The PISA studies provide unique opportunities to investigate the competencies and attitudes of 15-year-olds across the world. Past research investigating environmental awareness (EA) in PISA 2006 found associations between EA and science-related competencies and attitudes. Investigating EA in the PISA studies may have important implications for education for sustainable development (ESD): results may show which factors should be considered in educational interventions to enhance students’ EA. Cross-national analyses of EA may provide insights into the predictors of EA on a local, national or international level. This study investigates the individual, school, and country level predictors of EA in PISA 2015 (365,194 students, 12,594 schools, 53 countries). The multi-level regression analysis on EA reveals that most of the variance is located at the student level. On the individual level, variables related to science learning in school are associated with EA across all countries. This study also compares the degrees of EA in the 2006 and 2015 populations. The results show similar degrees of EA in 2006 and 2015. Altogether, the study provides cross-country evidence on important aspects that should be addressed in successful ESD programs.

Background In low-stakes educational assessments, test takers might show a performance decline (PD) on end-of-test items. PD is a concern in educational assessments, especially when groups of students are to be compared on the proficiency variable because item responses gathered in the groups could be differently affected by PD. In order to account for PD, mixture item response theory (IRT) models have been proposed in the literature. Methods In this article, multigroup extensions of three existing mixture models that assess PD are compared. The models were applied to the mathematics test in a large-scale study targeting school track differences in proficiency. Results Despite the differences in the specification of PD, all three models showed rather similar item parameter estimates that were, however, different from the estimates given by a standard two parameter IRT model. In addition, all models indicated that the amount of PD differed between tracks, in that school track differences in proficiency were slightly reduced when PD was accounted for. Nevertheless, the models gave different estimates of the proportion of students showing PD, and differed somewhat from each other in the adjustment of proficiency scores for PD. Conclusions Multigroup mixture models can be used to study how PD interacts with proficiency and other variables to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms behind PD. Differences between the presented models with regard to their assumptions about the relationship between PD and item responses are discussed

Instructional language programs in German childcare centers have shown limited effectiveness. Two reasons may be that (a) the training is unconnected with everyday situations in which children typically acquire language and (b) the programs adopt a cultural model of psychological autonomy, a model that may be inconsistent with some children’s background. In the present study, we implemented an everyday-based language intervention in four German childcare centers. In a prepost design, teachers (N = 37, M = 32.97 years) were first trained to adopt an elaborative, socially oriented style. Their language behavior, videotaped and analyzed during daily routines over 1 year, demonstrated significant changes (e.g., asking more open-ended questions, referring to social content and decontextualized content more often). Independent of their families’ cultural orientation. children’s (N = 85, M = 3.42 years) language competencies significantly increased beyond age-related development norms. In comparison with a control group of children who visited childcare centers implementing instructional language programs, children of the intervention group performed significantly better in nonword repetition (an indicator of lexical knowledge) after 1 year. The results demonstrate that, in a brief intervention, teachers’ conversational style could be effectively changed toward promoting language development in a culture-sensitive way. Although the direct link to children’s language development remains to be proven, results indicate that children with different cultural backgrounds could profit from this everyday-based approach without using extra settings, materials, or instructions.

Zusammenfassung: Das Ziel von Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) ist, Lernende zu befähigen, an der Bewältigung der aktuellen Herausforderungen der Weltgesellschaft mitzuarbeiten. Diese Studie untersucht, über welche professionellen Handlungskompetenzen eine Lehrkraft verfügen muss, um qualitativ hochwertigen BNE-Unterricht durchführen zu können. Dazu wurde das COACTIV-Modell professioneller Handlungskompetenz von Lehrkräften (Baumert und Kunter 2011) mittels qualitativer Daten aus 20 Interviews mit Fachdidaktiker:innen und Lehrkräften für den Bereich BNE spezifiziert. Die Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass die COACTIV-Kompetenzdimensionen (Professionswissen, Überzeugungen, Motivation, Selbstregulation) auf BNE übertragen werden können. Die Daten zeigen auch, dass die Modellkomponenten zum Teil weiter ausdifferenziert und im Hinblick auf BNE spezifischer definiert werden sollten: So ist etwa die Interdisziplinarität der BNE-bezogenen Unterrichtsinhalte ein relevanter Aspekt, der sich z. B. in der BNE-spezifischen Modellkomponente für fachdidaktisches Wissen über fächerübergreifende Unterrichtsgestaltung zeigt.

Tests administered in studies of student achievement often have a certain amount of not-reached items (NRIs). The propensity for NRIs may depend on the proficiency measured by the test and on additional covariates. This article proposes a semiparametric model to study such relationships. Our model extends Glas and Pimentel’s item response theory model for NRIs by (1) including a semiparametric representation of the distribution of the onset of NRIs, (2) modeling the relationships of NRIs with proficiency via a flexible multinomial logit regression, and (3) including additional covariates to predict NRIs. We show that Glas and Pimentel’s and our model have close connections to event history analysis, thereby making it possible to apply tools developed in this context to the analysis of NRIs. Our model was applied to a timed low-stakes test of mathematics achievement. Our model fitted the data better than Glas and Pimentel’s model, and allowed for a more fine-grained assessment of the onset of NRIs. The results of a simulation study showed that our model accurately recovered the relationships of proficiency and covariates with the onset of NRIs, and reduced bias in the estimates of item parameters, proficiency distributions, and covariate effects on proficiency.

Pro-Environmental Behavior (PEB) is often used as an umbrella term to summarize a variety of behaviors, making synthesizing research difficult. We provide a framework to systemize the landscape of PEB. The framework differentiates between consequences (e.g., mitigation, conservation, restoration), pathways (e.g., sufficiency, efficiency), types (e.g., individual behaviors), and domains (e.g., recycling). We reviewed N = 6,372 PEB indicators from 874 studies and analyzed which aspect was measured, how it was measured, and the extent to which studies utilized novel, modified, or adopted indicators. We found that most PEB indicators addressed mitigation behaviors, whereas fewer represented conservation or restoration behaviors. Most measures captured individual behaviors rather than social impact or civic behaviors, and their domain usually referred to waste and energy-related behaviors. Most studies utilized novel or modified indicators, which can hinder the cumulation of findings. We created a database to search for measures and increase reuse rates.