Search

TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) is a long-standing international assessment of mathematics and science at the fourth and eighth grades that has been collecting trend data every four years since 1995. About 70 countries use TIMSS trend data for monitoring the effectiveness of their education systems in a global context, and more countries join TIMSS with each subsequent assessment cycle. Because it marks the successful transition to its first fully digital assessment cycle, TIMSS 2023 is a watershed cycle in the 28 year history of TIMSS. Half the TIMSS countries pioneered the transition to digital assessment in TIMSS 2019 paving the way for an "all digital" turning point in TIMSS 2023. Capitalizing on the benefits of technological advances is necessary for TIMSS to remain in sync with global realities, and TIMSS 2023 will set the wheels in motion to improve the quality of TIMSS data, increase efficiency in data collection, and make the data more useful. To provide deeper insights into how students approach mathematics and science assessment tasks, solve problems, and communicate their responses, TIMSS 2023 will include more complex and innovative item types that capture both responses and process indicators. A digital item designer and translation system will support TIMSS 2023 item development, enabling interactive opportunities and provision of various digital tools for students to use in developing and providing their responses. The idea of Problem Solving and Inquiry (PSI) Tasks introduced in TIMSS 2019 (ED596167) will be further developed. PSI tasks are based on attractive, interactive scenarios that allow students to follow a series of steps toward a solution or goal. A variety of PSI tasks will be integrated into the mathematics and science assessments. Finally, a concerted effort will be made to increase the degree of automated scoring to improve scoring accuracy and comparability across countries, including research into using machine learning to evaluate graphical and short written responses.

Conducted every five years, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assesses international trends in the reading comprehension of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition point in children's development as readers. PIRLS was designed to complement the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's TIMSS assessments of mathematics and science at the fourth grade. The first two chapters of the PIRLS 2021 Assessment Frameworks contain the PIRLS 2021 Reading Framework and PIRLS 2021 Context Questionnaire Framework, respectively. The reading framework provides guidelines for assessing reading comprehension at the fourth grade according to a matrix of two reading purposes--literary and informational--by four comprehension strategies (retrieval, inferencing, integrating, and evaluation). The context questionnaire framework describes the topics to be covered by the PIRLS 2021 questionnaires. The third chapter describes the assessment design for PIRLS 2021. Across the past 20 years, linking the PIRLS assessments of reading achievement to the rich array of PIRLS questionnaire data about the contexts in which students learn to read has provided researchers an important source of policy relevant information about how to improve reading education around the world. [For "PIRLS 2016 Assessment Framework. 2nd Edition," see ED545242.]

The "TIMSS 2019 Assessment Frameworks" provides the foundation for the four international assessments that comprise the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA's) TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) 2019: TIMSS Mathematics--Fourth Grade, TIMSS Mathematics--Eighth Grade, TIMSS Science--Fourth Grade, and TIMSS Science--Eighth Grade. The report begins with an introduction by Ina V. S. Mullis. The "TIMSS 2019 Mathematics Framework" and the "TIMSS 2019 Science Framework" presented in Chapters 1 (Mary Lindquist, Ray Philpot, Ina V.S. Mullis, and Kerry E. Cotter) and 2 (Victoria A.S. Centurino and Lee R. Jones), respectively, describe in some detail the major content and cognitive domains in mathematics and science to be tested at the fourth and eighth grades. The content domains (for example, algebra, geometry in mathematics, and biology, chemistry in science) and the topic areas within the domains are described separately for the fourth and eighth grades with each topic area elaborated with specific objectives. The cognitive domains of knowing, applying, and reasoning describe the thinking skills students are expected to use as they engage with the mathematics and science content. Chapter 3 (Martin Hooper, Ina V.S. Mullis, Michael O. Martin, and Bethany Fishbein) contains the TIMSS 2019 Context Questionnaire Framework describing the home, school, and classroom factors associated with students' learning in mathematics and science that will be investigated via the questionnaires completed by students, their parents, teachers, and school principals. Finally, Chapter 4 (Michael O. Martin, Ina V.S. Mullis, and Pierre Foy) provides an overview of the assessment design including general parameters for item development. Appendix A contains Acknowledgments and Appendix B presents Example Restricted Use Items.

"Methods and Procedures in PIRLS 2016" documents the development of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assessments and questionnaires and describes the methods used in sampling, translation verification, data collection, database construction, and the construction of the achievement and context questionnaire scales. In particular, "Methods and Procedures" documents the numerous quality assurance steps and procedures implemented by all those involved in the PIRLS 2016 assessments, including the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, IEA Amsterdam and IEA Hamburg, Statistics Canada, and the National Research Coordinators and their teams in the participating countries and benchmarking entities. This report contains four sections and fourteen chapters. Section 1, Instrument Development, contains the following chapters: (1) Developing the PIRLS 2016 Achievement Items (Ina V. S. Mullis and Caroline O. Prendergast); and (2) Developing the PIRLS 2016 Context Questionnaires (Martin Hooper and Bethany Fishbein). Section 2, Sampling, contains the following chapters: (3) Sample Design in PIRLS 2016 (Sylvie LaRoche, Marc Joncas, and Pierre Foy); (4) Estimating Standard Errors in the PIRLS 2016 Results (Pierre Foy and Sylvie LaRoche); and (5) Sample Implementation in PIRLS 2016 (Sylvie LaRoche and Pierre Foy). Section 3, Data Collection Procedures, contains: (6) Survey Operations Procedures in PIRLS 2016 (Ieva Johansone); (7) Translation and Layout Verification for PIRLS 2016 (David Ebbs and Erin Wry); (8) Quality Assurance Program for PIRLS 2016 (Ieva Johansone and Erin Wry); and (9) Creating the PIRLS 2016 International Database (Sebastian Meyer, Mark Cockle, and Milena Taneva). Section 4, Reporting, contains: (10) Reviewing the PIRLS 2016 Achievement Item Statistics (Pierre Foy, Michael O. Martin, Ina V. S. Mullis, and Liqun Yin); (11) PIRLS 2016 Achievement Scaling Methodology; (12) Scaling the PIRLS 2016 Achievement Data (Pierre Foy and Liqun Yin); (13) Using Scale Anchoring to Interpret the PIRLS and ePIRLS 2016 Achievement Scales (Ina V. S. Mullis and Caroline O. Prendergast); and (14) Creating and Interpreting the PIRLS 2016 Context Questionnaire Scales (Michael O. Martin, Ina V. S. Mullis, Martin Hooper, Liqun Yin, Pierre Foy, Bethany Fishbein, and Jenny Liu). [Individual chapters contain references.]