IEA Updates February 2022

In connection to our quarterly newsletter, IEA Updates, we share a summary of how IEA studies have progressed in recent months, including IEA's COVID-19 studies (REDS and KWiK) and other studies that IEA are a part of. Further highlights about IEA's recent activities can be found in our February online newsletter, here. You can also subscribe here to receive our future newsletter updates.

RM Update

As many countries participating in IEA studies will be aware, there have been some challenges encountered across studies related to RM’s Assessment MasterTM system. RM, IEA, together with International Study Centers, are doing the utmost to resolve these issues.  We thank countries for their understanding and support in resolving these issues.

 

IEA Study Updates | February 2022

 

BEAM

The Botswana Examination Council (BEC) completed a major milestone in the final months of 2021 with the Field Trial (FT) that was conducted in 50 schools in Botswana, collecting assessment data of fourth and fifth graders in reading and mathematics and together with school, teacher, parent, and student questionnaires. Prior to the FT, in October 2021, IEA Hamburg conducted the first part of a data processing workshop including capacity building and training in codebook preparations, data entry, and first steps in data verification and data submission. The second part of the workshop was postponed to February 2022 where data processing methodology and tools will be discussed. A further workshop is planned by IEA’s Research and Analysis unit in March/April 2022 to provide capacity building in item analysis.


ICCS 2022

Preparations for the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2022 Main Survey are progressing well with many countries busy at the end of last year and in the early part of 2022 with their national instrument preparation. Data collection for the ICCS 2022 Main Survey is scheduled for February to May 2022 in Northern Hemisphere countries, with Southern Hemisphere countries following in the second half of 2022. Furthermore, the preparation of the ICCS 2022 Assessment Framework is well underway and the publication is expected to be released in May 2022.

ICILS 2023

Country enrolment for International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2023 concluded at the end of last year, with 30 education systems confirming participation. In response to challenges faced last year as a result of the pandemic, the ICILS timeline was adjusted and the FT data collection is now planned between March and June 2022. The 4th ICILS NRC Meeting will take place in the week of 19 September 2022, allowing sufficient time to finalize the source versions of the ICILS main survey instruments following the meeting.


KWiK

While analyzing the data from the second administration of the Continuity and Change in Schools in Times of Crisis (KWiK) survey, which were collected in mid-2021 from 260 school principals and 1016 teachers from the participating schools, interesting results have emerged on the changing focus of teachers’ trainings before and during the pandemic. A press article was jointly prepared in German by IEA and KWiK study partners containing further findings and can be viewed here. Due to the importance of maintaining regular contact with the participating schools, the schools received their New Year’s greetings in January 2022 together with a nice poster on the current status of KWiK.


NEPS

NEPS, Germany’s largest longitudinal study in the educational field, which has been administered by IEA Hamburg between 2010 and 2018, with different cohorts from kindergarten to secondary schools, will soon commence a new cohort in schools’ grade 5. Currently the national team is working closely together with the study management at the LIfBi, preparing the first concrete steps which are to recruit the (about 600) schools in Germany, to finalize materials for contact with school, and to plan the first measurement point in autumn 2022, which will be partly computer-based for the first time.

 

Other National Studies

There are several international studies planning data collection in Germany within the next months, such as the ICCS 2022 Main Survey, ICILS 2023 FT, PISA 2022 Main Study and the Bildungstrend (grade 9), among others. As a result, the national team at IEA Hamburg is very busy with data protection approval processes, preparation of instruments, writing manuals, planning test administrators’ trainings, and contacting schools. The strong hope is that there will not be larger school closures and that all external test administrators stay healthy.

PIRLS 2021

Forecasting schedules has been a continual task for the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021. Despite this, much progress has been made in the last year and continues to be made. As a result of numerous heroic efforts across the PIRLS countries, the majority of countries completed data collection before the end of June 2021 (Wave 1), and most of the remaining countries completed data collection by December 2021 (Wave 2). Several countries will complete data collection before the end of June 2022 (Wave 3). Progress has been made processing the data, and despite dates shifting, we still plan to report PIRLS 2021 results in December 2022 for a carefully documented core set of data, including trend data in reading achievement.


REDS

As part of the United Nations’ International Day of Education celebrated around the world, UNESCO and IEA jointly released the open access Responses to Educational Disruption Survey (REDS) International Report, User Guide and International Database (IDB) on 24 January 2022. This event, joined by over 400 attendees, presented REDS findings for the first time, and gathered panel discussants to reflect on the new and unique insights from REDS. This release has been a great accomplishment for all those involved and speakers at the event invited and encouraged the use of the new data. In addition, countries interested in participating in a further administration of REDS are welcome to reach out to Andrea Netten, Director of IEA Amsterdam (a.netten@iea.nl) for further information. Access to the REDS International Database can be found here. The IERI Large Scale Assessment in Education Journal has announced a Special Issue on the educational disruption due to the COVID-19 crisis based on empirical analysis of data available in the REDS database, providing new evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on students, teachers or schools.

Rosetta Stone

In the latter part of 2021, the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center performed necessary data quality checks and analyses as a precondition to establish a concordance between TIMSS & PIRLS and the participating regional assessments PASEC (Programme d’analyse des systems èducatifs de la confemen) and ERCE (Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo) as part of IEA Rosetta Stone. Analyses for PASEC showed appropriateness for the envisioned scaling approaches and by end of the year the concordance tables, one for mathematics and one for reading were established. The accompanying documentation was written and is currently undergoing an internal review. Corresponding steps for ERCE are in progress and are scheduled to be finalized in March 2022.  

 
TALIS 2024

In October 2021, the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) Consortium prepared for and participated in the 28th ECEC Network meeting, the joint ECEC Network and Extended ECEC Network meeting, and the 11th TALIS Governing Board (TGB) meeting where the conceptual frameworks, instrument development, and the draft Technical Standards were presented. Pilot instruments, pilot guidelines and supplemental materials were finalized and released via the TALIS SharePoint website hosted by the International Study Center (ISC) at IEA Hamburg in December 2021. In January and February 2022, a translatability assessment of the pilot instruments is being conducted by the consortium partner cApStAn (Brussels, Belgium). The Pilot Study will be conducted in February/March 2022 by means of focus group discussions.


TIMSS 2023

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2023 preparations for the Field Test (FT) are well underway, and FT administration is planned for March to May 2022.  An invitation was extended for interested countries to join the optional TIMSS Longitudinal Study in parallel to the current study cycle. This special opportunity follows the discussions at last year’s IEA General Assembly meeting and the survey feedback collected at the end of last year from countries on this TIMSS longitudinal option. The objective of the study is to provide highly valuable information by following a longitudinal design to disentangle cohort and grade effects and to investigate learning gains over one year. Further information can be found on the IEA website here. Countries interested in participating in the longitudinal option are requested to confirm their participation with Andrea Netten, Director of IEA Amsterdam (a.netten@iea.nl) by no later than 31 March 2022.

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