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Researchers who participate in IEA studies have a unique opportunity to work collaboratively with their counterparts from many different countries and disciplinary backgrounds over a period of several years on questions of shared academic interest. Once the data for a given study have been collected and the first round of international reports published, however, opportunities for that kind of collaboration tend to be much less frequent. A major strength of IEA studies compared to other large-scale, international studies is that they are classroom based, thereby making it possible for researchers and policy makers to investigate linkages between students' achievement and a wide range of variables. Those variables could be related to instructional practices, to students' and teachers' background and attitudes, to school organizational patterns, or to opportunity to learn, to name a few. The research questions that TIMSS was designed to address make it clear that these kinds of relational, multi-variate analyses were among the major goals of the project. The international reports of the TIMSS-95 results that were published by the International Study Center at Boston College between 1996 and 1999 were intended to provide comprehensive coverage of the basic findings of the study. They were not intended to provide in-depth analyses of research and policy issues; instead, their main purpose was to make the basic findings of the study widely available in a timely manner. This they certainly did.
List of contents
TIMSS in Context: Asessment, Monitoring, and Moving Targets.- TIMSS: A Brief Overview of The Study.- Focus on Mathematics.- Analyzing Student Responses in Mathematics Using Two-digit Rubrics.- From SIMS to TIMSS: Trends in Students' Achievement in Mathematics.- The Impact of Timss on the Mathematics Standards Movement in The United States.- TIMSS Mathematics Results: A Japanese Perspective.- Timss, Common Sense, and the Curriculum.- Advanced Mathematics: Curricula and Student Performance.- Focus on Science.- Exploring Population 2 Students' Ideas About Science.- Science Achievement: A Czech Perspective.- Timss Science Results for Hong Kong: An Ailing Dragon with a British Legacy.- Science Achievement: A Russian Perspective.- Timss Science Results Seen from A Nordic Perspective.- Focus on Cross-Curricular Issues.- Separating School, Classroom, and Student Variances and Their Relationship to Socio-economic Status.- On the Relationship Between Mathematics and Science Achievement in the United States.- Students' Attitudes and Perceptions.- Analyzing Gender Differences for High-achieving Students on Timss.- Investigating Correlates of Mathematics and Science Literacy in the Final Year of Secondary School.- Indicators of ICT in Mathematics: Status and Covariation with Achievement Measures.- Extra-school Instruction in Mathematics and Science.- Teachers' Sources and Uses of Assessment Information.- Focus on Methodology.- Extending the Application of Multilevel Modeling to Data from TIMSS.- Application of the Scale Anchoring Method to Interpret the TIMSS Achievement Scales.- Effects of Adaptations on Comparability of Test Items and Test Scores.- Conclusion.- A Look Back at TIMSS: What Have We Learned About International Studies?.
Summary
Researchers who participate in IEA studies have a unique opportunity to work collaboratively with their counterparts from many different countries and disciplinary backgrounds over a period of several years on questions of shared academic interest. Once the data for a given study have been collected and the first round of international reports published, however, opportunities for that kind of collaboration tend to be much less frequent. A major strength of IEA studies compared to other large-scale, international studies is that they are classroom based, thereby making it possible for researchers and policy makers to investigate linkages between students’ achievement and a wide range of variables. Those variables could be related to instructional practices, to students’ and teachers’ background and attitudes, to school organizational patterns, or to opportunity to learn, to name a few. The research questions that TIMSS was designed to address make it clear that these kinds of relational, multi-variate analyses were among the major goals of the project. The international reports of the TIMSS–95 results that were published by the International Study Center at Boston College between 1996 and 1999 were intended to provide comprehensive coverage of the basic findings of the study. They were not intended to provide in-depth analyses of research and policy issues; instead, their main purpose was to make the basic findings of the study widely available in a timely manner. This they certainly did.
