Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 Grade 9: Mathematics teacher (BTM) - South Africa as one of 39 countries

Description:
This data set contains mathematics teacher responses to the teacher background questionnaire, i.e. school emphasis on academic success, school environment, about being a teacher, about teaching the TIMSS class, etc. All mathematics teachers were required to complete this questionnaire.

The data set has 203 variables and was completed by 334 teachers.

Of the 300 sampled schools, 292 schools was realised providing a response rate of 97%.
Abstract:
TIMSS is a cross-national assessment of mathematics and science knowledge of fourth and eighth grades and includes approximately 57 countries. It is conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) every four years since 1995. South Africa took part in five cycles of TIMSS i.e.; in 1995, 1999, 2003, 2011 and 2015 with fieldwork being conducted in August/September 2015.

The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) conducted the study in 292 schools and assessed 12514 learners across South Africa. To prevent a cluster of scores at the lower end of the scale and to ensure sufficient variance in the data for robust analyses TIMSS was administered to grade 9 learners in South Africa.

As part of the TIMSS study mathematics and science tests and background questionnaires are administered to an intact randomly selected grade 9 class within a sampled school. TIMSS uses the results from the tests and questionnaires which are administered to learners, teachers and principals to determine the achievement scores as well as the factors associated with academic success.

One of the main aims of the study is to measure the health of the education systems for a particular country. More specifically, the database includes the following for each country for which internationally comparable data are available.

This data set contains mathematics teacher responses to the teacher background questionnaire, i.e. school emphasis on academic success, school environment, about being a teacher, about teaching the TIMSS class, etc. All mathematics teachers were required to complete this questionnaire.