Use and Impact of TIMSS
Because there is no regular national assessment of the trends in mathematics and science achievement at the primary and lower secondary levels in the Czech Republic, assessments like TIMSS, PIRLS, and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provide important information regarding student achievement in the Czech Republic to experts (i.e., researchers, teachers, nongovernmental organizations, and the Czech School Inspectorate) and policymakers. Experts tend to take TIMSS survey results as a starting point when discussing the quality of mathematics and science education in the Czech Republic, especially when the results indicate a stable or even decreasing level of student achievement. The TIMSS results and subsequent discussions of the quality of education in the Czech Republic have attracted media attention and public attention in turn. General debate on the country’s potential educational problems has led experts to generate surveys in order to pinpoint root causes of stagnation or failure. Policymakers generally take into account these survey results, when developing and implementing reforms in mathematics and science education.
The TIMSS tasks released for public use are published together with TIMSS results for the Czech Republic and an expert review of student performance. The publications are distributed to schools free of charge, and the electronic version is available on the Web page of the Czech School Inspectorate. The main aims of the publication are to enhance teachers’ understanding of student weaknesses, to provide them with new didactic tools to support their students’ development of mathematical and scientific knowledge and abilities, and to give them potential evaluation tools that will allow them to compare their students to other students in the Czech Republic who also have participated in the TIMSS assessment.