An overview of the issue of national educational quality indicators is presented, based on a synthesis of the informed judgments of several respondents from throughout the world. Responses from 18 members of the International Association for Educational Assessment (from Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the Middle East) are considered…

Discusses criticisms of international educational studies and describes ways in which such studies can be used advantageously for diagnosis, identification of "what works," and monitoring and accountability. Presents examples of these categories of use. (SLD)

Highlights the findings of the performance assessment component of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), discussing implications for future assessments and issues for further analysis and research. The TIMSS has demonstrated the feasibility of large scale performance assessments, but what the numbers really mean remains to…

Examined predictors of attitudes and beliefs related to school and family and predictors of mathematics outcomes focusing on attitudes using data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Tested a model derived from Cyprus TIMSS data on U.S. and Japanese data. Findings highlight the complexity of factors accounting for…

Future classroom teaching-learning research will be occupied with analyzing and improving the internal and external validity of the "direct instruction" (DI) model. For that, international comparative studies are of utmost importance. Points are presented to illustrate this argument and describe cross-national educational research…

Describes patterns of achievement in mathematics and science for elementary and secondary students who participated in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Discusses the low achievement of Cyprus students and the responses of the public and the educational system. (SLD)

Compared results from the Second Information Technology in Education Study, which assessed information and communication technology (ICT) for West-European countries (five for primary education and six for lower secondary education), focusing on The Netherlands. (SLD)

A framework of contextual variables is described that comprises the context of investigation of any evaluation study. Examples from cross-cultural evaluation are used to illustrate the elements of this framework: (1) setting; (2) topic; and (3) design. The framework is useful for evaluation training and planning. (SLD)

School-based evaluation, the focus of this article, is conceived of as neither a synonym for internal evaluation nor an antonym for external evaluation, but as a combination that is examined through a review of recent research. A school-based evaluation in Israel illustrates combining these approaches in a complementary way. (SLD)

Studied the mathematics achievement of boys and girls in four Asian nations that participated in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (Singapore, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong). Findings support the interactionist model of D. Gerry (1996) in which biologically secondary mathematical abilities are posited to emerge only with…

Attitudes of 2,275 secondary school students in Nigeria toward science and differences between males and females in science attitudes were studied using data from the Second International Science Study. Overall, Nigerian students had positive attitudes toward science, and females seemed as interested as males. (SLD)

Discusses the national option mathematics test developed by Dutch educators because of doubts that the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) mathematics test was appropriate for Dutch students. Discusses test results that indicate that the TIMSS was, in fact, appropriate for use in the Netherlands. (SLD)

Studied the effects of student attitudes toward mathematics, student perception of parental opinion, and student assessment of study time on performance on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study with a U.S. sample of more than 10,000 students. Findings show the complexity of the factors contributing to mathematics performance. (SLD)

Describes the problems inherent in scoring performance assessment on a large scale, focusing on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and scoring for Israeli students. In spite of the weaknesses in the scoring approach, the effort seems to have empowered teachers. (SLD)

Variance as a function of time is described for the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate's examination standards, with emphasis on the performance of candidates from Botswana and Zimbabwe. Results demonstrate the value of simple linear modeling in extracting performance trends for a range of subjects over time across six countries. (TJH)