Educational Research Conference 2005 Special Issue

Abstract

Volume 7 Number 2 June 2006
Educational Research Conference Workshop 2005 Special Issue

Foreword

The articles in this issue of the International Education Journal have resulted from the papers presented at a Symposium and Workshop attended by Dr Margaret Wu from the Australian Council for Educational Research and the School of Education of the University of Melbourne where she works on the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) research and development program. The Symposium and Workshop were held in 2005 on Thursday 24 November and Friday 25 November in conjunction with the Educational Research Conference organized by the Flinders University Institute of International Education in cooperation with the School of Education at Flinders University, the Graduate School of Education at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Institute of Educational Research. These meetings took place in the Investigator Computing Laboratory, Sturt Buildings, Flinders University.

The publication of this issue of the International Education Journal is supported by a subvention from the School of Education, Flinders University.

Chief Editor

Some Problems in the analysis of cross-national survey data
Keeves, J.P., Lietz, P., Gregory, K. and Darmawan, I.G.N. Issues in the change in gender differences in reading achievement in cross-national research studies since 1992: A meta-analytic view
Lietz, P. A method for monitoring sub-trends in country-level mathematics achievement on TIMSS
Gregory, K. Suppressor variables and multilevel mixture modelling
Darmawan, I.G.N. and Keeves, J.P. Accountability of teachers and schools: A value-added approach
Darmawan, I.G.N. and Keeves, J.P. Percentage population plots: A proposition for a new strategy for data analysis in comparative education
Skuza, P.P.

Postscript

Forty Years On: Measure the Past and Present 
Model the Future Special Workshop Issue of IEJ

In this issue of the International Education Journal there is a sustained criticism of existing procedures to obtain very accurately the mean scores of national samples of students at the apparent expense of obtaining score distributions that are amenable to sound multivariate and multilevel analyses. In addition there is a more positive emphasis that involves the presentation of new strategies for the analyses of data that examine regression relationship for subgroups of students who are performing at different levels of achievement in science, as well as modelling different levels of aggregation of data, namely the student, classroom and school levels. The examination of simple bivariate relationships at these different levels is both inadequate and inappropriate. The resources and human effect involved in assembling the large bodies of data warrant a renewed endeavour to develop new analytical strategies and procedures. However, such statistical procedures demand that the variances of the outcome scores (and the very large number of variables for which measurement data are collected) are not distorted in order to reduce the errors of estimation of mean values. Within the variability of the data collected is a wealth of detail that is likely to help with the development of a greater understanding of the processes of education across the world. It is this understanding of the processes of education for which the IEA studies were first proposed over 40 years ago and this is a goal towards which renewed research efforts, as in the IEA, OECD and SACMEQ studies, need to be made.

Chief Editor