This paper will analyze the performance of Kosovar students in PISA 2015 and explain the low performance from a socioeconomic standpoint. On its first participation in this assessment, Kosovo was ranked among the three lowest achieving countries. It is the argument of this paper that parental education and home possessions, both measures of socioeconomic status, determined the performance of students in Kosovo. There is compelling evidence that links student achievement and socioeconomic factors, a link that is well established in research. PISA is the first study to link student achievement in international assessments and socioeconomic factors in Kosovo and this paper is the first one research this link in the case of Kosovo. According to the PISA results, the higher the education levels of the primary caregiver, the higher the achievement of the student. In terms of home possessions, the higher the numbers of resources (Internet, computers etc.) the higher the student achievement in mathematics, reading and science. In light of this evidence, any policy that fails to account for the impact of familial socioeconomic status will not improve the education quality in Kosovo.
Present research examines political socialization trends among student populations in Kosovo (N = 303). The study examines the variables influencing and determining political interest trends in students, initially hypothesizing that variables such as formal education and socioeconomic status will shape political interest trends. As expected, formal education settings that endorse political discussions resulted in students reporting higher rates of political interest. Surprisingly, the present study found a gender effect on political interest with female students reporting lower rates of political interest compared to male students. Since this study is the first to address the topic of political interest among students in Kosovo, it does bridge the existing gap in research. To that end, the study also addressed a gap in international literature by examining the role of informal learning. Results indicate that role models are strong agents of socialization, more specifically parents and professors were strong predictors of political interest levels in participants.
This paper sheds light on the link between achievement goals, motivation, and parental expectations in a sample of 600 students attending higher education institutions in Kosovo. Aside from exploring the stipulated link between the constructs, the research aims to discover whether cultural differences mediate expected results. The results proved that the masteryof goals positively correlates to intrinsic motivation in addition to which curiosity as a subscale of intrinsic motivation positively predicted preferences for the mastery of goals. As expected, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals, correlated to extrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation, successfully predict preferences for both types of performancegoals. The data proved that among students in Kosovo, all types of goals correlated to intrinsic motivation. Achievement goals were differentiated in extrinsic motivation with mastery goals correlating rather weakly to only one subscale of extrinsic motivation.
The current analysis aims to research the impact of ICT usage on students’ achievement in the 2018 PISA assessment. The Program for International student assessment, measures the achievement of 15-year-olds in mathematics, science and reading literacy across a large number of world economies. Kosovo has participated in the PISA assessment in 2015 for the first time and for the second time in 2018. The current study will look at the achievement of over 4000 Kosovar students in reading literacy, mathematics and science and analyze trends of ICT usage among students. More specifically the analysis focused on understanding trends of ICT and internet usage of Kosovar students, such as using computers for chatting, research information, reading literacy news, learning something new, and reading emails among others. Furthermore, the study explores gender differences in usage trends, to explore if gender plays a role in such trends. Finally, the study researches the impact on performance of gender, internet access and access to computers to complete homework. The result of the current analysis provides that access to internet and having access to computers at home links to higher achievement in all PISA scales. An additional finding of this study is that Kosovar students tend to use technology and internet mainly to chat with friends, and significantly less for reading emails, learning for something new or for doing homework. Female students reported lower internet presence compared to male students, but in the meantime were the ones who outperformed in the reading literacy and science scales, suggesting that higher online presence mainly for chatting hinders learning and achievement.
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