Next Steps for TIMSS Directions for Secondary Analysis (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Introduction
Introduction
Pages 1-10
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Those who planned and executed the study intended not only to overcome the problems with sampling and other technical issues that plagued previous international studies, but also to collect a range of data sufficient to yield powerful insights into the contexts in which learning takes place around the world, as well as to identify compelling links between specific factors and high achievement (see Bracey, 1996; Rotberg, 1990~. The combination of generally recognized high technical quality and ambitious goals has brought the TIMSS results considerable attention in the United States at a time when education issues have been a major political focal point.2 TIMSS findings have been made widely available through the production of a "Resource Kit" for districts and administrators, Internet discussion links and websites, and Appendix A is a "road map" to TIMSS that provides a brief description of each of its components, the data available, and sources for further information, as well as titles of the TIMSS reports published to date.
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data, but also a significant portion of the costs of collecting much of the international data, and the costs of the three-country (United States, Japan, and Germany) qualitative studies that helped put the achievement findings in context.
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Population 3: Students at end of secondary school, regardless of age FIGURE 1 The basic structure of TIMSS.
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The board framed its views of the value of international comparative studies, and of ways in which they could be improved, in a report published in 1993, A Collaborative Agenda for Improving International Comparative Studies in Education (National Research Council, 4 NEXT STEP FOR TIMSS
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Qualitative studies such as ethnographies, case studies, and others, the board noted, "allow us to understand what it means to be educated in diverse settings around the world." Such studies can provide the deep understanding of societies that makes it possible to interpret and explain the results obtained from large-scale studies. Large-scale achievement studies, in turn, provide "the only way to obtain a simple numerical comparison of a large number of countries on a common set of measures." In the case of TIMSS, the size of the study also provides the possibility of a variety of comparisons on a scale far beyond what an independent researcher could hope to address (National Research Council, 1993:22-23~.
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TIMSS was designed to gather data about what mathematics and science the students had learned and augment it with information about their schools, teachers, textbooks, and curricula. It included a test of student achievement containing both multiple-choice and open-ended items, as well as performance items for some students; a set of questionnaires directed at students, teachers, and school administrators; a curriculum study that provides a comparative picture of standards and curricula in participating countries; a set of case studies of schooling in Germany, Japan, and the United States; and a videotape study of mathematics instruction for middle-school students in the same three countries.4 It is important to note that different countries participated in different subsets of the study components a point that is easily lost in discussions of the relationships among the components.
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Three sets of questions see boxes on pages 8, 9, and 10 were used to focus a diverse group of scholars' attention on three fundamental elements of the context for learning addressed by the TIMSS conceptual framework: the effects of curriculum on achievement; the links among professional development, teaching, and achievement; and the factors that influence individual achievement. Brief memoranda prepared in advance about these sets of questions served as the starting point for the workshop.
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