Missing by Design: Planned Missing-Data Designs in Social Science

This article presents research designs that employ modern statistical tools to optimize costs and precision of research along with some additional methodological advantages. In planned missing-data designs some parts of information about respondent are purposely not collected. This gives flexibility and opportunity to explore a broad range of solutions with considerably lower cost. Modern statistical tools for coping with missing-data, namely multiple imputation (MI) and maximum likelihood estimation with missing data (ML) are presented. Several missing-data designs are introduced and assessed by Monte Carlo simulation studies. Designs particularly useful in surveys, longitudinal analysis and measurement applications are showed and tested in terms of statistical power and bias reduction. Article shows advantages, opportunities and problems connected with missing-data designs and their application in social science researches

Relations between academic boredom, academic achievement, ICT use, and teacher enthusiasm among adolescents

Using large, representative samples (N = 76,818) of 15-year-old students in eight countries that took part in the 2018 edition of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) we develop multilevel regression models to estimate the association between boredom and reading and mathematics achievement and multilevel moderation models to estimate the likelihood that students will experience academic boredom as a function of their use of ICT and how enthusiastic they perceive their teachers to be. Students who reported being bored in mathematics classes had lower mathematics and, in some countries, lower reading achievements than students who did not report being bored in mathematics classes. By contrast, results did not reveal a consistent association between boredom in language and literature classes and during self-study and mathematics and reading achievement. The use of ICT for leisure was associated with a higher likelihood that students reported being bored. By contrast, the use of ICT for learning at home was associated with a lower likelihood that students reported being bored. Students who perceived their teachers to be enthusiastic, whether they used ICT or not, were considerably less likely to report being bored. The association between ICT use and boredom was moderated by teacher enthusiasm. In particular, the use of ICT for leisure was associated with higher boredom among students whose teachers lacked enthusiasm whereas the use of ICT at school was associated with higher boredom among students who perceived their teachers to be very enthusiastic

Birthplace diversity, income inequality and education gradients in generalised trust: variations in the relevance of cognitive skills across 29 countries

The paper examines between-country differences in the mechanisms through which education could promote generalised trust using data from 29 countries participating in the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Results indicate that education is strongly associated with generalised trust and that a large part of this association is mediated by individuals’ literacy skills, income and occupational prestige. However, education gradients in levels of generalised trust and in the extent to which they are due to social stratification mechanisms or cognitive skills mechanisms vary across countries. Differences across countries in birthplace diversity and income inequality are correlated with how strongly education is associated with trust in different countries, as well as in the relative magnitude of direct and indirect associations. In particular, the relationship between literacy skills and generalised trust is stronger in the presence of greater birthplace diversity but is weaker in the presence of greater income inequality.JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employmen

The Role of Birthplace Diversity in Shaping Education Gradients in Trust: Country and Regional Level Mediation-Moderation Analyses

This paper examines between-country differences in why education promotes trust using data from 29 countries (and 146 regions) participating in the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Results indicate that education is strongly associated with trust and that individuals' literacy, income, and occupational prestige are important mediators of this association. Contrary to previous studies we do not find that country level or regional level birthplace diversity is associated with average levels of trust. However, education gradients in trust and the extent to which these are due to social stratification or cognitive mechanisms vary both at the country and regional level depending on birthplace diversity. Multilevel mediation-moderation analyses reveal that in countries and regions with greater birthplace diversity there is a greater polarization in levels of trust between individuals with different educational qualifications. This polarization is primarily due to cognitive mechanisms

Measuring progress in reading achievement between primary and secondary school across countries

This paper discusses a method to compare progress in reading achievement from primary to secondary school across countries. The method is similar to value-added models that take into account intake levels when comparing student progress in different schools. Value-added models are preferred over raw scores as they better reflect school efforts. The method discussed in this paper uses measures of achievement in primary schools from PIRLS and compares them to secondary school results from PISA. Changes in achievement are estimated using IRT models and random draws of test items. Results describe an interval in which estimates of progress can lie, depending on the comparability of these two assessments. Estimates of progress are also adjusted for student age, gender and other characteristics that differ between countries and surveys. Separate results by gender, immigrant status, and proficiency level provide a detailed picture of how students in different countries progress in school from the age of 10 to 15.human capital, cognitive skills, international student achievement tests, education, PISA, PIRLS

The role of education in promoting positive attitudes towards migrants at times of stress

The paper examines the role of education in shaping individuals’ attitudes towards migration in European countries using data from the 2012, 2014 and 2016 editions of the European Social Survey (rounds 6, 7 and 8). Results indicate that, despite the large influx of migrants experienced by many European countries in 2015, attitudes towards migration reported by 25-65 year olds in Europe did not vary significantly over the period considered. Education was strongly associated with individuals’ attitudes towards migration although the strength of the association and how the association changed over time varied greatly across countries. On average a difference of one standard deviation in educational participation is associated with a difference of 20% of a standard deviation in reported opposition to migration. Around three quarters of the association between education and opposition to migration can be explained by the lower economic threat, cultural threat and prejudice that individuals with higher educational participation experience. Between 2014 and 2016 the overall association between education and attitudes towards migration became weaker in countries with an increase in foreign-born population, a decrease in polarisation that was accompanied by no changes in overall levels of opposition to migration. The presence of migrants in a country and the unemployment rate moderate the extent to which the association between education and attitudes towards migration is mediated by cultural threat but not economic threat or prejudice.JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employmen

Can overclaiming technique improve self-assessment tools for digital competence? The case of DigCompSat

Digital competence is crucial for living, working and participating in current societies. Despite its huge importance, objective measurement tools for it are scarce due to its developmental difficulty. Self-assessment of digital competence seems a promising proxy of objective tests, and it additionally offers the possibility for surveying otherwise unmeasurable constructs such as attitudes and beliefs. However, self-assessment tools are burdened with validity problems, most notably response biases such as overly positive descriptions, overclaiming or careless and insufficient effort responding. In this paper, we investigate how these problems can be mitigated by using the overclaiming technique, a technique that identifies and corrects the bias variance in self-assessments. Our main result was that the use of the overclaiming technique can lead to higher reliability and validity of digital competence self-assessment tools, especially for short scales. Moreover, it allows for correcting additional spurious variance in comparison with careless responding indexes, which allows the use of both these techniques in parallel to increase the quality of data. Our results are important in providing advances in enhanced information on digital competence that can result in better lifelong learning decisions when used at the individual level and in better policy-making decisions when used at the aggregate level

Badanie panelowe ścieżek edukacyjnych – doświadczenia międzynarodowe

The paper presents research objectives, measurement methodology, its implementation procedure and the most important results from five educational panel studies. Relativelymore possibilities of finding causal relationships and monitoring the life course of individuals constitute the main advantages of panel data. The purpose of this review was to summarize research experience in order to formulate recommendations for implementation of such projects. We presented them in the second part of the paper, focusing on issues concerningmeasurement of educational competences, respondent recruitment, and methods of “maintaining the panel”.W artykule tym przedstawiliśmy cele badawcze, metodologię pomiaru, sposoby realizacji i najważniejsze wyniki analiz pochodzących z pięciu paneli edukacyjnych. Zaletami danych panelowych są stosunkowo większe możliwości wnioskowania o zależnościach przyczynowych i monitorowanie losów życiowych jednostek. Zadaniem tego przeglądu było podsumowanie doświadczeń badawczych pod kątem sformułowania rekomendacji dotyczących problemów dotyczących realizacji tych badań. Przedstawiliśmy je w drugiej części koncentrując się na kwestiach pomiaru kompetencji edukacyjnych, rekrutacji respondentów i metodach „utrzymania panelu”

Low achievers, teaching practices and learning environment

The importance of reducing the incidence of low achievement is clearly recognized by the European Union, which – within its strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training – has set the objective of reducing the share of low-achieving 15-year-olds in mathematics, reading and science below 15% by 2020. This report uses data from the 2015 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to analyse the relationship between teaching practices – teacher-directed instruction, enquiry-based teaching, and adaptive instruction – and the likelihood that students are low achievers in science. Results show that teaching practices are strongly related with the probability of being a low-achieving student. Moreover, some complementarity exists between teaching practices. Properly combining different instruction methods leads to lower levels of underachievement in science. In particular, better outcomes are found in situations with high levels of adaptive instruction and teacher-directed methods, and medium intensity of enquiry-based practices.JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employmen