In recent years, Estonia has done outstandingly well in all major international comparative studies which assess the students’ learning outcomes: TIMSS 2003 and PISA 2006, 2009 and 2012. Estonia has always performed above the OECD average in math, science and reading and demonstrated the excellence through the equity.  Estonia’s improvement in PISA 2012 and recent educational policies and programmes was high-lighted in PISA 2012 international report (OECD 2013).

Estonia had the smallest proportion of students who perform below proficiency Level 2 (low performers) in math, reading and science in PISA 2012 in Europe. Estonia was already in PISA 2009, alongside the three EU Member States (with Finland and Netherland) which were above the benchmark of basic skills - Horizon 2020. Between 2006 and 2012 Estonia, increased the share of students who perform at or above proficiency Level 5 (top performers) and simultaneously reduced the share of low performers in science.

Shanghai-China and Estonia had the smallest proportion of low performers and had highest percentages (more than 75%) of students who perform at least Level 3 or higher in science.

However, those studies also revealed that although the Estonian educational system has been quite successful in supporting the learning of all students, there were statistically significant differences in performance in all fields (reading, math and science) between Estonian (ESTLI) and Russian language-instructions (RUSLI) schools.  At the same time, although Estonian students of ethnical Russian background had lower scores, they outperformed the students from Russia.

Education is multicultural and socially reconstructionist. Reinikainen (2007) claims that multi- and single country analyses focused largely on theoretical and methodological issues rather than describing and explaining the cultural issues and situations in which these results were actually produced. The researchers have shown that students’ achievement is connected with national cultural values and that a framework of cultural understanding is essential for cross-national educational research (Planel, 1997). LeTendre (2002) states that the static, national case study approach ultimately masks important findings regarding the range of cultural variation within national subunits.

The idea that what makes a “good” teacher depends on the culturally influenced expectations of students, parents, and the teachers. Many studies have described that the teaching practice are related to student outcomes (Wang, Haertel and Walberg, 1993). A number of authors have used, for example, measures of the effects of constructivist compared with “direct transmission” beliefs on teaching and learning, developed by Peterson et al. (1989).

TALIS showed differences in teacher beliefs about teaching and classroom teaching practices between teachers in ESTLI and RUSLI schools. In general, teachers in ESTLI schools had a rather constructivist view on learning and instruction, the teachers in RUSLI schools believed more in knowledge transmission, direct instruction of students and fact-based teaching. (Loogma, Ruus, Talts, & Poom-Valickis 2009). More fact-based teaching and weaker development of students’ metacognitive skills are more typical for Russian language instruction schools (Säälik, 2012).

The achievement differences in international studies are important to expand with cultural variation within national subunits. Based on authors’ previous research, we can argue that the differences in attitudes and science performance of the schools using two different languages of instruction do not stem from language problems, immigrant or socio-economic background, or low motivation rates. (Henno, Reiska 2013).

The different aspects and results previously presented have posed the central question of this study – “Could the science achievement differences between students of different language instructions schools be explained with classroom level different instructional practices.”

What teaching practises - implementation of interactive versus transmissive science teaching -dominate in science lessons of different language instruction schools?

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