This paper presents key findings of my research on the approaches to justification by investigating how a sample of teachers in Hong Kong and Shanghai taught the topic Pythagoras theorem. In this study, 8 Hong Kong videos taken from TIMSS 1999 Video Study and 11 Shanghai videos videotaped by the researcher comprised the database. It was found that the teachers in Hong Kong and Shanghai emphasiz...

Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity We provide a measure of equality of educational opportunity in 54 countries, estimated as the effect of family background on student performance in two international TIMSS tests. We then show how organizational features of the education system affect equality of educational opportunity. Our model predicts that late tracking and a long pre-school cycl...

This study was conducted to explore the effects of two countries model comparison program in Taiwan and Singapore in TIMSS database. The researchers used Multi-Group Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques to compare the effects of two different country models and we tested our hypotheses on 4,046 Taiwan students and 4,599 Singapore students in 2007 at two levels: the class level and student (i...

Based on the released data of 5,690 Taiwanese 8 graders participating in TIMSS 1999, an elaborated motivation-resource competition model will be examined through the structural equation modeling technique. According to the model, a student’s self-concept in one learning subject exerts a positive effect on his/her achievement in the same subject, but a negative effect on the achievement in anoth...

RAISING the standards of learning that are achieved through schooling is an important national priority. In recent years, governments throughout the world have been more and more vigorous in making changes in pursuit of this aim. National, state, and district standards; target setting; enhanced programs for the external testing of students’ performance; surveys such as NAEP (National Assessment...