Promoting teaching,learning and informed decision-making through the lenses of international large-scale assessment: looking beyond numbers

Public discussion on the quality of education in different corners of the world very much relies on the data provided by the international large-scale assessment (ILSA) studies. While aware of different methodological keystones and technicalities embedded in these, the idea behind this special issue is to contribute to the understanding of how students solve ILSA items and the kinds of literacy skills they rely on. A shared element of reported studies is that they seek to document and analyse test-taking as a concrete practice using different theoretical and methodological perspectives. We find such scrutiny to be important and significant at this point in time as it offers some new lenses through which ILSA items could be inspected and further discussed.     

Using learning analytics to scale the provision of personalised feedback

There is little debate regarding the importance of student feedback for improving the learning process. However, there remain significant workload barriers for instructors that impede their capacity to provide timely and meaningful feedback. The increasing role technology is playing in the education space may provide novel solutions to this impediment. As students interact with the various learning technologies in their course of study, they create digital traces that can be captured and analysed. These digital traces form the new kind of data that are frequently used in learning analytics to develop actionable recommendations that can support student learning. This paper explores the use of such analytics to address the challenges impeding the capacity of instructors to provide personalised feedback at scale. The case study reported in the paper showed how the approach was associated with a positive impact on student perception of feedback quality and on academic achievement. The study was conducted with first year undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a computer systems course with a blended learning design across three consecutive years (N₂₀₁₃ = 290, N₂₀₁₄ = 316 and N₂₀₁₅ = 415).     

Does Work Harm Academic Performance of Students? Evidence Using Propensity Score Matching

In this article we analyze the effects of student work on academic performance for college students. In order to reduce the endogeneity bias due to selection into treatment, we use propensity score matching technique. This approach allows us to estimate the effects of student work separately for different years of study, which is not possible when inside instruments are used to deal with endogeneity of student work. We find predominantly negative effects of student work for all measures of academic performance (GPA, exam attempts, exams passed, and likelihood of passing a year), although many of these are economically and statistically insignificant. We supplement existing studies that do not estimate separate treatment effects for different years of study by showing that work while in college harms study outcomes mostly in the first year of study—by passing smaller number of exams and thereby increasing the likelihood of failing a year. Our results are consistent with evidence on difficulty with adjusting to college studies of first-year students, who face many uncertainties that affect finding the optimal allocation of time between studies, work and leisure.     

Stories From Intercultural Education in Serbia: Teacher Leadership and Parent Participation

This article explores the potential of teacher leadership as a strategy to promote intercultural education by empowering parents and members of ethnic minority groups to participate in the life of the school. It links the idea of participation for social justice with the goals of intercultural education within the context of the APREME (Advancing Participation and Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups in Education) project, which is located within a wider program of research, development, and advocacy designed to promote inclusion and social cohesion in the western Balkans. The outcomes of this action-based stage of the program are presented in the form of vignettes that portray teachers’ projects designed to enable parents and community members to participate more fully in the life of the school. Conclusions are drawn about the relationship between teacher leadership and a transformative approach to the intercultural education.     

Didactic strategies in early science teaching

The purpose of the article is to show the results of empirical research on the prevailing teaching strategies for teaching contents of the subject environmental studies (specifically when dealing with natural content) in the first triennium of the nine‐year primary school in the Republic of Slovenia. The information was obtained through a survey of 141 teachers from 60 randomly selected primary schools in the Republic of Slovenia. We found that teachers use different teaching strategies as students gain knowledge through experience, participation in education, they express their opinion, views, solve simple problems and explore. Such notice shall then direct the transmissions to the transaction and transformation, which was an important objective of the reform of the subject.     

Making citizens,being European? European symbolism in Slovenian citizenship education textbooks

Citizenship education has been an important part of the European Union’s (EU) agenda to integrate a European dimension into schools’ curricula. The usage of European symbolism in citizenship education curriculum material has been an especially important (yet understudied) means not only to promote a distinct European identity and increase knowledge on EU-related topics, but also to regulate (young) EU citizens and population. The paper analyses the content related to the EU and European dimension in citizenship education textbooks and workbooks at the lower-secondary school level in Slovenia. It demonstrates that, through diverse symbolic displays, which are understood as a specific governmental technique, the idea of a European community as a site of opportunities is promoted while students are stimulated to understand themselves as subjects who must be active and responsible EU citizens. Moreover, European symbolism is employed to nurture and promote Slovenian identity as being purely European and, as such, distinct from earlier Balkan-situated, Yugoslav and socialist forms of identity and belonging.     

Developing teachers’ subject didactic competence through problem posing

Problem posing (not only in lesson planning but also directly in teaching whenever needed) is one of the attributes of a teacher’s subject didactic competence. In this paper, problem posing in teacher education is understood as an educational and a diagnostic tool. The results of the study were gained in pre-service primary school teacher education. Students were asked to pose problems containing some given data (namely fractions). The subsequent analysis of the problems posed by the students revealed shortcomings in their conceptual understanding of fractions. Classroom-based joint reflection became the means of reeducation.