Because of war and civil war on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, education in ethnically divided country has become fragmented. Because of postwar divisions thirteen different ministries of education or similar bodies are responsible for education, resulting in inefficiency and low quality. To overcome differences, a committee of experts has prepared an outcome-based common core curriculum for science education from preschool to the upper secondary school level. Since the working group comprised representatives from all major entities, ethnic and religious groups, and school levels, as well as teachers from Biology, Chemistry, Geography and Physics, a positive outcome for the consolidation of science education can be expected.

Cheating detection is an important issue in standardized testing, especially in large-scale settings. Statistical approaches are often computationally intensive and require specialised software to conduct. We present a two-stage approach that quickly filters suspected groups using statistical testing on an IRT-based answer-copying index. We also present an approach to mitigate data contamination and improve the performance of the index. The computation of the index was implemented through a modified version of an open source R package, thus enabling wider access to the method. Using data from PIRLS 2011 (N=64,232) we conduct a simulation to demonstrate our approach. Type I error was well-controlled and no control group was falsely flagged for cheating, while 16 (combined n=12,569) of the 18 (combined n=14,149) simulated groups were detected. Implications for system-level cheating detection and further improvements of the approach were discussed.

This study aimed to investigate the degree to which teachers in Qatar implement differentiated instruction as well as the impact of years of experience, qualifications, grade, school subjects and training on teachers’ use of differentiated instruction. Also the study tried to explore the obstacles impeding the application of differentiate instruction. The study targeted all early childhood teachers (1,836) in 99 Qatar public schools spreading across the country. A random sample of 236 teachers, accounting for 12.9% of the population participated in the study. Following the mixed approach, the researchers used questionnaires and interviews to collect the data. The results showed no statistically significant differences among the respondents in the degree of application of differentiated instruction due to training and qualifications; however, statistically significant differences were detected in relevance to years of experience, grade, and the subject being taught. The study also found an agreement among teachers on the obstacles they face during their application of differentiated instruction, most notably the teaching load, class size, and time. The study concluded with recommendations for education providers, teachers and researchers.

The current study investigated Student-Teacher Relationship Measure (STRM) psychometric properties using Rasch analysis in a sample of middle school female students (N = 995). Rasch Principal Components Analysis revealed psychometric support of two subscales (i.e., Academic and Social Relations). Summary statistics showed good psychometric properties. The category structure and individual statistics (i.e., items and person infit and outfit) were not ideal. Category structure showed that the distances between adjacent thresholds were lower than optimal criteria. Even though findings indicated that items mean square statistics (MNSQ) were optimal, standardized fit statistics (i.e., ZSTD) reflected many misfit persons and items in each subscale. After eliminating the misfit persons and items, the two subscales met the Rasch optimal criteria. The updated short 22-item scale had good psychometric properties, high item and person separation, and good item and person reliability for the two subscales and can be used as a reliable and valid scale.