Sammendrag
This doctoral thesis scrutinizes the content dimension of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to explore: “What content-specific profiles can we obtain about the students’ strengths and weaknesses, and teachers’ instruction, by disaggregating the test into its items and responses?” and “Why is the relationship between science achievement and teachers’ content coverage seemingly so weak in TIMSS?” Four papers apply advanced analyses of the students’ and teachers’ response-level data in TIMSS 2011 and 2015. Findings suggest variation in the Norwegian pupils’ achievement across science topics compared with the international averages (Paper 1), and the degree of their teachers’ coverage of the topics in class across grades (Paper 2), which can inform educators’ decision-making. Results from instructional sensitivity analyses in TIMSS 2015 in papers 3 and 4 suggest that a finer-grained analysis is required to pick up on instruction when the assessments are remote from the instruction. The indicators for content coverage require further attention as they might not be optimal for their purpose.
Artikkelliste
Paper 1: Daus, S., Nilsen, T., & Braeken, J. (2018). Exploring content knowledge: country profile of science strengths and weaknesses in TIMSS. Possible implications for educational professionals and science research. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. doi:10.1080/00313831.2018.1478882. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2018.1478882 |
Paper 2: Daus, S. (2018). What does the TIMSS study tell us about the subject matter taught by science teachers in Norway's lower-secondary schools (8th to 10th grade)? Manuscript submitted to Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |
Paper 3: Daus, S., & Braeken, J. (2018). The sensitivity of TIMSS country rankings in science achievement to differences in opportunity to learn at classroom level. Large-scale Assessments in Education, 6(1), 1-31. doi:10.1186/s40536-018-0054-1. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-018-0054-1 |
Paper 4: Daus, S., Stancel-Piatak, A., Braeken, J. Instructional sensitivity of the TIMSS science test: A quasi-experimental within school cohort design. Manuscript submitted to Educational Assessment. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |