LaNA—IEA’s Literacy and Numeracy Assessment

Purpose and Objectives

LaNA is an international assessment that measures foundational early reading and mathematics skills at the end of primary school. It is based on the mathematics and reading frameworks of IEA’s international large-scale educational assessments, TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), both of which engage participants from over 70 countries globally. LaNA is designed as a short, basic assessment intended for countries where IEA’s TIMSS and PIRLS may be too difficult or unfeasible to implement.

By participating in LaNA, countries will obtain reliable and internationally comparable measures of reading and mathematics for their student populations. Further, connecting student performance in their countries to TIMSS and PIRLS achievement scales provides a reference that is recognized by UNESCO as contributing to an ecosystem for monitoring progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.1.1b.

What is Measured

LaNA assesses both mathematics and reading skills. The reading assessment in LaNA comprises a reading comprehension test where students read simple passages and answer questions about what they have read. These passages encompass the dual purposes of reading as described in the PIRLS 2016 Reading Assessment Framework: reading for literary experience (stories) and reading to acquire and use information. The numeracy assessment in LaNA covers mathematics topics described in the TIMSS 2019 Mathematics Framework, such as recognizing and comparing simple fractions, whole number computation, relating simple geometric shapes, and interpreting graphs.

Additionally, LaNA includes two contextual questionnaires: one for schools and one for students. These questionnaires gather information about the learning environment, focusing on aspects like available resources, students’ learning experiences, and the classroom and school environments themselves. This contextual data can be used further to examine the characteristics of successful students and schools, and can reveal important policy-relevant variables.

Who Should Participate?

LaNA’s unique framework is tailored to assess reading and mathematics achievement in countries where the difficulty levels of TIMSS and PIRLS may present challenges for the student population. It also serves as a capacity-building opportunity for countries, offering a valuable learning experience for national teams across various domains of administering an international large-scale assessment. These include sampling, translation, national adaptation, standardized test administration, tracking of respondents, data entry and verification, and reporting outcomes. The LaNA administration can serve as a foundational step for developing a national monitoring system and for comparing students’ achievements on an internationally comparable scale. For more information about LaNA participation, please visit the IEA’s LaNA webpage: https://www.iea.nl/studies/iea/LaNA.