Skill levels and gains in university STEM education in China, India, Russia and the United States.

Universities contribute to economic growth and national competitiveness by equipping students with higher-order thinking and academic skills. Despite large investments in university science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, little is known about how the skills of STEM undergraduates compare across countries and by institutional selectivity. Here, we provide direct evidence on these issues by collecting and analysing longitudinal data on tens of thousands of computer science and electrical engineering students in China, India, Russia and the United States. We find stark differences in skill levels and gains among countries and by institutional selectivity. Compared with the United States, students in China, India and Russia do not gain critical thinking skills over four years. Furthermore, while students in India and Russia gain academic skills during the first two years, students in China do not. These gaps in skill levels and gains provide insights into the global competitiveness of STEM university students across nations and institutional types.

Computer science skills across China, India, Russia, and the United States.

We assess and compare computer science skills among final-year computer science undergraduates (seniors) in four major economic and political powers that produce approximately half of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates in the world. We find that seniors in the United States substantially outperform seniors in China, India, and Russia by 0.76-0.88 SDs and score comparably with seniors in elite institutions in these countries. Seniors in elite institutions in the United States further outperform seniors in elite institutions in China, India, and Russia by ∼0.85 SDs. The skills advantage of the United States is not because it has a large proportion of high-scoring international students. Finally, males score consistently but only moderately higher (0.16-0.41 SDs) than females within all four countries.

Investigation of Response Changes in the GRE Revised General Test.

Research on examinees' response changes on multiple-choice tests over the past 80 years has yielded some consistent findings, including that most examinees make score gains by changing answers. This study expands the research on response changes by focusing on a high-stakes admissions test-the Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning measures of the GRE revised General Test. We analyzed data from 8,538 examinees for Quantitative and 9,140 for Verbal sections who took the GRE revised General Test in 12 countries. The analyses yielded findings consistent with prior research. In addition, as examinees' ability increases, the benefit of response changing increases. The study yielded significant implications for both test agencies and test takers. Computer adaptive tests often do not allow the test takers to review and revise. Findings from this study confirm the benefit of such features.

Sources of self-efficacy belief: development and validation of two scales.

Self-efficacy belief has been an instrumental affective factor in predicting student behavior and achievement in academic settings. Although there is abundant literature on efficacy belief per se, the sources of efficacy belief have not been fully researched. Very few instruments exist to quantify the sources of efficacy-beliefs. To fill this void, we developed two scales for the two main sources of self-efficacy belief: past performance and social persuasion. Pilot test data were collected from 255 middle school students. A self-efficacy measure was also administered to the students as a criterion measure. The Rasch rating scale model was used to analyze the data. Information on item fit, item design, content validity, external validity, internal consistency, and person separation reliability was examined. The two scales displayed satisfactory psychometric properties. Applications and limitations of these two scales are also discussed.

A modified procedure for parallel analysis of ordered categorical data.

Parallel analysis has been well documented to be an effective and accurate method for determining the number of factors to retain in exploratory factor analysis. The O'Connor (2000) procedure for parallel analysis has many benefits and is widely applied, yet it has a few shortcomings in dealing with missing data and ordinal variables. To address these technical issues, we adapted and modified the O'Connor procedure to provide an alternative method that better approximates the ordinal data by factoring in the frequency distributions of the variables (e.g., the number of response categories and the frequency of each response category per variable). The theoretical and practical differences between the modified procedure and the O'Connor procedure are discussed. The SAS syntax for implementing this modified procedure is also provided.

A multidimensional Rasch analysis of gender differences in PISA mathematics.

Since the 1970s, much attention has been devoted to the male advantage in standardized mathematics tests in the United States. Although girls are found to perform equally well as boys in math classes, they are consistently outperformed on standardized math tests. This study compared the males and females in the United States, all 15-year-olds, by their performance on the PISA 2003 mathematics assessment. A multidimensional Rasch model was used for item calibration and ability estimation on the basis of four math domains: Space and Shape, Change and Relationships, Quantity, and Uncertainty. Results showed that the effect sizes of performance differences are small, all below .20, but consistent, in favor of boys. Space and Shape displayed the largest gender gap, which supports the findings from many previous studies. Quantity showed the least amount of gender difference, which may be explained by the hypothesis that girls perform better on tasks that they are familiar with through classroom practice.