Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has increased significantly over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policy-making and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

Large-scale learning assessments can be used to generate performance and contextual data on student learning outcomes. They can be national, regional, or international; school based or household based. The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) has conducted a qualitative study to explore both how and why learning…

This simulation study was prompted by the current increased interest in linking national studies to international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) such as IEA's TIMSS, IEA's PIRLS, and OECD's PISA. Linkage in this scenario is achieved by including items from the international assessments in the national assessments on the premise that the average…

In this study, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2007 data were used to build mathematics achievement models of fourth graders in two East Asian school systems: Hong Kong and Singapore. In each school system, eight variables at student level and nine variables at school/class level were incorporated to build an achievement…

Many articles and reports have reviewed, researched, and commented on international assessments from the perspective of exploring what is relevant for the United States' education systems. Researchers make claims about whether the top-performing systems have transferable practices or policies that could be applied to the United States. However,…