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The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is the largest international study of civic and citizenship education ever conducted. Over 140,000 Grade 8 students, 62,000 teachers, and 5,300 school principals from 38 countries participated in this study. Among these were five from Asia, 26 from Europe, six from Latin America, and one from Australasia. The ICCS assessment addressed students' civic knowledge and understanding, perceptions and attitudes, and engagement and behavior. It also collected information on various aspects of students' home backgrounds. Each chapter, written by one or more members of the country's national research center, begins with a description of the country's general demographic features as well as its political characteristics. Authors then detail the background and structure of the education system, the general approach to civic and citizenship education, how it is included in the national curriculum, which school activities relate to it, and whether this learning area is subject to current reforms and debates. Authors also outline the requirements for educating teachers for teaching in general and for teaching civic and citizenship education in particular. With regard to the latter, consideration is given to the extent to which teachers receive teacher education (both preservice and inservice) that prepares them to teach issues related to this learning area. Each chapter concludes with a description of the national approaches to assessment and quality assurance of educational outcomes on the one hand and of learning topics related to civic and citizenship education on the other. A list of organizations and individuals involved in ICCS is appended. (Individual chapters contain tables, figures, footnotes, and references.) [Additional funding for this document was provided by the Inter-American Development Bank.]

The purpose of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2013 (ICILS 2013) is to investigate, in a range of countries, the ways in which young people are developing "computer and information literacy" (CIL) to support their capacity to participate in the digital age. To achieve this aim, the study will assess student achievement through an authentic computer-based assessment of CIL administered to students in their eighth year of schooling. It will also collect and report on analyses of data about student use of computers and other digital devices as well as students' attitudes toward the use of computers and other digital tools. This study is the first of its kind--in terms of emphasis on students' acquisition of CIL--in international comparative research. It is a response to the increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in modern society and the need for citizens to develop relevant skills in order to participate effectively in the digital age. It also addresses the necessity for policymakers and education systems to have a better understanding of the contexts and outcomes of ICT-related education programs in their countries. The purpose of the ICILS framework is to articulate the basic structure of the study. It provides a description of the field and the constructs to be measured. It also outlines the design and content of the measurement instruments, sets down the rationale for those designs, and describes how measures generated by those instruments relate to the constructs. In addition, it hypothesizes relations between constructs so as to provide the foundation for some of the analyses that follow. Above all, the framework links ICILS to other work in the field. The contents of this assessment framework combine theory and practice in an explication of "both the 'what' and the 'how'" (Jago, 2009, p. 1) of ICILS. Research questions include: (1) How does student computer and information literacy vary within and between countries? (2) What aspects of schools and education systems are related to student achievement in computer and information literacy? (3) What aspects of students' personal and social backgrounds (such as gender, socioeconomic background, and language background) are related to computer and information literacy? (4) What can education systems and schools do to improve students' computer and information literacy? Appended are: (1) Organizations and individuals involved in ICILS; and (2) Hypothetical progress map for CIL. ["International Computer and Information Literacy Study: Assessment Framework " was also produced by the IEA Data Processing and Research Center, and the IEA Secretariat.]

Based on student survey data from five East Asian countries, the paper contains an analysis of attitudes towards the use of personal connections in politics and towards personal morality among politicians. The first part of the analysis describes the extent and variations of these attitudes, which are viewed as of particular relevance within the East Asian context. The second part of the analysis investigates the relationship of these attitudes with student background and school-related variables such as civic knowledge as well as uncovering the extent to which these attitudes are related to indicators of future civic engagement among students. (Contains 1 figure and 7 tables.)

This supplement contains documentation on the explicit and implicit stratification variables included in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009 data files. The explicit strata are smaller sampling frames, created from the national sampling frames, from which national samples of schools were drawn. The implicit strata are nested within the explicit strata, and were used for sorting the sampling frame prior to the systematic sampling of the schools. For details of the ICCS 2009 sample design and implementation, please refer to the "ICCS 2009 Technical Report" (ED544622). [For the "ICCS 2009 User Guide for the International Database," see ED544615. For Supplement 2 (National Adaptations of International Questionnaires), see ED544616. For Supplement 3 (Variables Derived from the Survey Data), see ED544617. For Supplement 5 (ICCS 2009 Released Items), see ED544619.]

This report is structured so as to provide technical detail about each aspect of International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS). The overview is followed by a series of chapters that provide detail about different aspects of ICCS. Chapters, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are concerned with the instruments. Chapter 2 provides information about the development and properties of the ICCS cognitive test. Chapter 3 details the development and properties of the ICCS international questionnaires. These include the international student questionnaire, the teacher questionnaire, and the school questionnaire, as well as the national contexts survey. Chapter 4 is concerned with the development of the ICCS regional instruments: the European test and questionnaire, the Latin American test and questionnaire, and the Asian questionnaire. Chapter 5 describes the procedures used to translate and adapt ICCS instruments. Chapters 6 and 7 are concerned with aspects of sampling. Chapter 6 details the sampling design and implementation and Chapter 7 documents the weighting procedures that were used to ensure the results from ICCS represented the defined populations in each country. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 focus on the survey implementation. Chapter 8 details the field operation procedures and the process of preparation of data files. Chapter 9 documents the quality control protocols and procedures that were used in the ICCS data collection. Chapter 10 provides an account of data management in ICCS and the creation of the ICCS database. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 describe the psychometric and statistical analyses used in ICCS. Chapter 11 reports on the scaling procedures for the ICCS cognitive test and how responses to the test items were used to construct scores on the ICCS civic knowledge scale. Chapter 12 describes the methods used to form scales from the ICCS questionnaire items, while Chapter 13 details how the ICCS results were reported and gives an account of the conventions adopted for the construction of tables. The following are appended: (1) Organizations and individuals involved in ICCS; (2) Characteristics of national samples; (3) Descriptions for cognitive test items and allocations to proficiency levels; and (4) Tables with coding information. (Contains 132 tables and 44 figures. Individual chapters contain references and footnotes. The appendices contain additional tables.) [The following people contributed to writing this report: John Ainley, Falk Brese, Julian Fraillon, Tim Friedman, Michael Jung, David Kerr, Bruno Losito, Barbara Malak, Wolfram Schulz, Caroline Vandenplas, Alana Yu, and Olaf Zuehlke. See ED544615, for the ICCS 2009 User Guide for the International Database.]

This supplement contains documentation on all the derived variables contained in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009 data files that are based on survey variables. These variables were used to report data in the ICCS 2009 international reports, and are made available as part of the ICCS 2009 International Database to be used in secondary analyses. This supplement has seven sections corresponding to each survey instrument from which reporting variables are derived: (1) School Questionnaire; (2) Teacher Questionnaire; (3) Student Achievement Booklets; (4) Student Questionnaire; (5) European Module Questionnaire; (6) Latin American Module Questionnaire; and (7) Asian Module Questionnaire. Each section lists first the indices and then the scales derived from survey variables in the order of the variables that were used to derive the variable as they appear in the instruments. The following information is provided for each derived variable: (1) Variable Name: The name of the derived variable; (2) Description: A description of the variable content; (3) Procedure: A procedural description of how the derived variable was computed; and (4) Source: Source variables used to derive scale or index. [For the "ICCS 2009 Technical Report," see ED544622.]

The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) studied the ways in which countries prepare their young people to undertake their roles as citizens. It investigated student knowledge and understanding of civics and citizenship as well as student attitudes, perceptions, and activities related to civics and citizenship. It also examined differences among countries in relation to these outcomes of civic and citizenship education, and it explored how differences among countries relate to student characteristics, school and community contexts, and national characteristics. ICCS considered six research questions concerned with the following: (1) Variations in civic knowledge; (2) Changes in content knowledge since 1999; (3) Student interest in engaging in public and political life and their disposition to do so; (4) Perceptions of threats to civil society; (5) Features of education systems, schools, and classrooms related to civic and citizenship education; and (6) Aspects of student background related to the outcomes of civic and citizenship education. ICCS gathered data from more than 140,000 Grade 8 (or equivalent) students in over 5,300 schools from 38 countries. The study revealed considerable variation across and within participating countries in civic knowledge. On a scale with a standard deviation of 100 points, the difference between the top and bottom quartiles of the country distribution was 60 points. In the four highest-performing countries, more than half of the students were at the highest of three proficiency levels. In the four lowest-performing countries, more than 70 percent of student scores were in the lowest three proficiency levels. Girls gained significantly higher civic knowledge scores than did boys in nearly all of the ICCS countries. Appendices include: (1) Institutions and staff; (2) ICCS participation rates and sample sizes; (3) The scaling of ICCS questionnaire items; and (4) Item-by-score maps for questionnaire scales. (Contains 30 tables, 6 figures and 10 footnotes.)

This document outlines the framework and assessment design for the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Over the past 50 years, IEA has conducted comparative research studies focusing on educational policies, practices, and outcomes in more than 80 countries around the world. The purpose of ICCS is to investigate the ways in which young people in lower secondary schools are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries. The study will report on student achievement on a test of conceptual understandings and competencies in civic and citizenship education and also will collect and analyze data about student dispositions and attitudes relating to civic and citizenship education. Teacher and school questionnaires will gather information about teaching and class-management practices, school governance and climate, and other matters. A national context survey will collect information about civic and citizenship education and its contexts (aspects related to political, cultural, and educational contexts) in each participating country. The study framework also offers "regional modules" that will allow groups of participating countries from the same region to address region-specific issues in civic and citizenship education. The three regional modules established for ICCS relate to Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Appendices include: (1) Institutions and Staff; and (2) Sample Test Items. (Contains 8 footnotes, 3 figures, and 5 tables.) [In co-operation with the IEA Secretariat, the IEA DPC (data processing and research center), and the NRCs (national research coordinators) the following three organizations are responsible for the study's organization: Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), as lead institution; the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) in the United Kingdom; and Laboratorio di Pedagogia sperimentale (LPS) at the Roma Tre University in Italy.]

The new IEA "International Civic and Citizenship Education Study" (ICCS) will investigate the extent to which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens across a range of countries. ICCS will survey 13-to-14-year old students in over 30 countries in the year 2009. The ICCS outcome data will be obtained from representative samples of students in their eighth year of schooling and context data from the students, their schools and teachers. ICCS is the third international IEA study in this area and it is explicitly linked through common questions to the IEA "Civic Education Study" (CIVED) which was undertaken in 1999. The ways young people already actively participate in their schools and communities and the degree to which they are expecting to act politically in later adult life are important aspects in the development of this new study. An assessment framework has been developed as the foundation for the ICCS instruments and this paper outlines how the assessment framework addresses the role of political participation among young people. It includes a description of the measures of student knowledge, activities and attitudes associated with civic participation that have been developed in this study. Furthermore, it discusses relevant factors associated with civic participation, the relationships between these variables as well as the analysis and reporting of ICCS data. (Contains 6 footnotes, 2 figures and 4 tables. ICCS Research Questions are appended.) [Paper prepared for the ECPR General Conference in Pisa (Italy), 6-8 September 2007.]

The purpose of the "International Civic and Citizenship Education Study" (ICCS) is to investigate the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries. The study will report on student achievement on a test of conceptual understandings and competencies in civic and citizenship education. It will also collect and analyse data about student dispositions and attitudes relating to civic and citizenship education. The study builds on the previous IEA study of civic education (CIVED) undertaken in 1999. A website with information about ICCS can be found at http://iccs.acer.edu.au/. It is recognised that there is substantial diversity in the field of civic and citizenship education within and across countries. Consequently, maximising the involvement of researchers from participating countries in this international comparative study is deemed to be of particular importance for the success of this study. Input from national research centres will be sought throughout the study and the consortium will develop strategies to encourage country contributions to instrument development as well as to the dissemination of results. This document gives an overview of the study and summarise the different aspects of its implementation. It also outlines the structure of the assessment framework and the process of the development and implementation of instruments as well as the benefits for participating countries. (Contains 4 footnotes, 1 figure and 3 tables.) [Paper prepared for the 51st annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society in Baltimore, 25 February-1 March 2007.]

International studies like PISA use context student or school questionnaires to collect data on student family background, attitudes and learning context. Questionnaire constructs are typically measured using dichotomous or Likert-type items. Scaling of questionnaire items in order to obtain measures of family background, student attitudes or perceptions of learning context requires a thorough cross-country validation of the underlying constructs. Two methodological approaches to construct validation are applied within the context of the OECD PISA study: (1) Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) based on mean and covariance structures can be used to test the measurement equivalence and help to detect possible socio-cultural differences on the constructs; and (2) Item Response Theory (IRT) has been used for scaling items using a logistic function and obtaining measures of the latent construct. This paper describes ways of implementing tests of parameter invariance in CFA and IRT, examines results using these two different approaches to validate questionnaire constructs based on data from the OECD PISA study and discusses their implications for cross-national or cross-cultural research. Appended are: (1) Multiple-group model results; and (2) Country effects on item parameters. (Contains 18 tables and 8 footnotes.)

One of the consistent findings of educational research studies is the effect of the students' family socio-economic background on their learning achievement. Consequently, international comparative studies emphasis the role of socio-economic background for determining learning outcomes. In particular, PISA results have been used to describe how different structures of the educational system can mediate the impact of socio-economic family background on performance with comprehensive system generally providing more equity in educational opportunities. This paper addresses the issue of measuring socio-economic background in the context of the OECD PISA study. It describes the computation of a composite index of "Economic, Social and Cultural Status" derived from occupational status of parents, educational level of parents and home possessions for the first two PISA cycles. It also shows results from the first two PISA surveys regarding the relationship between socio-economic background and student performance, both using single-level and multi-level analysis. Furthermore, it reviews the consistency of student and parent reports on socio-economic based on field trial data from the third PISA cycle collected in 2005. The analysis presented in this paper show that within PISA countries the effects of socio-economic background measures on student performance across the first two PISA cycles remain mostly unchanged. But there is some variation which might partly be due to problem with measurement and researchers as well as policy-makers are strongly advised not to interpret minor changes in the relationship between SES and performance (for example as possible outcomes of recent policy changes). It needs to be recognized that there is a certain amount of measurement error associated with student reports on family background which needs to be taken into account when interpreting findings from PISA. (Contains 13 tables.)

One of the most salient requirements for international educational research is the use of comparable measures. For the comparison of student performance across countries the use of item response theory (IRT) scaling techniques facilitates the collection of cross-nationally comparable measures. But there is also a need for valid and comparable context variables, such as family background, learning context, motivational factors, and so on. A wide range of student and school information was gathered through the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) student and school questionnaires. Most of the theoretical constructs were measured through sets of items that needed to be validated across countries. After the process of construct validation, IRT modeling was used to scale the items. This method not only provides a more sophisticated scaling technique, but also yields an elegant way of dealing with incomplete data (missing values). This paper describes the process of cross-country validation in the PISA study with two examples and discusses its limitations and problems. An appendix contains three tables of PISA data. (Contains 3 graphs, 10 tables, and 11 references.) (Author/SLD)