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The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has become the world’s largest comparative assessment of academic achievement. While hundreds of studies have examined the factors predicting student achievement in PISA, a comprehensive overview of the main predictors has yet to be completed. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic literature review of factors predicting mathematics performance in PISA. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development, we synthesized the findings of 156 peer reviewed articles. The analysis identified 135 factors that fall into five broad categories: individual student, household context, school community, education systems and macro society. The analysis uncovered seven factors that are consistently associated with math achievement in PISA. Student grade level and overall family SES (socio-economic status) are consistently positively associated with math achievement while five factors are consistently negatively associated with math achievement: student absenteeism and lack of punctuality, school repeating and dropout rate, school prevalence of students’ misbehavior, shortage of teachers and general staff, and student-centered instruction. Fourteen factors tend to be positively or negatively associated with math achievement. The explanatory power of many other factors, however, remain mixed. Explanations for this result include methodological differences, complex interactions across variables, and underlying patterns related to national-cultural context or other meso or macro-level variables. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

This study examines inequalities of school funding as exclusively generated by the parent community in urban public schools, and potentially illuminates a secondary impact of between-school segregation. For schools that are largely understood as free, the substantial injections of private financing into public schools indicate a concerning tension for fairness and equity. Using a census dataset of all public schools in one Australian capital city (n = 150), we compare reported parent 'contributions, fees and charges' and how they are patterned by measures of school disadvantage and advantage. We found a statistically significant relationship between private financing and measures of school- based advantage or disadvantage, over a four-year period. Advantaged schools generate up to six times greater income in comparison to disadvantaged schools over a four-year period, and we argue that the substantial gaps function as another form of 'compounded disadvantage' for residualised public schools and a tiered effect of segregation. [Author abstract]

This study compares rural educational disadvantage across Australia, Canada, and New Zealand using data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Across the three countries, student reading literacy and school learning environments are less positive in rural communities than in urban. Furthermore, rural disadvantage in educational outcomes (reading) and opportunities is greater in Australia than Canada or New Zealand. This could be seen as surprising as student socioeconomic status (SES), typically a strong predictor of educational outcomes, is similar for rural communities in Australia and Canada, but lower in New Zealand. Rural school principals in Australia are most likely among the three countries to report that shortages of teaching personnel hinder learning. This could suggest that policies and structures can play a role in ameliorating or exacerbating rural educational disadvantage. We conclude with questions and recommendations for future research.

This study proposes a more nuanced understanding of the elements constituting refugees' cultural and social capital to help education providers and policymakers develop a non-deficit view of refugees. Such an understanding, informed by empirical research, ought to shape the type of support that is offered to this cohort to facilitate successful participation in higher education. This paper deploys the concepts of cultural and social capital, habitus and field as articulated within Bourdieu's theory of practice. The findings of this study favour an 'asset view' of refugees within the higher educational context. Using a qualitative research design, 20 participants who come from a refugee background were interviewed. It was found that cultural identity and embeddedness within community has a varied influence on the higher educational experience of people from a refugee background in Australia. Additionally, diverse learning environments and, even, generic support structures, help provide a positive higher educational experience for refugees. These findings complement current research suggesting that people who come from a refugee background possess a range of cultural and social capital which can be assets to their higher educational endeavours.

BackgroundWhile the relationship between school socioeconomic composition and student academic outcomes is well established, knowledge about differential effects is not extensive. In particular, little is known whether the relationship differs for students with varying levels of academic performance. We examined whether the school socioeconomic composition effect on academic achievement is stronger or weaker for high-performing students than for average- and low-performing students. Australia is a theoretically interesting case study as it has high levels of school socioeconomic segregation compared to other economically developed countries.MethodsWe conducted quantile regression analysis using data from the Australia PISA 2018 sample (N = 14,273 15-year-old students). We examined the effect of school socioeconomic status (school SES) on student performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy.ResultsWe found that the school socioeconomic composition effect is substantial and is similar for all students, regardless of their level of academic performance. The findings also show that school SES is a stronger predictor than student SES for all student performance quintiles, and the size of the school SES effect relative to the size of student SES effect is larger in lower performance quintiles.ConclusionsThese results indicate no differential effect of school SES on reading, mathematical or scientific literacy for students of varying levels of academic performance. The relationship is similarly strong and positive for high-performing students as it is for their lower performing peers. As school SES is a strong predictor for all students regardless of their level of academic performance, we argue that equity of educational outcomes can be best achieved by policies and structures that promote socioeconomically mixed rather than segregated schools. We also call for more research that seeks to identify and understand possible differential effects of school socioeconomic composition on a range of academic and non-cognitive student outcomes.

Australian schooling is characterised by high levels of choice and competition, and education policymaking promotes the dissemination of information to assist families to choose a school. The aim of this study is to examine whether current information sharing is adequate for informing school choice for young people seeking vocational education and training (VET) opportunities. We examined secondary school websites in Western Australia, a state that is experiencing severe skills shortages, to ascertain the nature and extent to which information about VET in secondary schools is publicly available. Our findings showed that information about VET programs is largely invisible on school websites, as well as on the state jurisdiction's website (Department of Education WA, n.d.).

This study examines the effect of school socioeconomic composition on student achievement growth in Australian schooling, and its relationship with academic composition utilising the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) dataset. Previous research has found that school composition predicts a range of schooling outcomes. A critique of school compositional research has been that measurement error may have biased findings of compositional effects. Prior studies have found that socioeconomic compositional effect sizes are small when models include academic composition. The relationship between socioeconomic and academic compositions has yet to be fully determined. Multi-level regressions and structural equation models were compared to estimate the degree of bias in socioeconomic compositional effects due to measurement error. Multi-level path models were used to test if academic composition mediated the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. The results showed that measurement error did not bias compositional effects in the dataset, and academic composition mediates the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. We argue that school value-add research should include academic composition to account for contextual effects. The socioeconomic compositional effect is of practical significance to policy makers and educational researchers due to its relative size compared to average student achievement growth. Potential reforms include ensuring public subsidies to private schools in Australia do not increase school segregation and the amelioration of the effects of residential segregation through school funding reforms.

This study uses data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to gain a better understanding of how academic performance and resources vary across rural-urban school communities in Australia. While it is well known that schools in rural areas have difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers, the degree to which schools in larger sized communities across Australia also face this problem is less understood. Moreover, very little is known about the degree to which shortages of instructional materials and equipment are associated with rural-urban location. The analysis includes 353 schools across eight community types that range in size of fewer than 1,000 people in small country towns to more than a million people in large capital cities. School principals reported the degree to which instruction in their school is hindered by a shortage of resources, which include qualified teaching staff and instructional materials and equipment. The findings highlight the extent to which school resources vary across geographic location, as reported by school principals. Principals of schools in the centre of large cities were the least likely to report that shortages of teaching staff or instructional materials hinder learning, while principals in rural and remote communities were the most likely to report that such shortages hinder instruction. These differences closely mirror student PISA academic performance and school socioeconomic composition. PISA data indicates that schools located in small rural communities have the lowest socioeconomic profiles, the lowest academic performance and the largest shortages of teaching staff and instructional materials, while schools in central neighbourhoods of large cities enjoy the highest socioeconomic profiles, the highest academic performance and the fewest shortages. [Author abstract]

Previous research has established that student outcomes are strongly associated with the socioeconomic composition of a school, also known as school socioeconomic status. Less is known, however, about the ways in which the relationship varies for different students, schools and national education systems. Here, the authors conduct a secondary analysis of an international dataset to examine the strength of the relationship between school socioeconomic status and achievement in math and reading for Canada and Australia. The history, economy and culture of these two countries are similar, as are many aspects of their education systems. One important difference, however, is the degree to which their education systems are marketised. The authors' findings show that in both countries, school socioeconomic status is strongly associated with academic achievement for all students, regardless of their individual socioeconomic status. Nevertheless, the relationship between school socioeconomic status and academic achievement is substantially stronger in Australia than in Canada. The authors conclude that student outcomes are more equitable in Canada than in Australia, and suggest that this may be due to differences in the ways in which the two education systems are funded and structured. [Author abstract, ed]

We examine how students' perspectives of their learning environments vary between private and public schools in Australia. Previous research has shown that educational outcomes do not vary by school sector in most countries after controlling for student social background. Little is known, however, about the ways in which different students' educational experiences vary across sectors. Australia is a good case study for examining this question, because it has one of the largest private school sectors in the world. We used a large and nationally representative dataset to compare sector differences across five measures of learning environments while accounting for the average socioeconomic composition of the school. Very few differences large enough to be considered educationally substantive were found between sectors. On two measures, however, student perspectives varied substantially within sectors and across school socioeconomic contexts. Overall, classroom disciplinary climate varied the most across school sectors and socioeconomic contexts, and teacher scaffolding and structuring strategies varied the least. [Author abstract]