U.S. Students Above OECD Average in Science, Reading, and Computational Problem Solving

 

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) today released the U.S. results from the 2025 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international study of how 15-year-olds around the world apply their knowledge and skills to real-world challenges. Administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), PISA assesses student performance in science, mathematics, and reading. In 2025, 91 education systems participated, including 38 OECD member countries. U.S. students scored above the OECD average in science and reading, while the U.S. mathematics score was not significantly different from the OECD average. Average U.S. scores in science and mathematics were not measurably different from those in 2022, while the reading score was significantly lower than in 2022. PISA 2025 also introduced Learning in the Digital World, a new assessment that measures how students build knowledge and solve problems using digital tools. U.S. students scored above the OECD average in computational problem solving, one of the two reporting subscales of this new assessment. The report also examines longer-term trends across PISA cycles. The 2025 cycle was the largest in PISA's history, with more than 760,000 students participating across 91 education systems. PISA 2025 was the ninth cycle of the assessment, which was first administered in 2000. View the full report on the PISA 2025 U.S. Results page. Learn more about PISA.

Tracking Inequality: Teachers and the Allocation of Educational Opportunities

Professionals routinely make consequential decisions for others without systematically observing how those decisions turn out. Whether such decisions reflect accurate forecasting or systematically distorted beliefs has important implications for equality of opportunity. 

This study looks at this question in the context of teachers' recommendations for high school tracks by combining nationwide administrative data, randomized vignette experiments, belief elicitation, and a field experiment. 

Holding students' academic performance and interests constant, teachers are significantly less likely to recommend demanding academic tracks when students come from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. This differential treatment is accompanied by systematically inaccurate beliefs: teachers substantially overestimate the probability that high-achieving disadvantaged students will fail in academically demanding schools. 

The authors then provided teachers with personalized feedback on their previous recommendations and objective information on the realized success of disadvantaged students. The intervention substantially reduces socioeconomic gaps in recommendations for high-achieving students. Effects are concentrated among boys assigned to teachers with the largest prior recommendation gaps and the most inaccurate beliefs. 

Among the high-achieving disadvantaged boys most affected by the intervention, these changes translate into higher enrollment in demanding academic tracks, without detectable adverse effects on short-run academic performance. 

Do games make children more attentive or more distractible?

 A study of preschool children found that brief digital or traditional gameplay improved performance on tasks requiring quick responses, but reduced performance on tasks demanding greater concentration and self-control.

Digital technologies are now part of the daily lives of many children, and video games are among the most engaging forms of play during the preschool years. However, despite their widespread use, the debate regarding their cognitive consequences remains open. Numerous studies have examined the long-term effects of video games on cognitive development, yet little is known about the immediate psychological effects of brief play sessions in early childhood.

Studies involving school-aged children, adolescents and young adults have generally reported positive or neutral effects of video gaming, with no consistent evidence of negative impacts. However, in preschool-aged children, because the brain mechanisms responsible for attention, self-control and the management of distractions are still developing, the effects of video games may be more pronounced than at later stages of development.

With support from the Bial Foundation, Andrea Facoetti, Sara Bertoni, Sandro Franceschini and Giovanna Puccio (University of Padua, Italy) led a study involving 48 typically developing children with a mean age of 5.4 years to investigate whether a brief play session - digital or non-digital - temporarily alters the balance between attentional processes and cognitive control.

In the article “Brief digital and traditional gameplay transiently reallocate attentional resources in preschool children”, published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports, the authors explain that each participant was assessed under three different conditions: a control condition with no play activity, a 30-minute session of an age-appropriate action video game (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe), and a 30-minute session involving a traditional construction-based game (Tangram). Following each condition, the children completed tests assessing attention, speech-sound processing, visual perception and motor coordination.

The findings showed that both video games and traditional games produced similar immediate effects. After the play sessions, children performed better on tasks requiring the rapid detection of relevant stimuli. In contrast, the same pattern was not observed when tasks demanded greater cognitive control. When children had to ignore visual distractions, their performance declined following the play sessions. Moreover, these effects became more pronounced as task complexity increased.

The study suggests that brief and emotionally engaging play experiences - whether digital or traditional - may temporarily enhance more automatic attentional processes at the expense of control and regulatory abilities that require greater cognitive effort in preschool children. The determining factor appears to be the level of psychological engagement and attentional activation generated by the activity, rather than the type of game itself.

From an educational perspective, the findings suggest that the period immediately following an intense play activity may be less suitable for tasks requiring sustained concentration, self-control or resistance to distractions. Conversely, it may represent an opportunity for activities that benefit from rapid responses, active exploration of the environment or efficient detection of relevant information.

“Understanding this short-term multisensory and sensorimotor modulation is essential for guiding the integration of digital play into early childhood learning environments,” emphasise the authors.

Learn more about the project “153/24 - Psychophysiological activation and learning (to Learn): Evidence from action-like video games to mindfulness” here.

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Journal

Computers in Human Behavior Reports

DOI

10.1016/j.chbr.2026.101183 

Children’s suicide-related emergency visits spiked by 74% in the US

 Emergency visits by children with suicide-related crises increased by 74% between 2016 and 2022, according to a new study from scientists at Northwestern University and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

The study represented more than 5 million emergency department (ED) visits for mental health concerns by U.S. children in the six-year period. About half of suicide-related ED visits — and half of all children’s mental health ED visits — occurred in hospitals with lower pediatric volume (under 10,000 annually). A child experiencing a mental health crisis may arrive at any emergency department, and many are not prepared to care for children with acute mental health needs, the study authors said. 

“Our findings underscore the need to equip every ED — not only large pediatric centers — with tools and resources to provide evidence-based mental health care,” said lead author Dr. Audrey Brewer, assistant professor of advanced pediatrics and primary care at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Strengthening mental and behavioral health capacity across all emergency care settings is essential to ensuring children receive timely, effective and equitable care.”

The study was published Sept. 3 in Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Brewer, who also is a pediatrician and researcher at Lurie Children’s, stressed that all EDs need additional training and access to pediatric mental health professionals, either onsite or via telehealth, as well as linkage to follow-up care. Additionally, she said every ED also needs to offer universal suicide screening for children, regardless of if they come in for a mental health concern. And if there are concerns, EDs should provide families with a clear plan to help keep their child safe at home. 

The study analyzed ED visits among children ages 5-17 with a primary mental health diagnosis, using the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample database. 

Additional findings:

• All pediatric mental health-related ED visits increased by 24% during the study period
• Suicide-related ED visits increased 74% during the study period
• The most frequent mental health diagnosis groups were suicide or self-injury (24%) and depressive disorders (23%)
• Indigenous children were more likely to come to EDs with lower pediatric volume
• Youth with substance use concerns were seen more often at lower pediatric volume EDs
• At EDs with the lowest pediatric volume, close to 30% of children seen for mental health conditions were transferred to other hospitals to receive definitive care

“Transfer to another hospital for pediatric mental health care often means a prolonged wait in the ED, sometimes lasting days, increasing the burden on children and their families,” said senior author Dr. Jennifer Hoffmann, assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine and medical social sciences at Feinberg and a pediatric emergency medicine physician and researcher at Lurie Children’s. “Toolkits are readily available to help EDs care for children with mental health needs, especially while kids wait for a transfer to another facility.” 

Hoffmann said EDs across the country can access the New England Regional Behavioral Health Toolkit, as well as the National Pediatric Readiness Project, to improve the care provided to children, including youth with mental and behavioral health conditions.

“To improve care, ED-based mental health interventions need to be developed and tested for children of color, since many have not been studied in diverse populations,” Brewer said. “Delivering culturally responsive, evidence-based interventions for children in the community and outpatient primary care settings can help to potentially lessen ED reliance for mental health care and may help reduce disparities in youth mental health outcomes.”

Health warnings could reduce young people’s social media use

Pop-up messages that warn of the harms of social media — such as mental health consequences — have potential to reduce young people’s social media use, a new Stanford Medicine study has found. The online experiment of about 1,000 teens and young adults found that warnings also boosted people’s knowledge of the risks of social media use.

The research, which will publish online Sept. 4 in JAMA Health Forum, was inspired by a 2024 call from then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, to add health warning labels to social media, in the same way that tobacco, alcohol and other risky products carry warnings. Four U.S. states have since passed legislation mandating such warnings; California’s law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Warning labels are one of many tactics that could help people use social media in a healthier way, said lead study author Anna Grummon, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics. But they haven’t been rigorously investigated.

“We haven’t known what warnings for social media should say, or if they’re promising for changing behavior,” Grummon said. “Sometimes, subtle changes to warnings really matter.”

The study found that, of 15 messages tested, those on overall mental health harms and warnings specific to depression and anxiety resonated most with young people.

“Teens and young adults consistently reported that they felt the warning messages we tested would reduce their social media use compared with a control message,” said senior study author Thomas Robinson, MD, the Irving Schulman, MD, Professor in Child Health.

“Our data suggests these warnings could work, so it’s worth spending time to get the language just right,” Grummon added.

Negative effects of social media

Nearly all U.S. teens and young adults use some form of social media. Previous research has linked excessive social media use to several negative outcomes, including depression, anxiety, worsened body image and sleep disruption.

Adding warnings to social media has broad support, Grummon said, noting that after the surgeon general’s call in 2024, a bipartisan coalition of 42 state attorneys general petitioned Congress to enact warnings at a federal level. In addition to the states that have passed warning laws (California, Colorado, Minnesota and New York), lawmakers in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania have proposed legislation. California’s law has specific warning language built into the legislation; other states have not specified the warnings’ wording.

The Stanford Medicine researchers tested 14 warnings and a control message, using questionnaires administered to 1,012 young people. About half were teenagers who were 13 to 17 years old, and half were young adults, 18 to 29 years old. As part of the questionnaire, they provided information about their demographics and which social media platforms they used.

The researchers developed warning messages on six health topics: social media addiction, negative body image, sleep disruption, depression, anxiety, overall mental health harms and the fact that social media has not been proven safe for young people. They devised two warnings on each topic. They also tested California’s warning.

For instance, one of the messages about sleep said, “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Using social media causes sleep problems. This is bad for your health.” Another message tested said, “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Social media is associated with significant mental health harms for children and young adults.”

Because some social media companies have suggested they could provide their own warnings, the researchers also tested a message suggesting a screen time break which was similar to one used on TikTok. Finally, the control message discussed seatbelt safety, a health topic that is relevant to young people but unrelated to social media use.

Participants saw the messages in random order, formatted as though they were appearing on an Instagram page. They rated each message in response to two questions: “How much does this message discourage you from wanting to use social media?” and “How much does this message increase your awareness of the harms of using social media?”

Mental health harm resonates

Participants rated all the warning messages as more effective than the control message. They also rated all warnings that mentioned health effects, except the addiction warning, as more effective than the message suggesting a screen time break.

The messages perceived as most effective were those about overall mental health harms, depression and anxiety. Although the data does not show why those messages performed best, “if I were to speculate, I would say that these are harms that resonate with people,” Grummon said. “People may think, ‘That’s right, I can see that happening to my friends or to me,’ and these are outcomes people care about.”

Teens and young adults responded similarly to the warnings, the study found. The researchers had suspected the age groups might differ.

“If you’re a few years older, it makes a big difference in your experience with digital media since the landscape is changing so quickly,” Robinson said. “But our teen and young adult participants consistently said they felt these messages would reduce their social media use.”

The California warning performed fairly well — its perceived effectiveness was on par with other health warnings, even though it is longer and more complex. It says, “The Surgeon General has warned that while social media may have benefits for some young users, social media is associated with significant mental health harms and has not been proven safe for young users.”

“We talked to the people who created the bill, and they told us the rationale behind it,” Robinson said. “It’s not the message we would have designed, but we think we understand why it performed well, and it was meant to stand up to legal scrutiny. All these bills are in litigation, being challenged by the social media industry.”

The next step is to conduct more extensive tests to see if the warnings in fact reduce social media use.

“With substances like tobacco and alcohol, we find, on average, that well-designed warning labels change behavior,” Grummon said. “But social media is a totally different product from cigarettes or alcohol or sugary drinks, where you just put the warning on the product and it lives there. Social media laws are written so that these warnings are basically pop-ups. We need to find out more about how that changes behavior.”

School-based prevention programs for gaming disorder and problematic online habits

 

School-based prevention programs are designed to help protect adolescents from gaming disorder and problematic online habits. But how effective are these interventions when it comes to promoting responsible use of video games and the Internet? A research team led by Prof. Dr. Katajun Lindenberg of the Institute of Psychology at Heidelberg University investigated this question as part of a statewide study in which a total of approximately 1,800 adolescents from 44 secondary schools in Baden-Württemberg participated. The results show that, in the long run, a four-week behavioral therapy-based program achieved greater effects among participants at high risk of addiction than a media education program did.

“Against the backdrop of ongoing debates about effective measures to protect the mental health of young people in the digital age, the question of effective interventions is highly relevant,” emphasizes Katajun Lindenberg, who is Professor of Clinical Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence at Heidelberg University and directs the Psychotherapeutic University Outpatient Clinic for Children and Adolescents. In addition to much-discussed regulatory measures such as age restrictions, there are parallel calls for measures designed to empower young people to use video games and the Internet responsibly. These include prevention programs based on behavioral therapy or media education approaches. “Our research provides important empirical insights into which programs and content are particularly effective and which target groups benefit the most.” To this end, the scientists compared the behavioral therapy intervention PROTECTtraining and the media education program PROTECTinfo – two interventions developed for the school setting that are identical in terms of duration and implementation effort but differ in content.

Gaming disorder and other problematic online habits – such as excessive use of social media – can lead to reduced mental and physical health among adolescents as well as serious impairments in important areas of life such as school, family, friendships, and leisure time. To determine how effective school-based interventions are in preventing online addictive behavior, the researchers conducted a four-year randomized study involving adolescents aged 11 to 18. As part of this, 1,793 students participated in a four-week intervention consisting of a total of four 90-minute sessions. Half of the adolescents completed the behavioral therapy program PROTECTtraining that, among other things, explained the vicious cycle of addiction and provided training in behavior change and emotion regulation. A second control group participated in the media education program PROTECTinfo covering topics such as media literacy, gaming, cyberbullying, and legal aspects.

As part of the prevention study, the research team assessed the participants’ online addiction behaviors and mental well-being at the beginning and end of the programs as well as after four and twelve months. The researchers conducted a separate analysis for adolescents who had been identified as having a comparatively high risk of addiction at the start of the study. The final survey, conducted one year after the programs began, revealed that among adolescents without a risk of addictive behavior – the majority of study participants – there was hardly any measurable effect on their symptoms. In contrast, for adolescents at high risk of addiction, both interventions proved effective; however, the behavioral therapy intervention was significantly more effective.

“In a direct comparison, the behavioral therapy program is 50 percent more effective against gaming disorder and other problematic online behaviors than the media education program,” stresses Prof. Lindenberg. According to the Heidelberg researcher, these results also underscore that targeted measures tailored to at-risk groups in the school setting achieve significantly better results and are more resource-efficient than prevention programs implemented on a broad scale.

The then Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the former Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration funded the research. The results appear in the journal “JAMA Network Open”.

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.31942 

Five ways K–12 leaders can strengthen teacher recognition beyond appreciation weeks

 

University of Phoenix College of Doctoral Studies has published a new white paper, “Beyond Appreciation Weeks: Building Teacher Recognition Into the Everyday Work of K–12 Leadership,” by Contessa Walker-Jackson, Ed.D., alumni fellow with the University’s Center for Educational and Instructional Technology Research (CEITR). In the paper, Walker-Jackson examines how K–12 school leaders can move beyond episodic teacher-appreciation activities by making substantive teacher recognition part of everyday leadership practice.

The full white paper is available as a direct link here.

Walker-Jackson distinguishes between appreciation — general expressions of gratitude directed toward teachers as a group — and recognition, which acknowledges a specific professional contribution by an individual teacher. The paper argues that both have a place in school culture, but that recognition is most meaningful when it is specific, consistent and connected to teachers’ actual work.

“Teacher appreciation plays an important role in school culture, but recognition highlights the specific work that a teacher has accomplished,” said Walker-Jackson. “A principal who notices well is a gem to the school. A principal who departs without incorporating a system of recognition into the school's operations creates a potential failure within the institution, as the elements that contributed to teachers feeling acknowledged and valued will leave with them.”

Why is teacher recognition different from teacher appreciation?

Walker-Jackson argues that appreciation activities such as staff celebrations, thank-you notes and appreciation weeks can help schools express collective gratitude and create opportunities for connection. However, the paper distinguishes those activities from substantive recognition, which is tied to something a leader has directly observed a teacher accomplish.

Drawing on established motivation theory, recent research on teacher engagement and narrative interviews with current and former teachers, the paper suggests that recognition becomes more meaningful when it reinforces professional competence, belonging and contribution rather than functioning primarily as a scheduled or generic gesture.

The distinction is particularly important for school leaders, Walker-Jackson writes, because recognition practices that depend primarily on the preferences of an individual principal may disappear when leadership changes. Building recognition into school routines and expectations can make the practice more consistent over time.

What did teachers say makes recognition meaningful?

For the paper, Walker-Jackson conducted semi-structured narrative interviews with 10 current and former teachers at a faith-based private school in the southeastern United States. The analysis identified six themes:

• Consistency matters. Teachers described recognition as less meaningful when it was unpredictable or dependent on the preferences of an individual leader.
• Culture shapes recognition. Participants emphasized that recognition should reflect the values and norms of the school community, with some preferring private or quieter acknowledgment.
• Leadership plays a central role. Teachers reported that the presence and quality of recognition could change significantly with a change in principal.
• Specific recognition can affect morale. Participants described small, targeted gestures as meaningful when they acknowledged something the teacher had actually done.
• Tangible recognition can have lasting value. Some participants valued recognition that created a visible or enduring acknowledgment of their contribution.
• Structure supports continuity. Teachers with experience across different settings described recognition as more reliable when supported by established practices rather than individual goodwill.

Across the interviews, Walker-Jackson found that teachers tended to describe recognition as meaningful when it was specific and tied to a real professional contribution, while generic, inconsistent or leader-dependent recognition was more likely to be viewed as insufficient.

How can K–12 leaders make teacher recognition part of everyday practice?

The white paper identifies five practices school and district leaders can consider:

1. Replace generic praise with named-action feedback. Give teachers timely feedback that identifies a specific instructional action or professional contribution and its observed effect.
2. Use post-observation conversations as recognition opportunities. Treat the conversation following a classroom observation as an opportunity to acknowledge professional strengths, not solely as an evaluation or compliance step.
3. Protect planning time as a form of recognition. Recognize the importance of teachers’ professional preparation by protecting planning periods from unnecessary disruption when possible.
4. Build recognition practices that survive leadership changes. Establish consistent expectations, review cycles and leadership responsibilities so recognition does not depend entirely on one principal’s personal habits.
5. Train principals in specific recognition. Treat effective recognition as a leadership skill that can be developed through coaching and incorporated into leadership expectations.

Together, the recommendations position recognition not as a once-a-year event, but as a leadership discipline that can be practiced, reinforced and evaluated as part of everyday school operations.

The paper notes important limitations to the findings. The narrative interviews involved 10 current and former teachers from one faith-based private school in the southeastern United States, and Walker-Jackson recommends further research in public schools, additional geographic regions and other educational settings. As the five recommended leadership practices have not yet been tested together as a single intervention, the paper presents them as evidence-informed leadership practices for further consideration and study.

About the author

Dr. Walker-Jackson is an Alumni Fellow with the University of Phoenix Center for Educational and Instructional Technology Research (CEITR) and founding president of the University of Phoenix Alabama Alumni Chapter. An educator, educational consultant, and K-12 school founder with more than two decades in education, she advises schools, districts, and homeschool programs on curriculum design, differentiated instruction, and teacher development. She is a National Certified Trainer in Differentiated Instruction, holds teaching certification in Alabama and Arizona, and founded Teacher's PETS Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization serving underserved students since 2007. Walker-Jackson earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Curriculum and Instruction from University of Phoenix, and a bachelor's in elementary education from Oakwood University. She can be reached through her LinkedIn profile.