Teachers Getting the Best out of Their Students

Reader’s guide

The results referred to in this volume are provided in Annex C via links to online tables.

Country coverage

The publication presents statistics and analysis derived from the survey responses of teachers and school principals in primary education in 15 countries and economies (ISCED level 1)1 and teachers and school principals in upper secondary in 11 countries and economies (ISCED level 3). Although results are also presented for lower secondary education, these values as are introduced as comparison points for primary and upper secondary education rather than in-depth descriptions of the level on itself.2 In tables, countries and economies are ranked in alphabetical order. Countries that have not met TALIS standard participation rates are placed at the bottom of the tables.

There are four sub-national entities participating in TALIS 2018 in primary education or upper secondary education. They are referred to in the following manner:

In primary education

• The Flemish Community of Belgium is referred to as Flemish Comm. (Belgium) in tables and figures.

• Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires is referred to as CABA (Argentina).

• The nation of England is referred to as England (United Kingdom), or England (UK) in tables and figures.

In upper secondary education

• The province of Alberta, in Canada, is referred to as Alberta (Canada)

Chinese Taipei did not participate directly in TALIS 2018: their data collection and processing were managed exclusively by the international research consortium. Their data are reported in the result tables listed in Annex C.

Classification of levels of education

The classification of levels of education is based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). ISCED is an instrument for compiling statistics on education internationally. ISCED-97 was recently revised, and the new International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED-2011) was formally adopted in November 2011 and is now the basis of the levels presented in this publication. It distinguishes between nine levels of education:

• early childhood education (ISCED level 0)

• primary education (ISCED level 1)

• lower secondary education (ISCED level 2)

• upper secondary education (ISCED level 3)

• post-secondary non-tertiary level of education (ISCED level 4)

• short-cycle tertiary education (ISCED level 5)

• bachelor’s or equivalent level (ISCED level 6)

• master’s or equivalent level (ISCED level 7)

• doctoral or equivalent level (ISCED level 8).

More information can be found in Annex B.

Reporting teacher data

The report uses “teachers” as shorthand for the TALIS target population of teachers of primary education or upper secondary depending of the section in the report. TALIS covers teachers who, as part of their regular duties in a target school, provide instruction in programmes at the corresponding ISCED level. “Teachers in primary education” refers to teachers providing instruction in programmes at the ISCED level 1 (primary education). “Teachers in upper secondary education” refers to teachers providing instruction in programmes at the ISCED 3 level (upper secondary education).

Reporting principal data

The report uses “principals” and “school leaders” as equivalent shorthand for the TALIS target population of principals of primary, lower secondary or upper secondary. School principals provided information on their schools’ characteristics and their own work and working conditions by completing a principal questionnaire. Where responses from school principals are presented in this publication, they are usually weighted by the school weights. In some cases, principals’ responses are treated as attributes of the teachers’ personal working conditions. In such cases, principals’ answers are analysed at the teacher level and weighted by the teacher weights.

International averages

The TALIS averages correspond to the arithmetic mean of the respective country estimates in each educational level. They are calculated for most indicators based on the survey data for each educational level presented in this report.

The system-level estimates of countries that have not met the standards for TALIS participation rates are excluded from the international averages. This is the case for the estimates based on the responses of teachers and principals of primary education in Australia and in the Netherlands.

In the case of some countries, data may not be available for specific indicators, or specific categories may not apply. Therefore, readers should keep in mind that the term “TALIS average” refers to the countries included in the respective averages. Each of these averages may not necessarily be consistent across all columns of a table.

The ISCED level in the label used in figures and tables indicates the list of countries included in the international average:

• TALIS average ISCED 1: arithmetic average across 13 TALIS 2018 countries and economies with adjudicated data in primary education.

• TALIS average ISCED 3: arithmetic average across 11 TALIS 2018 countries and economies with adjudicated data in upper secondary.

In analyses involving data from multiple ISCED levels, both averages are reported on consistent sets of countries. The “TALIS average ISCED 1” computed on ISCED level 2 data refers to the average across countries and economies with adjudicated data in primary education, and the “TALIS average ISCED 3” computed on ISCED level 2 data refers to the average across countries and economies with adjudicated data in upper secondary education. This distinction allows for valid comparisons with ISCED level 2 data.3

The list of countries and economies included in each international average is provided in Annex B.

Data underlying the figures

Five symbols are used to denote non-reported estimates:

a: The question was not administered in the country because it was optional or it is part of a questionnaire from a TALIS cycle the country has not participated in. Therefore, data are missing.

c: There are too few or no observations to provide reliable estimates and/or to ensure the confidentiality of respondents (i.e. there are fewer than 10 schools/principals and/or 30 teachers with valid data; and/or the item non-response rate [i.e. ratio of missing or invalid responses to the number of participants for whom the question was applicable] is above 50%).

m: Data were collected but subsequently removed for technical reasons (e.g. erroneous translation) as part of the data checking process.

p: Data were collected but are not reported for technical reasons (e.g. low participation rate) as part of the data adjudication process.

w: Data were withdrawn or were not collected at the request of the country concerned

“r”: System-level data are missing due to non-response during the data collection process

“na”: System-level data was not collected as the survey was not implemented at the corresponding educational level.

TALIS results are based exclusively on self-reports from teachers and school leaders and, therefore, represent their opinions, perceptions, beliefs and accounts of their activities. No data imputation from administrative data or other studies is conducted and, as with any self-reported data, this information is subjective and may, therefore, differ from data collected through other means (e.g. administrative data or video observations). The same is true of school leaders’ reports about school characteristics and practices, which may differ from descriptions provided by administrative data at a national or local government level.

Rounding figures

Because of rounding, some figures in tables may not add up exactly to the totals. Totals, differences and averages are always calculated on the basis of exact numbers and are rounded only after calculation.

All standard errors in this publication have been rounded to one, two or three decimal places. Where the value 0.0, 0.00 or 0.000 is shown, this does not imply that the standard error is zero, but that it is smaller than 0.05, 0.005 or 0.0005, respectively.

Focusing on statistically significant differences

This publication only comments on statistically significant differences or changes. These are denoted in darker colours in figures and in bold font in tables. See Annex B for further information.

Abbreviations

ISCED International Standard Classification of Education

Dif.

point difference

% dif.

percentage-point difference

ICT

information and communication technology

S.D.

standard deviation

S.E.

standard error

Further technical documentation

For further information on TALIS documentation, instruments and methodology, see the TALIS 2018 Technical Report (OECD, 2019[1]) and TALIS 2018 and TALIS Starting Strong 2018 User Guide (OECD, 2019[2]).

This report uses the OECD StatLinks service. All tables and charts are assigned a URL leading to a corresponding Excel^TM workbook containing the underlying data. These URLs are stable and will remain unchanged over time. In addition, readers of the e-books will be able to click directly on these links and the workbook will open in a separate window if their Internet browser is open and running.

References

[4] OECD (2020), TALIS 2018 Results (Volume II): Teachers and School Leaders as Valued Professionals, TALIS, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/19cf08df-en.

[2] OECD (2019), TALIS 2018 and TALIS Starting Strong 2018 User Guide, OECD, Paris, http://www.oecd.org/education/talis/TALIS_2018-TALIS_Starting_Strong_2018_User_Guide.pdf.

[3] OECD (2019), TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners, TALIS, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/1d0bc92a-en.

[1] OECD (2019), TALIS 2018 Technical Report, OECD, Paris, http://www.oecd.org/education/talis/TALIS_2018_Technical_Report.pdf.

[5] UNESCO-UIS (2012), International Standard Classification of Education: ISCED 2011, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Montreal, http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/international-standard-classification-of-education-isced-2011-en.pdf.

Notes

← 1.  As classified by the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011) (UNESCO-UIS, 2012[5]).

← 2.  For the detailed results on lower secondary education, please refer to TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners (OECD, 2019[3]) and TALIS 2018 Results (Volume II): Teachers and School Leaders as Valued Professionals (OECD, 2020[4]).

← 3.  As these lower secondary averages were estimated based on the countries and economies participating in primary education or upper secondary education, these values do not match those previously reported in TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners (OECD, 2019[3]) and TALIS 2018 Results (Volume II): Teachers and School Leaders as Valued Professionals (OECD, 2020[4]), as those were estimated based on the full list of 48 participants taking the survey at that level.