Albert E. Beaton’s research while affiliated with Boston College and other places

Large-scale group-score assessments are widely used to inform educational policymakers about the needs and accomplishments of various populations and subpopulations. The purpose of this chapter is to chronicle ETS’s technical contributions in this area. The focus is on a subset of important educational achievement testing programs, ones that assess large populations (e.g., the United States as a whole, an individual state), use population-defining variables (e.g., racial/ethnic, gender), and include consideration of other policy-relevant factors (e.g., the number of hours watching TV, number of mathematics courses taken).

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) uses item response theory (IRT)–based scaling methods to summarize the information in complex data sets. Scale scores are presented as tools for illuminating patterns in the data and for exploiting regularities across patterns of responses to tasks requiring similar skills. In this way, the dominant features of the data are captured. Discussed are the necessity of global scores or more detailed subscores, the creation of developmental scales spanning different age levels, and the use of scale anchoring as a way of interpreting the scales.

This report is also available on the World Wide Web:

The question addressed in this chapter is how “fair” the TIMSS tests were to the various participating countries. The Test-Curriculum Matching Analysis (TCMA) method was used to investigate how results might have changed if different subsets of TIMSS items were considered. The method computes the average proportion correct for each country on each selection of appropriate items. The results of the TCMA is a square matrix, with the rows representing the various results for each country and the columns representing the different items sets deemed appropriate for each country. The results suggested that the relative positions of the countries changed very little as a result of the item selection.

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) covered five different grade levels, with more than 40 countries collecting data in more than 30 different languages. More than a million students were tested. The present report contains the TIMSS results for students in the final year of secondary school. Mathematics and science literacy achievement results are reported for 21 countries; advanced mathematics results and physics results, respectively, are reported for 16 countries. These results complete the first round of descriptive reports from the TIMSS study. Together with the results for primary school students (third and fourth grade in most countries) and middle school students (seventh and eighth grades in most countries), the results contained in this report provide valuable information about the relative effectiveness of a country's education system as students progress through school. A ten-page Executive Summary details the extensive conclusions to be drawn from the study. Dozens of tables and figures provide detailed statistics for all participating countries. The Netherlands and Sweden were the top performing countries in mathematics; France was the top performer in advanced mathematics; Norway and Sweden had physics achievement levels significantly higher than other participating countries. The appendixes contain extensive information pertaining to the development of the TIMSS tests, sample sizes and participation rates, compliance with sampling guidelines, and the test-curriculum matching analysis. (DDR)

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Policy-makers in many nations are involved in educational reforms. To make effective educational decisions for the 21st century, policy-makers need information of a wide variety of kinds, such as comparative performance data and curriculum information from other nations. International surveys provide a broad base of information and allow countries to view their current status and planning within an international perspective. This paper describes the goals of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). This study is the largest international comparative study of student achievement in mathematics and science ever attempted. 45 countries are participating and focus is on 9-yr-olds, 13-yr-olds, and students in their final year of secondary education. TIMSS was designed to obtain data that is meaningful in an international context and that will contribute to the formation of educational policy and reform in mathematics and science education in the participating countries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

A recently completed landmark study of mathematics and science education in more than 40 countries gathered information that can help address questions as to why students in one country do better in math and science than students in another. This report focuses on the results of the primary school science test of students in 26 countries, from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS). Details of how the study was conducted, the nature of the science test, country characteristics, differences in student achievement, student achievement by science content area, and an analysis of example problems are included. Ideas of intended and implemented curricula are discussed and a number of questions related to these ideas that TIMMS may answer are listed. (DDR)