Description:
This data set contains science 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 science teachers were required to complete this questionnaire.
The data set has 215 variables and was completed by 331 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 53 countries. The Grade 9 mathematics and science assessment included 39 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) administered 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.
This data set contains science 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 science teachers were required to complete this questionnaire.
Self-completion
The Department of Basic Education Master list of schools.
Department of Basic Education Master list of schools database served as the sampling frame
It included only schools that offered grade 9;
Schools with population size smaller than 10 was excluded;
Special schools were excluded.
The TIMSS sampling design is a two-stage stratified cluster design:
Selecting a random sample of schools from all eligible schools; and
Randomly selecting a mathematics and science intact class within each of the sampled schools;
The sample was explicitly stratified by Province, Language of Learning and Teaching (English, Afrikaans, Dual medium) and school type which was Public and Independent; and
Implicitly stratified by quintile (school poverty index).
