Author Description

Now entering into its 20th year of data collection, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, (TIMSS) is an international assessment of mathematics and science at the fourth and eighth grades. TIMSS 2015 is the most recent in the TIMSS series, which began with the first assessments in 1995 and has continued every four years--1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011. For countries with data back to 1995, TIMSS 2015 will provide the sixth in a series of trend measures collected over 20 years. Approximately 60 countries have TIMSS trend data, and new countries join TIMSS in each cycle. About 70 countries are expected to participate in TIMSS 2015. TIMSS uses the curriculum, broadly defined, as the major organizing concept in considering how educational opportunities are provided to students, and the factors that influence how students use these opportunities. The TIMSS Curriculum Model has three aspects: the intended curriculum, the implemented curriculum, and the attained curriculum (see Exhibit 1). These represent, respectively, the mathematics and science that students are expected to learn as defined in countries' curriculum policies and publications and how the educational system should be organized to facilitate this learning; what is actually taught in classrooms, the characteristics of those teaching it, and how it is taught; and, finally, what it is that students have learned and what they think about learning these subjects. To provide standard information across countries that supplements the chapters, countries complete a curriculum questionnaire about their mathematics and science curricula, school organizational approaches, and instructional practices. TIMSS also asks students, their teachers, and their school principals to complete questionnaires about their school and classroom instructional contexts for learning mathematics and science. Data from these questionnaires provide a dynamic picture of the implementation of educational policies and practices th