Publication of the TIMSS 2023 Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors Framework

In light of the increasing urgency of global environmental issues, TIMSS 2023 will feature context questionnaire items that aim to assess the environmental attitudes and behaviors of students. These updates are described in the TIMSS 2023 Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors Framework, a supplement to the TIMSS 2023 Context Questionnaire Framework. This framework specifies the environmental issues and topics represented in the TIMSS 2023 context questionnaires.

The TIMSS 2023 Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors Framework describes the expansion of TIMSS 2023 Context Questionnaires to include information about the environmental attitudes and behaviors of students as well as the environmental practices of parents, teachers, and schools. For example, students will be asked how often they reuse materials, while parents will be asked how often they engage in various activities with their child to promote environmental responsibility. The TIMSS 2023 Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors Framework also details the theory and research that supports the new context questionnaire items.

The TIMSS 2023 Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors Framework builds on the TIMSS 2019 Environmental Awareness scales, which assessed environmental awareness in students using items from the fourth grade Earth science and life science content domains, and the eighth grade Earth science and biology content domains.

TIMSS 2023 is the eighth cycle of TIMSS and will result in nearly three decades of trend data on student achievement in mathematics and science. As the first fully digital administration of TIMSS, TIMSS 2023 will not only collect achievement and contextual data, but will also collect process data that sheds light on how students navigate through the digital assessment.

TIMSS 2023 data collection will begin in the spring of 2023.