Data literacy is increasingly important in today's data-driven world. Students across many educational systems first formally learn about data in elementary school not as a separate subject but via the mathematics curriculum. This experience can create tensions in the priorities of learning and assessment given the presence of other foundational…

The 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) involved 57 countries and 43 different languages to assess students' achievement in mathematics and science. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether items and test scores are affected as the differences between language families and cultures increase. Using…

For years scholars have attended to either generic or content-specific teaching practices attempting to understand instructional quality and its effects on student learning. Drawing on the TIMSS 2007 and 2011 databases, this exploratory study empirically tests the hypothesis that attending to both types of practices can help better explain student…

This study offers a comparative analysis of questions found in Turkish, Singaporean, and American mathematics textbooks and workbooks based on topics covered in the 8th grade mathematics curriculum in Turkey. To this end, the study utilizes the 3-dimensional framework developed by Li. When the questions in the textbooks and workbooks…

Although International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement-pioneered international large-scale assessment (ILSA) of education is now a well-established science, non-practitioners and many users often substantially misunderstand how large-scale assessments are conducted, what questions and challenges they are designed to…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Study are two highly respected studies of school pupils' academic achievement. English policy-makers have been disappointed with school children's performance on these tests, particularly in comparison to the strong results of young people from East…

South Africa participated in TIMSS from 1995 to 2015. Over these two decades, some positive changes have been reported on the aggregated mathematics performance patterns of South African learners. This paper focuses on the achievement patterns of South Africa's high-performing Grade 9 learners (n = 3378) in comparison with similar subsamples of…

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's (IEA's) Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) can reveal a great deal about national teaching cultures and policies. Changes in instructional practices over more than a decade may be studied from a cross-cultural perspective. Using teacher and…

The U.S. educational system is undergoing rapid and substantial changes with many states grappling with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM). Important research questions remain unanswered regarding the potential efficacy of the CCSSM to improve student math performance compared with students around the globe.…

In 2015, PISA and TIMSS are coming up to us together. In this study, the data from PISA and TIMSS are used to investigate that which one is a better indicator of national science and technology (S&T) competitiveness? Number of S & T journal articles (per million people) is used as a measure to represent the national S&T…

Because the relationship between computer use and achievement is still puzzling, there is a need to prepare and analyze good quality datasets on computer use and achievement. Such a dataset can be derived from TIMSS data. This paper describes how this dataset can be prepared. It also gives an example of how the dataset may be analyzed. The…

Studies have shown that resources are crucial for improving schooling, perhaps even more so in developing countries than in economically developed countries, where adequate school structures and material resources may be taken for granted. Recent research reviews suggest that computer use continues to grow in mathematics and science instruction,…

Every country strives for its students to have advanced achievement in some way, shape, or form. But too often, competence is a higher policy priority than excellence, and shrinking minimum competency gaps is a higher priority than closing excellence gaps. In this brief, educational excellence is defined as the percent of students who meet or…

Secretary of Education Duncan (2010) lamented the state of U.S. education in 2010 after the release of the results from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). He wrote: "Unfortunately, the 2009 PISA results show that American students are poorly prepared to compete in today's knowledge economy. President Obama has…

Independent schools are, for the most part, exempt from mandatory participation in standardized tests designed for state and federal comparisons, nor are they required to take part in comparative international assessments. The anxiety in the broader culture, however, is driving a growing interest among independent school parents (and prospective…