Oleksandra Mittal

• Mittal, Oleksandra; Scherer, Ronny & Nilsen, Trude (2022). Assessing the evidence for the comparability of socioeconomic status between students with and without immigrant background in Norway and Sweden. Large-scale Assessments in Education. ISSN 2196-0739. 10(1). doi: 10.1186/s40536-022-00132-w. Full text in Research Archive
• Bergem, Ole Kristian; Nilsen, Trude; Mittal, Oleksandra & Ræder, Henrik Galligani (2020). Can teachers’ instruction increase low-SES students’ motivation to learn mathematics? . In Frønes, Tove Stjern; Pettersen, Andreas; Radišić, Jelena & Buchholtz, Nils (Ed.), Equity, Equality and Diversity in the Nordic Model of Education. Springer. ISSN 9783030616472. p. 251–272. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-61648-9_10. Show summary

  Students’ motivation in mathematics has been shown to predict their achievement and whether they pursue a later career in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). To sustain equity in education, it is important that students are motivated for the STEM fields, independent of their background characteristics (e.g., gender and SES). Previous research has revealed that students’ motivation declines from primary to secondary school. The present study investigates whether this unwanted development may be related to students’ SES, and more importantly, what aspects of teachers’ instruction are related to student motivation for low, medium, and high-SES student groups in grade 5 and 9. We use data from students in grades 5 and 9 and their teachers who participated in TIMSS 2015 in Norway. Multilevel (students and classes), multi-group structural equation modelling is used to answer the research questions. In line with previous research from Germany and the USA, the results showed that SES is more important to student motivation in secondary than primary school, that low SES students’ motivation depends more on their teachers’ instructional quality than high SES students and that this dependency is stronger in secondary school than in primary school. The implications and contributions of the study are discussed.

• Mittal, Oleksandra; Nilsen, Trude & Björnsson, Julius Kristjan (2020). Measuring equity across the Nordic education systems: Conceptual and methodological choices as implications for educational policies. . In Frønes, Tove Stjern; Pettersen, Andreas; Radišić, Jelena & Buchholtz, Nils (Ed.), Equity, Equality and Diversity in the Nordic Model of Education. Springer. ISSN 9783030616472. p. 43–71. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-61648-9_3. Show summary

  Ever since international large-scale student assessments made it possible to rank countries according to their equitability, Nordic countries have topped these rankings. Nevertheless, a decline in equity has been reported lately. However, the process of empirical enquiry that leads to specific inferences on equity partly stays obscure to education decision-makers. This unawareness of the boundaries of specific methodological and analytical approaches may lead to wrong interpretations and policy implications. Therefore, our aim is to discuss and empirically illustrate how the array of choices taken throughout the research process, from equity conceptualization and operationalization to its measurement, may affect the inferences on educational equity for Nordic countries. Our sample includes fourth- and eighthgrade students from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland who participated in TIMSS 2015. We applied two-level multigroup regression models within the structural equation modelling framework to investigate the sensitivity of the countries’ level of equity to: (a) operationalization of the socioeconomic status measure; (b) operationalization of equity or, in other words, the method of analysis employed (e.g., bivariate analysis versus univariate); (c) single-level against multilevel analytical approaches; (d) the grade/age of students; and (e) the choice of the learning outcome across subject domains. Prior to the analyses, we estimated the comparability of SES as a latent construct between Nordic countries. Our results confirmed that some of the most common choices to measure educational equity do matter. Thus, we would encourage a researcher to report elaborately on the research process and inform on its limitations because if interpreted wrongly, it may have unfavourable consequences for a particular group of individuals.

View all works in Cristin

• Mittal, Oleksandra; Scherer, Ronny & Nilsen, Trude (2022). Assessing the Evidence for Comparability of Socioeconomic Status across Students with and without Immigrant Background in Norway and Sweden [Paper presentation]. Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland.
• Mittal, Oleksandra (2022). Measuring Educational Equity across the Nordics. Methodological Choices as Implications for Educational Policies [Paper presentation]. Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland.
• Teig, Nani; Mittal, Oleksandra & Senden, Bas (2021). Seminar om ulike måter å analysere kvantitative data på. DIFO4015 – Didaktisk forskningsmetode med praksis, ILS, University of Oslo.
• Mittal, Oleksandra & Nilsen, Trude (2021). Measuring Equity across the Nordics. Methodological Choices as Implications for Educational Policies [Paper presentation]. The 19th Biennial EARLI Conference (online), University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
• Mittal, Oleksandra; Scherer, Ronny & Nilsen, Trude (2021). Measuring Socioeconomic Status across Ethnic Majority and Minorities in PISA 2018: Testing Household Possessions Index for Differential Item Functioning [Paper presentation]. European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Geneva (online). https://eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/26/contribution/51551/.
• Mittal, Oleksandra; Nilsen, Trude & Bjørnsson, Julius Kristjan (2021). Measuring Educational Equity Across Nordic Countries. Conceptual and Methodological Choices as Implications for Educational Policies [Paper presentation]. The 9th IEA International Research Conference (IRC), Dubai, UAE. https://online.flippingbook.com/view/1029174133/.
• Mittal, Oleksandra & Senden, Bas (2020). Seminar on the analysis of quantitative data - quality in research. DIFO4015 – Didaktisk forskningsmetode med praksis: analyse og framstilling av data, ILS, University of Oslo.
• Mittal, Oleksandra (2020). Measuring Socioeconomic Status and Educational Equity: Validity and Cross-Cultural Comparability in Nordic Countries and Beyond [Presentation of a PhD project]. University of Oslo, Norway.
• Mittal, Oleksandra & Nilsen, Trude (2020). Measuring Equity across the Nordic Education Systems [Poster]. Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, Norway.
• Mittal, Oleksandra (2019). The Mediating Role of Student’s Academic Self-Beliefs in Studying Educational Equity: A comparison between Sweden and Ukraine in TIMSS 2011. Department of Education and Special Education at University of Gothenburg. Show summary

  The aim of this master thesis was to enrich the understanding of student-level mechanisms involved in shaping (in)equity in educational outcomes in Sweden and Ukraine by examining the role of academic self-beliefs in science, represented by motivational constructs of self-concept, interest and utility value, as mediators of the association between student socioeconomic status and achievement in science. Eccles and colleagues´ expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation laid out the fundament for the author’s empirical model. Their perspective was used to identify within TIMSS 2011 two sets of hierarchical self-beliefs constructing academic identity. Only academic self-concept or self-confidence in science was found to be a significant non-cognitive mediating factor in the interplay between student socioeconomic status and science achievement in both Sweden and Ukraine. Overall, the findings confirmed that in order to get a fair image of educational equity in the country it is important to go from the individual level up to family, classroom, school and society, and no other way around, as they are additional layers built up around the individual’s non-cognitive and cognitive characteristics.

View all works in Cristin