ICCS 2009 Design

Methodology
  • International large-scale sample survey of students, teachers, and school principals
  • Student achievement test allowing monitoring of trends across successive cycles
  • Predominantly quantitative, with qualitative information presented in descriptive country chapters
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Method(s)
  • Overall approach to data collection
    • Proctored assessment of student achievement
    • Self-administered surveys for students, teachers, and school principals
  • Specification
    • Cross-sectional
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Target population

Students

  • The student target population consisted of all students enrolled in the grade that represented eight years of schooling, counting from the first year of ISCED Level 1, provided that the mean age at the time of testing was at least 13.5 years.
  • Students older than 17 years were not included in the target population.
  • In countries where the average age of students in Grade 8 was less than 13.5 years, Grade 9 was defined as the target population.

 

Teachers

All teachers teaching regular school subjects to students of the target grade (regardless of the subject or the number of hours taught) during the ICCS testing period who had been employed at the school since the beginning of the school year.

 

Schools

  • The population for the ICCS school survey comprised schools at which target grade students were enrolled.
  • Principals of sampled schools were asked to complete the school questionnaire.
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Sample design
Stratified two-stage cluster sampling design - optimized for the student population

Schools selected at the first stage for the student population were also considered sampled for the teacher and school populations.

 

First stage: sampling schools

  • Selection probability proportional to the size of the school (PPS)
  • Optional: stratification of schools according to (demographic) variables of interest (e.g., school type or source of funding, level of urbanization, region of the country), either explicit or implicit
  • Random-start fixed-interval systematic sampling
  • Schools sampled at the same time for field trial and main data collection
  • For each sampled school, two replacement schools were assigned where possible

 

Second stage (students): sampling classes 

Within schools agreeing to participate:

  • Systematic random sampling was used to select one or more classes from the sampled school in the target grade.
  • Each class had an equal selection probability within the school.
  • If a selected class was smaller than half of the average class size, a pseudo-class was created with other classes.
  • All students within a selected class were invited to participate

 

Second stage: sampling teachers

Within schools agreeing to participate:

  • Selection of 15–20 teachers from all eligible teachers using systematic random sampling
  • Optional: oversampling of teachers of civic and citizenship-related subjects

 

General notes

  • Sampling of schools was conducted by the sampling team at IEA Hamburg.
  • Sampling procedures within the center/school were carried out by the national study centers, using the Within-school Sampling Software for Windows (WinW3S) provided by IEA.

 
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Sample size

Intended per country

  • Approx. 3,000 assessed students
  • Approx. 2,000 participating teachers
  • A minimum of 150 schools (in countries with fewer than 150 schools, all available schools were included)
  • In each sampled school, selection of one class and 15 target grade teachers (or all if the number of target grade teachers was less than or equal to 20)
  • Required effective sample size: minimum of 400 students


Total achieved

Approximately 140,000 students, 62,000 teachers, and 5,300 schools (i.e., school principals) from 38 countries participated.
 

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Data collection techniques and instruments

Student tests of civic knowledge

  • Written format
  • Two types of questions
    • Multiple-choice
    • Constructed-response (6 questions)
  • Test booklets
    • 7 booklets with 3 item clusters each
    • Items
      • Numbers
        • 80 items
      • Items per cluster
        • 10−11 items in 6 clusters
        • 17 items in the CIVED cluster
    • Linking mechanisms between booklets and between cycles
      • 63 new items in 2009
      • 17 items from CIVED 1999
  • Test administration with matrix-sampling of items, i.e., rotated test booklet design

 

Background questionnaires

  • Student questionnaire, print format
  • Student regional questionnaire (Europe, Latin America, Asia), print format
  • Teacher questionnaire to be completed by a target grade teacher, print or online
  • School questionnaire to be completed by the principal of each sampled school, print or online format

 

National context questionnaires

  • To be completed by the national research coordinator (NRC) in each participating entity
  • Online format
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Languages
  • The ICCS instruments were administered in 31 languages.
  • The most common languages
    • Spanish (7 countries)
    • English (4 countries)
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Translation procedures
  • The international study center (ISC) developed an international English-language version of the ICCS assessment and questionnaires.
  • These materials were subsequently translated and adapted by countries to their languages of instruction.
  • Because all countries participating in the Latin American module required Spanish as the assessment language, the instrument was developed in this language for use and adaptation by countries participating in this module.
  • The IEA Secretariat enlisted the assistance of an independent translation company to verify the translations for each country.
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Quality control of operations

Measures during data collection

  • All national centers received guidelines on survey operations procedures for each stage of the assessment and material setting out procedures for quality control.
  • An international quality control program was developed to document data collection activities around the world.
  • The NRCs in each country were required to nominate an international quality control monitor (IQCM), who was then hired and trained by the IEA Secretariat.
  • School visits were conducted by the IQCMs during test administration (15 schools per country)
  • Countries were asked to conduct their own quality control procedures in 10 percent of the sampled schools. To assist them, the international team also provided each country with the National Quality Control Monitor Manual modified to suit the national system that was used for training the observers.

 

Measures during data processing and cleaning

Data quality control included the following steps:

  • Thorough testing of all data-cleaning programs
  • Registration of all incoming data and documents in a database
  • Compliance with strict data-cleaning rules
  • Documentation of all systematic data recodings that applied to all countries
  • Logging, in a recoding file, of all “manual” corrections to a country’s data files
  • Replication, on completion of data-cleaning for each country, of the entire process, from the beginning
  • Close cooperation with the national centers throughout the various stages of the cleaning process

The program-based data cleaning consisted of the following steps:

  • Documentation and structure check
  • Identification variable (ID) cleaning
  • Linkage cleaning
  • Resolution of inconsistencies in questionnaire data
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Sources - Technical documentation
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Other sources
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