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Many measurement tools on creativity are available in the literature. One of these scales is Creativity Fostering Teacher Behaviour Index (CFTIndex) developed for Singaporean teacher originally. It was then translated into Turkish and trialled on teachers in Nigde province with acceptable reliability and factorial validity. The main purpose of this study is to compare the original English and the translated Turkish versions and to explore more flexible use of CFTIndex to facilitate data collection for future research. Factor loadings of English and Turkish versions are found to be highly similar. The original version that consists of 45-item was shortened to 27-item and also grouped into five sets. Correlations with the full-length version show acceptable validity and reliability. All new versions were verified by confirmatory factor analysis. It is concluded that CFTIndex has flexible features and its shorter forms can be used with confidence. It is especially useful when a study entails collecting data for many variables.

Enjoyment of reading, diversity of reading and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies are cognitive and affective variables pertaining to three facets of reading engagement for students to read happily, widely and skilfully. These have been found to be related to effectiveness in reading instruction. They together form a focus for this study to examine the underlying student- and across-level mechanisms to explain gender differences in reading performance of Macao students. Drawing data from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 Study, the mediation effects of gender and the school's gender composition on reading performance are analysed. Two findings are of both theoretical and pedagogical interests. Firstly, the three facets of reading engagement from the nurture perspective explain substantially the within-school gender gap. Secondly, in coeducation context where students read happily and skilfully, there are gender-specific peer influences across-level onto student reading performance. Implications for gender-inclusive reading instruction programmes are discussed.

World university rankings use the weight-and-sum approach to process data. Although this seems to pass the common sense test, it has statistical problems. In recent years, seven such problems have been uncovered: spurious precision, weight discrepancies, assumed mutual compensation, indictor redundancy, inter-system discrepancy, negligence of indicator scores and inconsistency between changes in ranking and "Overall". These issues render the validity of ranking results suspect. Moreover, discussion on problems in world university ranking has been conducted mostly at the verbal level with little substantiation of supporting statistics. It is argued that discussion on ranking issues needs statistical evidential support. Modifications to the approach of processing ranking data are suggested.

Many universities strive to become world-class and two of Singapore's universities are almost there, being ranked 12th and 13th in the QSWUR 2015/16. This study looked into the details of indicator rankings and found that the two universities are comparable to those in the top 10 universities in the same ranking in practically all indicators with the exception of "Citations". Further analysis of the data of the 58 highest ranking universities with complete data revealed discrepancies in the assigned and attained indicator weights. Moreover, the "Academic" and "Citations" categories were not able to be used in stepwise regression calculations. These indicate that the computed "Overall" result is not what the ranker intended it to be and needs re-interpretation. If rankings are not anchored in statistical ground, discussions on rankings are at the abstract and verbal level, similar to discourses on alchemy (faith) vis-a-vis chemistry (facts).

In the various world university ranking schemes, the "Overall" is a sum of the weighted indicator scores. As the indicators are of a different nature from each other, "Overall" conceals important differences. Factor analysis of the data from three prominent ranking schemes reveals that there are two factors in each of the ranking systems. For Academic Rankings of World University, the two factors are both academic in nature with a time element and are "negatively" correlated. For the QS World University Ranking (QSWUR) and Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THEWUR), there are two factors each, one for academic excellence and one for managerial excellence. The two factors in QSWUR have a low negative correlation, but the two factors in THEWUR are not correlated. These findings do not support the assumption that the indicators are mutually supporting and additive as conceptualised by the ranking providers. To avoid misinterpretation of the "Overall," it is suggested that world university ranking needs be re-conceptualised to have a higher-order "institutional" excellence, comprising two lower-order measures based on "academic" excellence and "managerial" excellence. Possible future development is discussed.

Teachers play a critical role in the development of student creativity. How well they play this role depends on whether they demonstrate creativity fostering behaviour when interacting with their students. There is, however, a dearth of suitable instruments for measuring this type of teacher behaviour, although there are many instruments for measuring student creativity. Based on Arthur J. Cropley's nine principles, the "Creativity Fostering Teacher Behaviour Index" (CFTIndex) was developed and trialled with a group of teachers (N = 117) in Singapore. There are evidence showing its internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity. The need for an instrument such as the CFTIndex is witnessed by many studies based using it subsequent to its first publication. The scale has since been used by researchers in America, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and Singapore since its first appearance in the "Journal of Creativity Behavior" in 2000. Creativity researchers have used the CFTIndex for varied purposes, including several Ph.D. theses. This article highlights information directly related to CFTIndex to provide an integrated database and to facilitate future research. Possible further research studies using the CFTIndex are suggested and discussed.

Universitas 21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems (U21 Ranking) is one of the three new ranking systems appearing in 2012. In contrast with the other systems, U21 Ranking uses countries as the unit of analysis. It has several features which lend it with greater trustworthiness, but it also shared some methodological issues with the other systems. One of these is the discrepancies between nominal and attained weights. This problem is solved by standardization of indicators scores before they are weighted and summed. Multiple regression shows that the discrepancy disappears after score transformation. Implications for future ranking of universities are briefly discussed.

In PISA 2009, Finland and Singapore were both ranked high among the participating nations and have caught much attention internationally. However, a secondary analysis of the means for Reading achievement show that the differences are rather small and are attributable to spurious precision. Hence, the two nations should be considered as being on par with each other in achievements and be assigned the same rank. Spurious precision as a problem of interpreting and reporting research findings has caught the attention of researchers in several other disciplines, though not in the field of education, and this needs to be rectified. In spite of the finding of no differences in PISA Reading achievement, principals in Finland and Singapore differ somewhat in school management and involvement in school matters. It is suggested that some intervening variables (e.g., teachers' quality and instruction) are needed to explain the correlation (or the lack of it) between principals' management styles and student Reading achievement. It is also suggested that school principals' management styles might have been influenced by the cultural milieus of the countries and have influenced students' social-emotional development, which is not measured by PISA.

World university rankings (WUR) use the weight-and-sum approach to arrive at an overall measure which is then used to rank the participating universities of the world. Although the weight-and-sum procedure seems straightforward and accords with common sense, it has hidden methodological or statistical problems which render the meaning of the overall measure (and therefore the ranking results) suspect. The study investigates indicator weight inconsistency and multicolinearity. The 2013 ranking results of the ARWU, QSWUR, and THEWUR for the top 100 universities were re-analysed. Correlations, weight discrepancies, and tolerances were estimated and then compared across the three ranking systems. Weight discrepancy and multicolinearity were found in all three systems to different degrees. These can be attributed to the nature of the indicators and their inter-correlations. Each system has strengths and weaknesses. Rank users need to be aware of the interpretive problems, to avoid equating the rankings from the systems, and to make specific reference to the system concerned when citing rankings. Re-conceptualisation and possible modifications to the systems are discussed.

International achievement comparison studies assess students on core subjects such as Reading, Mathematics and Science. Students who do not speak the test language at home can be expected to be disadvantaged because of language proficiency. The test language effect has not been given sufficient attention. The present study investigated probable test language effect by using as data the country means reported in Reading, the PISA 2009 Reading. There was a wide range of proportions of non-speaker of test language among the participating countries. The average proportion of test language speakers is 80% with a wide standard deviation of 22%. The Reading mean for test language speakers is 39.2 points greater the that for non-speakers and the effect size is Cohen's "d" = 0.69. An adjusted Reading means to off-set test language effect was suggested. Careful scrutiny of the differences between original and adjusted means indicates that the test language effect is not simply linear. Effectiveness in second-language teaching may account for this complexity. Further research is indicated.