Teaching quality is another factor that appears to be associated with gender differences in achievement in Saudi Arabia. Female entrants to the teaching profession in Saudi Arabia tend to score higher than their male counterparts on the teacher licensure examination. This is consistent with evidence from other countries, which shows that the teaching profession attracts more high-ability female teachers than male teachers (Carroll, Parasnis, and Tani 2021; Corcoran, Evans, and Schwab 2004). The differences in abilities between female and male teachers could be explained, in part, by the gender differences in returns to education across occupations (World Bank 2012; Cortes and Pan 2018). Research on teacher labor markets has shown that the opportunity cost of becoming a teacher is lower for women than men, due primarily to the limited occupational opportunities for women outside the field of education (Carroll, Parasnis, and Tani 2021). Additionally, teaching is traditionally a preferable profession for women in Saudi Arabia. The competition among female graduates for teaching jobs in Saudi Arabia is much higher than the competition among males. From the demand side, this implies a higher probability of selecting cognitively talented teachers from female graduates than from male graduates.

The analyses presented in this paper have accounted for a high proportion of the observed variance in mathematics and science achievement in Saudi Arabia (ranging from 39 percent to 41 percent across subject domains and grade levels). Notably, these models largely account for the portion of variance in achievement that can be attributed to the class/school level. This suggests that policy makers may reasonably hope that focusing their attention on improving the class/school-level issues identified here (e.g., safe and orderly school climate, support for academic achievement, teacher attendance and timekeeping) would contribute to creating an education system that promotes higher levels of student achievement. However, the fact that the majority of variance in achievement (70–75 percent) is attributable to student-level factors means that policy makers will also have to look at the home environment and broader society, as well as the school environment, in order to raise levels of achievement and close the (currently very wide) gaps in achievement between boys and girls in Saudi Arabia. This student-level variance has been partly explained by variables examined here (e.g., students’ early literacy and numeracy skills, attitudes toward mathematics and science, experiences of bullying, and level of access to home resources for learning), but significant variance remains unexplained.

# 5.3 Limitations

The conclusions that can be drawn from these analyses are limited to being correlational in nature, as TIMSS and NALO are both cross-sectional studies. This means that it would be incorrect to claim on the basis of these results alone that changes in any of the included variables will lead to corresponding changes in student achievement. In some cases, the findings presented here are clearly consistent with theoretical expectations and evidence from other settings—for example, that promoting more regular attendance at a school with a learning-supportive climate may reasonably be expected to have positive implications for student learning. Nonetheless, readers should be aware that the model results need to be interpreted cautiously and with due regard to the wider theoretical and empirical literature. Informed decisions should be based on a broad reading of the literature and the evidence base, including the new results presented in this paper, rather than on any single study.

The results of the models hint at the importance of teachers and teaching quality as contributing factors to student outcomes. However, the strength of any conclusions drawn in this paper related to teaching are constrained by limitations in the available data. For example, the TIMSS variable describing teachers’ qualifications at grade 4 was omitted from analysis due to an error identified in the Saudi Arabia data set for TIMSS 2019. TIMSS collects some data related to teachers and classroom practices but more detailed analysis on teacher quality would be possible with research studies and, thus, data sets more focused on this topic.

Finally, although the highly gender-segregated structure of the education system in Saudi Arabia presents an opportunity to examine the educational environments experienced by boys and girls in 31