National Research Coordinators
Each country participating in TIMSS appoints a National Research Coordinator
(NRC) who carries out the study in the country, in accordance with the
international procedures and standards. The NRC is responsible for selecting
the school sample, collecting the data, conducting scoring and data entry,
and preparing a national report of the study results. The TIMSS International
Study Center convenes the NRCs several times a year to discuss and review
the study design, procedures, and instruments, and to conduct training
activities.
The International Study Center (ISC) is responsible for the overall design,
development, and implementation of TIMSS. This includes establishing
the procedures, overseeing instrument development, conducting
training, and
carrying out quality assurance measures. The ISC also conducts
analyses and releases the study results in an international
report and user database.
TIMSS is directed by Dr. Ina V.S. Mullis and Dr. Michael O.
Martin.
Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is the sponsoring organization for TIMSS. The IEA Secretariat is responsible for providing overall support, overseeing fundraising and country participation, coordinating the translation verification of the TIMSS assessment instruments, and recruiting international quality control monitors.
The IEA has its own data processing center located in Hamburg, Germany.
The Data Processing Center (DPC) works with the participating
countries to plan for their within-country data entry activities,
is responsible for processing and verifying
the data from all
of the countries, and constructs the international
database.
Working with the ISC and DPC, the Special Surveys Methods Group of Statistics Canada in Ottawa, Canada, is responsible for all sampling activities in TIMSS. This includes developing the sampling procedures and documentation, and assisting participants in adapting the TIMSS sampling design to local conditions.
A leader in developing scaling technology for large-scale comparative assessments, ETS provides software and psychometric support for scaling the TIMSS achievement data. ETS is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.
