Academic resilience is a student’s ability to achieve academic results significantly higher than would be expected according to their socioeconomic level. In this study, we aimed to identify the characteristics of students, families, and teacher activities which had the greatest impact on academic resilience. The sample comprised 117,539 fourth grade students and 6,222 teachers from 4,324 schools in member states of the European Union that participated in the PIRLS 2016 study. We specified a two-level hierarchical linear model in two phases: in the first level we used the students’ personal and family background variables, in the second level we used the variables related to teaching activity. In the first phase we used the complete model for all countries and regions, in the second phase we produced a model for each country with the highest possible number of statistically significant variables. The results indicated that the students’ personal and family variables that best predicted resilience were the reading self-confidence index, which increased the probability of student resilience by between 62 and 130 percentage points, a feeling of belonging to the school, which increased the chances of being resilient by up to 40 percentage points, and support from the family before starting primary school (Students from Lithuania who had done early literary activities in the family setting were twice as likely to be resilient than those who had not). The teaching-related factors best predicting resilience were keeping order in the classroom, a safe and orderly school environment (increasing chances of resilience by up to 62 percentage points), and teaching focused on comprehension and reflection, which could increase the probability of resilience by up to 61 percentage points.

Parental involvement in the educational process is desirable, although more involvement does not guarantee better results. The aim of this research is to explore the relationship between styles of parental involvement at home and academic performance. A random sample of 26,543 Spanish students was used, with a mean age of 14.4 (SD = 0.75). Two thirds (66.2%) attended a publicly funded school; 49.7% were girls; 87.8% had Spanish nationality; and 73.5% were in the school year corresponding to their age. Different three-level hierarchical-linear models were fitted: student, school, and region (autonomous community). Students whose parents exhibited a more distal or indirect profile of family involvement tended to demonstrate better results than those from homes with a more controlling style. Parental involvement styles have an effect on achievement at an individual and school level, even after accounting for the effect of context or background variables. Given the importance of parental involvement in academic performance, schools should consider it in their family information and training policies. Schools which have more communicative family profiles tend to demonstrate lower levels of intra-school differences in students’ academic performance.

The relationship between homework and academic results has been widely researched. Most of that research has used English-speaking, European or Asian samples, and to date there have been no detailed studies into that relationship in Latin America and the Caribbean. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of quantitative homework characteristics on achievement in science. The sample comprised 61,938 students at 2,955 schools in the 15 Latin American countries (plus the Mexican state of New Leon) which participated in the Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE), carried out by the Latin American Laboratory for Educational Quality (LLECE) in 2013. The mean age was 12.42 years old (±0.94). Within each country, three hierarchical-linear models were applied at two levels: student and school. The individual level considered time spent doing homework and the school level considered the amount and frequency of homework assignment. In addition, ten control variables were included in order to control the net effect of the characteristics of the homework on the result. The results confirmed that homework is widely assigned in the Latin American region. At the individual level, time spent on homework had little effect on academic performance, while in the quantitative homework characteristics it was the frequency of homework assignment which demonstrated a clearer effect rather than the amount of homework assigned.

The optimum time students should spend on homework has been widely researched although the results are far from unanimous. The main objective of this research is to analyze how homework assignment strategies in schools affect students’ academic performance and the differences in students’ time spent on homework. Participants were a representative sample of Spanish adolescents (N = 26,543) with a mean age of 14.4 (± .75), 49.7 % girls. A test battery was used to measure academic performance in four subjects: Spanish, Mathematics, Science, and Citizenship. A questionnaire allowed the measurement of the indicators used for the description of homework and control variables. Two three-level hierarchical-linear models (student, school, autonomous community) were produced for each subject being evaluated. The relationship between academic results and homework time is negative at the individual level but positive at school level. An increase in the amount of homework a school assigns is associated with an increase in the differences in student time spent on homework. An optimum amount of homework is proposed which schools should assign to maximize gains in achievement for students overall.