Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) Essay Example for Free

Trends in external maths and Science overtake (TIMSS) EssayThe Trends in outside(a) mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is an supranational proportional sound judgment ab let out mathematics and science inculcateing that is organized by the International Association for the valuation of nurtureal Achievement (IEA). The survey has been administered periodically in cycles of 4 years since 1995. Initially TIMSS was an acronym for the leash International Mathematics and Science Study, which identified its position as the third base field of view following the First and act International Mathematics and Science Studies (FIMS SIMS) in 1964 and 1982 respectively. A similar study to the 1995 TIMSS (using the same technical good example) was carried out in 1999, and was referred to as the Third International Mathematics and Science Study Repeat (TIMSS-R). The 2003 study was the third cycle of studies based on the 1995 assessment framework, and the acronym TIMSS was rede fined to mean Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (http//nces.ed.gov/timss). With funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the TIMSS assessment was to be offered more timely in intervals of 4 years. plank 1 gives an everywhereview on the TIMSS assessment, target populations, and the number of countries that participated in each administration.Table 1. TIMSS assessments and participating countries at the eighth grade level Study Name Acronym Year Number of Countries Target population Grades tested Third International Mathematics and Science Study TIMSS 1994/5 42 3rd /4th, 7th/8th , twelfth Third International Mathematics and Science Study Repeat. TIMSS-R 1998/9 40 8th Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study TIMSS 2002/3 46 4th 8th Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study TIMSS 2006/7 Over 60 4th, 8th, (12th rescheduled 2008) TIMSS is considered the largest, close to universal, rigorous, and extensive international comparativ e studyal study ever conducted (Alejandro, 2000). It touches on almost every facet of the nurture of science and mathematics.The 2003 TIMSS project was comprised of over 360 000 learners, over 38 000 teachers, and over 12 000 school principals, and as many as 1 euchre mountual proteans were include in addition to variables on bookman achievement scores (Nelson, 2002 TIMSS User guide 2003). TIMSS aims at providing policy makers and educational practitioners with information and forefingers rough their national educational arrangings from an international perspective. Alejandro argues that TIMSS serves a reflect function to participating countries to reflect comparatively on their education systems.Martin and Kelly (2004) suggest that TIMSS tests go beyond meter achievement to including a thorough investigation of curriculum and how it is delivered in classrooms around the world. In a nutshell, the assessment is perceived to be valid and reliable as a measure of student ach ievement. However, the TIMSS assessments ar non without critics. Among the critical voices is that of Wolf (2002) who questions the validity issues of the TIMSS studies. His contention is that TIMSS, being an international assessment, may stir testing procedures that are not appropriate for some countries usual testing practices.Related to that, Zuzovsky (2000) specifically questions the reliability of these tests. He argues that the to a great extent elaborated coding systems inherent in the TIMSS scoring procedures yield lower inter-rater consistency and also that transmutation of achievement tests into contrastive languages brings the reliability of the assessments into question. The downside of cross-sectional assessments such as the TIMSS projects did not escape the attention of de Lange (2007) who questions the hypothesis behind international studies that a single test can give comparable measures of curriculum cause across countries.In spite of these criticisms, Alej andro, the chairman of IEA, sees the worth in countries participating in the TIMSS surveys. He argues that much than just league tables, the TIMSS info place achievement in an international context where it can be considered from multiple perspectives (Alejandro, 2000, p. 2). A similar statement was expressed more than 35 years ago by Bock (1970). He perceived the world as shrinking through technology. In support of international studies, he argued that through participation in international studies and by sharing educational reports, countries get a glimpse of each others cultural practices.The TIMSS international reports give an overall impression of the impaction that different education factors have on students performance in different countries. It is by supercharge move in secondary analysis of the TIMSS entropy and by conducting further studies related to the findings of TIMSS assessments that countries better fancy their information system. In particular, it is impor tant to identify areas of concern and address those systematically rather than attempt to replicate some other countrys curriculum system simply because the schooling system there seems to be effective.Education indicators are numerous and vary in their effect from country to country. It is possible that each of the 1,500 contextual variables administered in the TIMSS surveys were included because of some supporting literature on their influence on students discipline. TIMSS as feigning of educational Achievement The literature on simulates of educational indicators and their performance as a system together with search studies that sit around student learning achievement as a function of the characteristics of their schools and their family background is extensive (Oakes, 2006 Kaplan Elliott, 2007 Kaplan Kreisman, 2000 Koller, Baumert, Clausen, Hosenfeld, 2001).However, in spite of the extensive literature on the subject of object lessoning of educational data, no single model of educational performance has gained widespread acceptance (Oakes, 2006 Nelson, 2002). This lack of a global model was noted by Nelson in relation to the TIMSS projects, that, although rigorously executed, and with all its popularity (with more participants than any other IEA study), TIMSS has not attempted to be up with a prescriptive model that relates educational factors to student achievement that can be relevant across nations. Nelson is adamant that any attempt to provide a universal model would not be wise because countries differ in their educational policies and instructional practices so that a one-size fits- all model would not be realistic.That said, though models of educational performance seem diverse as suggested by the literature, in Haertel, Walberg, and Weinsteins (2003) view, they have more viridityalities than differences. Haertel et al. conducted a meta-analysis of studies that modeled school performance data and found that the presented models had a c ommon structure. Though the models differed in their specifications, their structures were comprised of three categories of pre-existing conditions (cognitive/affective attributes and resources), instructional processes (opportunity to learn, feeling of instruction), and outcome measures (achievement, affective behaviors).These models presented student performance as a function of student, teacher, and/or school background variables. Studies of interest to my research are those that modeled students performance as a function of their background variables the model of interest that informed my variable selection is the Input-Process-Output (IPO) model by Oakes (2006), or Rand Model (Shavelson, McDonnell, Oakes, 2006). The IPO model has similar structural components as the models that were reviewed by Haertel et al. (2003) and models student achievement as a function of some resources. I selected this model for my conceptual framework because of its scope of coverage of educational indicators.The model presents a holistic conception of student learning in a classroom setting and it appears frequently in literature that analyzes large scale data (e.g. Kaplan and Kreisman, 2000 Koller, Baumert, Clausen, Hosenfeld, 2001 analyzing TIMSS data). Additionally, it has been utilize extensively to guide education researchers in the selection, specification, and analysis of educational variables that correlate with student learning outcomes (Kaplan Elliott, 2007 Kaplan Kreisman, 2000 Koller, Baumert, Clausen, Hosenfeld, 2001).It is taken as one of the influential models in shaping public opinion and policy on how to foster school improvement. TIMSS Input-Process-Output Model The input-process-output (IPO) model by TIMSS is one of the improved versions of the traditional input-output (IO) models of school organizational data (Glasman, Biniaminov, 2001). Glasman and Biniaminov reported that the input-output traditional model employed research strategies that measure d changes in the systems outputs brought about by changes in the systems inputs. The IO model was criticized for not taking the academic environment into account and for oversimplifying the schooling process by portraying it as linear.According to Glasman and Biniaminov, the input-output analyses did not deal with characteristics of the dynamic and ongoing interrelationships between students and teachers or those among students themselves (p. 509). To exceed the problem, Oakes model added a third component (processes) that mediated the input variables into the output variables and that also provided an educational context for the model. The process component focuses on classroom characteristics such as instructional prime(a) issues (explained in the close section under measures for the model). Oakes model is therefore comprised of three components of an educational system inputs, processes, and outputs (IPO) (Figure1).Figure 1. A comprehensive Model of an Educational System INPUT S PROCESSES OUTPUTS Fiscal and Curriculum Achievement other quality resources School quality Instructional Participation Quality Dropouts Teacher Characteristics Teaching quality Student Attitudes Background Aspirations Note. The arrows indicate the steering of effect Briefly stated, according to Shavelson, McDonnell, and Oakes, (2001) the TIMSS models inputs are the human and financial resources available to education (p. 13) This includes teacher quality (e.g. certification and experience), student background (e.g. parents education and home possessions), and school quality (e.g. school climate).Its processes are what is taught and how it is taught (p. 13) This includes classroom characteristics such as curriculum quality (e.g. pace and coverage of materials), breeding quality (e.g. integration between teacher, pupil, and materials), and instructional quality (e.g. instructional tasks, teaching methods, and classroom climate) and its outputs are the consequences of schooling for students from different backgrounds (p. 13) such as academic achievement, participation (what percentage graduate versus drop out), and attitudes (e.g. any desires to continue perusing math or career goals that are math related).The TIMSS model is complex and provides insight into how the various components of the education system relate to one another. As noted earlier, one of the shortcomings of the traditional input output model was its structure in which nested data was treated as though linear, and the TIMSS model addressed that problem. This was noted by Kaplan and Elliott that the TIMSS model, is one instantiation of the organizational structure of schooling that captures its hierarchical nature (Kaplan, Elliott, 2007 p. 221). The 2 suggested that the model was multilevel in form and was testable through statistical methodologies that take the multilevel nature of educational data into consideration.Kaplan and Elliot used the model for their framework to propose a model-b ased approach for validating educational indicators that explicitly took into account the organizational features of schooling. The two contended from their model that it was not necessary for every indicator that has ever been suggested for collection to actually appear in the model. To them, it is the research questions and the goals for the investigations that should determine which indicators to include in a statistical model. Nevertheless, Oakes (2006) advised that a single indicator of each component of the educational system was inadequate.What was needed, in his view, was for each component to have indicators of all its most critical dimensions, and, without a series of indicators that assesses all important facets of the schooling processes (the 3 components of the model), we can neither understand the systems overall health nor determine the conditions under which a particular goal is met (Oakes, 2006, p. 8). Oakes further observed that each of the three components appeare d to be necessary but insufficient by itself to convey honest information about school effects. That is, although a system of indicators measures distinct components of the education model, it also provides information about how the individual components work together to produce the overall effect.What can be deduced from Oakes remarks is that studies that model precisely one component of the educational system may not be doing an adequate job of impartation the necessary information about the school effects. Conclusions What I considered informative from TIMSS and through the deliberations by Kaplan and Elliott (2007) about TIMSSs model in general, and its use in particular, was how to utilize its structure to reach the different components of an education system holistically. It was of interest that the TIMSS model has flexible attributes in those variables could be rearranged to reflect the hierarchical nature of classroom data as evidenced in the current study in subsequent c hapters.In one study, Kaplan and Kreisman (2000) used the TIMSS model to validate indicators of mathematics education using its data. Rather than group their variables into the three distinct categories of Input-Process-Output as outlined in the model structure, they contended that since TIMSS model was inherently multilevel, a subset of the inputs and processes occurred at higher levels of the education system. As a result, they grouped their indicators into three organizational levels student, teacher, and school.That is to say, although TIMMS model (Figure 1) groups school resources, teacher quality, and student background as one category of input (or prerequisite) variables, these indicators occur at different hierarchical levels of the school organization. some(a) of the variables included in the Kaplan and Kreisman model were At student level mathematics achievement, attitude toward mathematics, utility of mathematics, parents education, and mothers expectations. At teacher le vel method of instruction, teacher collaboration with colleagues, teachers level of education, and teaching experience. At school level opportunities for continuing professional development, good facilities, school climate, level of discipline, and outstanding teacher recognition.Needless to say, Kaplan and Kreismans (2000) variables were representative of the three components of the IPO model even though the variables were grouped differently. Some of the variables they used were tangled indicators. These were variables such as attitudes and methods of instruction. The two authors ran factor analyses to help group related items into the composite indicators and they had mathematics achievement as their outcome measure. In summary, TIMMS model is more of a conceptual framework than a prescriptive one.That is, it does not prescribe what variables one should include in a statistical model for testing educational performance, but offers guidance about the components from which to draw the variables. Directions for Future Research TIMSS data have opened extensive avenues for further research work. In conclusion, this paper has evidenced the complexities involved in TIMSS data. It is hoped that this study and other studies that continue to model TIMSS data and pilot TIMSS instruments will help to illuminate the factors that explain student achievement in the us and in many other countries and to direct policy interventions.