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Educational effectiveness research has provided evidence about the importance of teacher beliefs and attitudes for teaching and learning. This study builds on the concept of academic optimism, which combines 3 aspects of a teacher's professional creed: self-efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis. The study explores the functioning of the collective and individual measures of academic optimism in the Czech environment and studies its impact on students' outcomes. The analyses are based on pilot data from 39 schools, 325 teachers, and 1,316 Grade 9 students and on the data from the Czech Longitudinal Study in Education (CLoSE), covering 163 schools, 1,469 teachers, and 4,798 students. The individual measure was selected for further studies based on 2-level confirmatory factor analysis. Two-level structural equation modelling showed a significant impact of a school's academic optimism on students' achievement even after controlling for prior achievement and socioeconomic status at both the student and the school level.

In many countries, out-of-school tutoring in academic subjects has become a widespread phenomenon that affects high proportions of students. Scholarly literature has considered various determinants of participation in such tutoring, but school quality has as yet been rather neglected. The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between the quality of school instruction and perceived learning environments on the one hand, and participation in additional instruction in science on the other. Using the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 dataset, we analysed data on five post-socialist countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia). By employing two-level logistic regression models, we estimated the probabilities of taking additional instruction in science in and outside of the school building. Different aspects of learning environments as perceived by students have a somewhat indirect influence, which is mediated through the students' individual performance in science. Except in Bulgaria, school overall achievement is not related to taking additional tutoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational effectiveness research shows that teacher beliefs influence how teachers interact with students and thus affect not only the quality of their instruction but also students' learning outcomes. A teacher's interpersonal relationship styles, supportiveness, and mindset with regard to all students' abilities to succeed were found to be predictive not only of students' academic achievement, but also of non-cognitive outcomes such as engagement in school, learning motivation, or positive social development. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between three non-cognitive outcomes of Czech lower secondary students in grade 9, perseverance, self-efficacy, and educational aspirations, and the attitudes of their teachers that are operationalized as academic optimism. The data set used for the analysis presented in this paper contained data from 4798 grade 9 students and 1469 teachers from 124 basic schools and 39 grammar schools that was collected in the Czech Longitudinal Study in Education in 2016. Two-level structural equation modelling is used to test the hypothesis that students' non-cognitive outcomes are related to the academic optimism of their teachers. Academic optimism was directly related to both students' self-efficacy and class composition according to socio-economic status. These are very important findings with respect to tracking practices in the Czech education system since they exhibit not only early tracking but also a strong differentiation within individual tracks according to socio-economic status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational effectiveness research has demonstrated the importance of teacher beliefs and attitudes for student learning. Beliefs strongly determine teachers' thoughts and actions and they ultimately influence student achievement, even though they may do so indirectly. In order to change people's practices and behaviours, it is necessary to first change their beliefs. Studies of beliefs and attitudes draw on a variety of concepts. This study explores the relationship between academic optimism and the mathematical achievement of Czech lower secondary students and follows up on previous studies that confirmed the relevance of this concept for the Czech education system. The data were collected as part of work on the Czech Longitudinal Study in Education (CLoSE) in October 2012 and May 2016. The database used in the analyses contains data from 124 basic schools and 39 grammar schools, and from 4798 students and 1469 teachers. Two-level structural equation modelling showed that there is a statistically significant link between the academic optimism of schools and students' mathematical achievement, even after controlling for prior achievement and socioeconomic status at both the student and the school level. This finding has important implications for pre-service and in-service teacher training and for education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been widely documented that accountability systems, including school inspections, bring with them unintended side effects. These unintended effects are often negative and have the potential to undo the intended positive effects. However the empirical evidence is limited. Through a European comparative study we have had the rare opportunity to collect empirical evidence and study the effects (both intended and unintended) of school inspections (a key system of accountability) in a systematic way, across seven countries. We present the findings of the unintended effects in this paper. Survey self-report responses from school principals in each country, with differing school inspection systems, are analysed to measure the prevalence of these unintended effects and to investigate the part played by pressure to do well in inspections. A key finding is that increasing pressure in school inspection systems is associated with the undesired effect of the narrowing and refocusing of the curriculum and instructional strategies. We also show that a proportion of school principals admit to misrepresenting the school in data sent to the inspectorate and show evidence for formalisation/proceduralisation (excessive focus on records) and ossification (fear of experimentation in teaching), although these factors are less related to changes in pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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