Panel B — What are PISA and TIMSS? What do they tell us?

Abstract

This is a panel discussion on PISA and TIMSS, two international comparative studies in educational achievement. The panelists are Jan de Lange of the Freudenthal Institute, the Netherlands, for PISA, and William Schmidt of Michigan State University, the United States, for TIMSS, with Lee Peng Yee of National Institute of Education, Singapore, as a moderator. They are to explain the nature, the aims, and the conclusions of the two studies, and to argue over their relative merits. This document contains three initial statements from the above-mentioned participants respectively.