OTL) distinguishes between the prescribed curriculum, the taught curriculum, the assessed curriculum and the achieved curriculum. The prescribed curriculum is usually specified at the system level. The taught curriculum is at the classroom level. The assessed curriculum refers to the tasks included in the achievement tests, and the achieved curriculum refers to what individuals have learnt, as reflected in the assessment (e.g. Schmidt, Zoido & Cogan, 2014). The theoretical model also distinguishes between antecedents and contexts at three levels: the educational system level, the school/classroom level, and the student level. In the proposed study, we focus on the antecedents at the school/classroom context is determined by allocation of resources and translation of the prescribed curriculum into teaching and the antecedents at the student level are individual characteristics such as characteristics of the home, which influence the achieved curriculum. This multilevel model thus specifies direct and indirect effects on the achieved curriculum of the other factors in the model. According to the model, there are direct effects of OTL and student characteristics; while the factors at the school/classroom and educational system levels influence the achieved curriculum indirectly. As mentioned before, the free choice of schools accompanied with other reforms in Sweden has changed the landscape of Swedish schools. As a consequence, the school mix in terms of student intake body’s characteristics and school resources differed largely across schools. We have good reason to assume that different groups of students and schools may have rather differentiated factor structure in the measurement and structural relations. The unobserved heterogeneity in the sample population need to be taken care of otherwise the estimates of effects will be biased. Against this background, the paper seeks to answer the following questions: 1. How do SES and OTL impact mathematics achievement in TIMSS 1995 to 2015? 2. Does the factor structure of SES an OTL differ over some unobserved subgroups of students and schools in each TIMSS studies from 1995 to 2015 in Sweden? 3. Does the relationship among SES OTL and math achievement differ across the subgroups of students and schools? Methods/methodology This paper uses data from TIMSS 1995 to 2015 pertaining to grade eight students in Sweden. Factor mixture modeling is used to examine unobserved heterogeneity in the factor structure of SES, school mix and OTL for each TIMSS study. It is assumed that the factor structures are not the same for the sample in each TIMSS study and the differentiated factor structure over the unobserved heterogeneous student groups are captured by the latent class variables included in the factor mixture model (Lubke & Muthén, 2005). The variables included in this model are drawn from the student and school questionnaires in TIMSS studies since 1995. Two-level factor mixture model (Henry & Muthén, 2010) is used to account for the hierarchical data structure and allow simultaneously detect the differentiated factor structure as well as effects on math achievement for unobserved subgroups of students. It is also interesting to see how the subgroups change the characteristics over different TIMSS studies over time. The analyses are conducted in Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2015). Outcomes Preliminary analyses indicate that socio-economic and ethnic inequality in mathematics achievement differ significantly across schools for some countries. The school student mix too appears to have a varying effect on the between-school differences in the relationship between student’s socio-demographic characteristics and their math achievement. We expect that, in addition, differences in OTL between 2011 and 2015 have an effect on the sociodemographic inequality in mathematics achievement across different educational systems
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| 13. |
- Rolfe, Victoria, 1987
(författare)
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Tailoring a measurement model of socioeconomic status: Applying the alignment optimization method to 15 years of PISA
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal of Educational Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0883-0355. ; 106
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2020 The Author(s) This study aims to examine one of the key contextual constructs measured in ILSAs, socioeconomic status, within a single national context. Using PISA data from Sweden, this study investigates whether the items used to indicate socioeconomic status can be used to create a construct of socioeconomic status that is applicable to multiple cycles of PISA data in Sweden. MI testing of the 2000 CFA solution across all PISA cycles demonstrates invariance at the metric level. Once the alignment optimization method was applied to the measurement model, the solution fell within the thresholds for acceptable measurement non-invariance. Therefore, this study posits that items retained in the PISA questionnaire since 2000 can be used to tailor a model of SES for Sweden.
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
- Strietholt, Rolf, et al.
(författare)
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The Impact of Education Policies on Socioeconomic Inequality in Student Achievement: A Review of Comparative Studies. : In Socioeconomic Inequality and Student Outcomes. Cross-National Trends, Policies, and Practices. Eds: Louis Volante., Sylke V. Schnepf., John Jerrim., Don A. Klinger
- 2019
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Ingår i: Education Policy & Social Inequality, vol 4.. - Singapore : Springer Nature. - 2520-1476 .- 2520-1484. - 9789811398629 ; , s. 17-38
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter reviews international comparative studies on the determinants of socioeconomic inequality in student performance. We were interested in studies of explanatory variables that are amenable to educational policy interventions. To identify such publications, we developed a comprehensive search strategy and conducted an electronic search based on six databases. We also manually searched two existing hand-picked reviews. After duplicates were removed, the search resulted in 814 references, of which a total of 35 studies met the eligibility criteria. The included studies investigated diverse topics such as learning environments inside and outside of school, educational expenditure, teacher education, autonomy, accountability, differentiation, and competition from private schools. Most studies are descriptive in nature and their findings are sometimes ambiguous. Despite these limitations, we tentatively conclude that the opportunity of choice reinforces inequality. Measures that target social selection can be effective.
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| 16. |
- Yang Hansen, Kajsa, 1969, et al.
(författare)
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Examining the Role of Teaching Quality and Assessment Practice in Reducing Socioeconomic and Ethnic Inequities in Mathematics Achievement
- 2024
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Ingår i: Springer book series IEA Research for Education. - : Springer Cham.
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study explores the role of teacher practices in mathematics classrooms on mitigating socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in mathematics performance across Nordic countries. It specifically examines teaching quality, formative assessment practices, content coverage, and teachers’ emphasis on academic success in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. By analyzing IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 grade four data with a two-level structural equation modelling technique, the study reveals that the socioeconomic and ethnic contexts within classrooms significantly influence students’ mathematics achievement. Students attending schools or classrooms with a higher proportion of native students and a higher socioeconomic status experience a reduced effect of family background on their achievement. Positive correlations exist between classroom sociodemographic contexts, particularly the socioeconomic composition, and teachers’ emphasis on academic success. However, the impact of teachers’ instructional and formative assessment practices, as well as content coverage, on mathematics achievement is largely insignificant, except in Norway. Formative assessment practices in Norway have been effective in reducing performance differences between native and immigrant students. This compensatory effect of formative assessment practices is strengthened by the classroom’s socioeconomic context and the teachers’ emphasis on students’ academic success. The study highlights the importance of considering the classroom context and its sociodemographic composition when addressing socioeconomic and ethnic disparities in mathematics achievement across Nordic countries.
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