| The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between teachers' and students' perceptions of the opportunity to learn and student achievement in algebra in 13-year-old students, Population A of the IEA Second International Mathematics Study. Two related contexts were considered: (1) student entry knowledge in mathematics and (2) the content domain being taught.;Are teacher opportunity to learn and student opportunity to learn good predictors of student achievement? Both teacher opportunity to learn and student opportunity to learn, taught this year, positively influenced achievement. However, in some countries the opportunity to learn variable had a small effect on achievement because of the homogeneity of the curriculum or the effect of having previously been taught the topic.;Which is the better predictor of student achievement, teacher opportunity to learn or student opportunity to learn? Although the opportunity to learn as preceived by teachers is consistently higher than the opportunity to learn as preceived by students in the corresponding classes, the student opportunity to learn rating is better predictor of achievement gain than is the teacher opportunity to learn rating.;What is the relationship between the coverage and student achievement gain for each level of entry knowledge in mathematics? For each ability group, the mean teacher opportunity to learn score is higher than the corresponding mean student opportunity to learn score. Student opportunity to learn is a better predictor of student achievement gain than the corresponding teacher opportunity to learn for high and middle ability classes.;The data used in this study came from five countries: France, Japan, New Zealand, Ontario-Canada, and the United States. The data analyses were done at the class level. Four research questions were addressed in this study.;What level of coverage is optimal for student achievement gain in classes of high, middle, and low knowledge in mathematics? A high student opportunity to learn rating appears to an optimal condition for high and middle ability students. Time allocation itself was not a salient factor of achievement gain and no significant interactions between opportunity to learn and time allocation were found. |
