Few developing countries participate in external educational evaluations. Information gaps on education quality make it imperative to expand such evaluations. Furthermore, international comparability across different evaluations should be improved. In addition, data from evaluations must be combined with data on access or coverage. Finally,…

Results from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) garner considerable attention in the media, academia, and among policy makers. Although there is widespread recognition that ILSAs can provide useful information, there is debate about what types of comparisons are the most meaningful and what could be done to assure more sound…

International comparative studies in education provide a fresh perspective on K-12 education policy by enabling countries to learn from each other's approaches. The recently conducted Teacher Education and Development Study--Mathematics provides a worldwide lens by which to examine the role of subject-matter in the preparation of US teachers of…

This supplement contains documentation on the explicit and implicit stratification variables included in the TIMSS 2011 data files. The explicit strata are smaller sampling frames, created from the national sampling frames, from which national samples of schools were drawn. The implicit strata are nested within the explicit strata, and were used…

This article presents the authors' review of "Globalizing education, educating the local: how method made us mad," by Ian Stronach. In the opening chapter of their highly influential 1997 book "Education Research Undone: The Postmodern Embrace," Ian Stronach and Maggie MacLure draw upon the work of Derrida to argue for…

This paper describes the development and intended uses of the Early Grades Mathematics Assessment (EGMA), which measures essential early mathematical knowledge and skills that are foundational to more sophisticated mathematical abilities, predictive of later achievement, and teachable. Administering the EGMA can provide policy makers,…

This paper analyses how the impact of international student achievement studies and the recent economic crisis in Europe are influencing the development of educational policy transfer and borrowing, from East to West. This is contrasted with education reform movements in East Asia, which have long legacies of borrowing from so-called…

The aim of this article is to present a systematic, holistic evaluation of the South African education system, using international benchmarks as the yardstick. A theoretical model for the evaluation of a national education project is constructed. This consists of three dimensions, namely: a quantitative dimension, a qualitative dimension, and an…

This supplement contains documentation on all the derived variables contained in the TIMSS 2011 data files that are based on background questionnaire variables. These variables were used to report background data in the TIMSS 2011 International Results in Mathematics and TIMSS 2011 International Results in Science reports, and are made available…

The goals of this dissertation were as follows: (1) application of quantitative methods to large-scale databases, (2) investigation of relationships between student mathematics achievement and student motivational attitudes for learning mathematics at the macro level (i.e., national level) and at the micro level (i.e., student level), (3)…

As an extension of the effort devoted to updating the questionnaires for TIMSS and PIRLS 2011, this dissertation explored a new reporting strategy for contextual questionnaire data. The study investigated the feasibility of constructing "global indicators" from a large number of diverse background variables, which could provide policy…

Singapore students have scored exceedingly well on international tests in mathematics. In response, there has been a desire in the United States--both at the policy level and at the school level--to emulate Singapore. Because what can be identified most easily about Singapore's school mathematics can be gleaned from curriculum documents from the…

In the last four years McKinsey and Company have produced two highly influential reports on how to improve school systems. The first McKinsey report "How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top" has since its publication in 2007 been used to justify change in educational policy and practice in England and many other…

The TIMSS 2011 International Database includes data for all questionnaires administered as part of the TIMSS 2011 assessment. This supplement contains the international version of the TIMSS 2011 background questionnaires and curriculum questionnaires in the following 10 sections: (1) Fourth Grade Student Questionnaire; (2) Fourth Grade Home…

Late and limited organisational differentiation is a characteristic which has, until now, distinguished the structure of education -- including teacher education - in the Nordic countries from that of the rest of Europe. However, this tradition is now challenged by utilitarian ideologies, supported by international comparison tests such as PISA…