Andrés Strello’s research while affiliated with University of Bath and other places

This chapter reports on the social inequalities within countries in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 environmental knowledge scale. The variation within countries on the distribution of environmental knowledge is reported, calculating the achievement gaps between sociodemographic groups—specifically, between low and high socioeconomic status students, between boys and girls, and between rural areas and urban areas. The results show high variation across countries and regions in the performance of their students. Results also reaffirm socioeconomic status as an important predictor of achievement, in this case in environmental knowledge, with all countries and regions presenting significant and relatively high gaps between low and high socioeconomic status students. In contrast, the gaps based on gender and urbanicity depended much more on the context of each country, being present in roughly half the countries and with different directions. These results reflect the pending challenges regarding how to tackle environmental crises from a global perspective.

In this chapter, factors of the intended and implemented curriculum, including school practices, as a basis for knowledge acquisition and development of attitudes and behaviors regarding environmental issues, are investigated. Responses from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 national curriculum questionnaire, and the school leader and teacher questionnaires are used for the analysis. Despite the intended coverage of environmental topics being universally relatively high, large variation across countries is revealed. Further, a profound misalignment in the intended and implemented curriculum in all TIMSS 2019 participating educational systems is identified. Additionally, notable differences in teaching approaches fostering the effectiveness of instruction regarding environmental knowledge, and for environmentally conscious behavior, are presented, as well as issues regarding shortages of required equipment. The analysis provides important evidence concerning factors associated with students’ acquisition of essential knowledge for shaping a sustainable future. Several countries may need to review their intended curriculum if they are committed to educating their students for environmental sustainability and enforce their implementation. They also should consider the promotion of teaching methods that encourage scientific investigation and foster pluralistic, action-oriented classroom practices, and address shortages in equipment necessary to support these methods.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is an international assessment that evaluates students’ mathematical and scientific competencies. One component is an assessment of environmental knowledge. This chapter provides an overview of the study’s objectives, the participating entities, sampling design, and the assessment instruments and contextual questionnaires. In TIMSS 2019, 39 countries and seven benchmarking participants were involved at the eighth grade. In each educational system, TIMSS employs a multi-stage sampling approach to select students. Data collection includes achievement assessments in mathematics and science, along with comprehensive background questionnaires for students, teachers, and principals. These instruments are collaboratively developed by participating countries. In summary, TIMSS offers a unique approach to assessing student competencies globally. Its rigorous methodology and careful sampling procedures ensure the quality and comparability of data.

This chapter aims to review and investigate the measure of environmental knowledge of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) science assessment. Particular focus is placed on the distinctness of general and subscale scores, including the newly developed environmental knowledge scale. The chapter begins with a summary of the TIMSS science assessment framework and its psychometric scaling procedure. The subsequent section outlines the process for constructing the TIMSS 2019 environmental knowledge scale, commencing with the definition of the construct, the identification of environmental items, accompanied by illustrative examples, and the scaling of environmental knowledge data. Following this, a summary of the average environmental knowledge achievement and scale score distributions across countries is presented. Finally, the dimensionality of the TIMSS 2019 science assessment was evaluated. It was specifically tested whether the data can be explained by a unidimensional item response theory model or a bifactor model. Examining information criteria, subscale reliabilities, and explained common variances evidence is found supporting both the existence of a strong general science factor and nested factors for environmental knowledge and other science subdomains. Implications of the findings for TIMSS subscale reporting are discussed.