Variable selection via the adaptive elastic net- mathematics success of the students in Singapore and Turkey

The quality of education is crucial for its competitiveness in the developing world. International tests are organized at regular intervals to measure the quality of education and to see the place in the ranking of countries. The surveys on these examinations have provided a large number of variables that can be effective on the test scores, including family, teacher, school and course equipment and information communication technologies, etc. The important question is which variables are relevant for student achievement in these tests. The barriers of mathematics success of Turkish students in the TIMSS (International Mathematics and Science Study) exam were investigated and compared their status with Singaporean students who took part in at the top of the ranking in the exam. To do this, the adaptive elastic net which is one of the regularized regression methods was applied and compared their prediction accuracy according to three different alpha levels [0.1; 0.5; 0.9]. The findings indicate that individual, institutional, socioeconomic factors such as talented teachers, less homework, less extensive textbooks, and lessons that improving cognitive ability; home education resources as well as technological factors are effective in the educational performances of countries. The findings suggest that, a technology-oriented education system and these individual, institutional, socioeconomic factors can help increase the success of students in Turkey along with other countries which are having similar experiences in international tests.