School size effects on achievement in secondary education : evidence from The Netherlands, Sweden and the USA

This paper reports the results of an investigation into the relationship between school size and achievement. The study examined the impact of school size on mathematics achievement in Dutch, Swedish, and American secondary education and on science achievement in the Netherlands. The following research questions were explored: (1) Is school size related to achievement independently of student background characteristics, such as sex, achievement motivation, socioeconomic status, and cognitive aptitude? (2) Is the effect of school size related to any of the before mentioned background characteristics? (3) Does the effect of school size on achievement differ among the educational systems of the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States? (4) Is the effect of school size the same for different measures of student achievement (mathematics versus science)? Datasets from two international studies sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement were analyzed - the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) and the Second International Science Study (SISS). The findings found little empirical evidence for the existence of school-size effects on achievement in any of the three countries, possibly because school size and curriculum comprehensiveness are not strongly related in these countries. Some useful additional information regarding the robustness of the detected relationships between the five covariates and student achievement is presented

Examining the relationship between online chatting and PISA reading literacy trends (2000-2018)

Strong claims have regularly been made in the popular media about the alleged negative effects of young people's language use in written exchanges via digital media (what is known as textese). This is especially believed to affect their reading and writing skills. However, the scientific research literature has hardly confirmed such effects. Its conclusions are generally based on cross-sectional comparisons between individuals who differ in how much they exchange written messages via digital media. In contrast, the present study examines to what extent per-country changes in the prevalence of online chatting coincide with changes in the reading literacy of consecutive student cohorts. This approach presents a novel perspective. The findings relate to data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys conducted during 2000–2018. The data analysis showed a strong correlation between variations in per-country patterns regarding the spread of online chatting during 2000–2018 and changes in the reading literacy of 15-year-olds. Countries with low chatting prevalence in 2009 showed substantial improvement in reading literacy from 2000 to 2009. These trends typically reversed to declines when after 2009, online chatting prevalence sharply increased in those countries. A contrasting pattern applied to countries with high chatting prevalence in 2009 and decelerating growth in online chatting afterward.</p