Mending the Education Divide

Reader’s guide

The results referred to in this volume are provided in Annex C.

Country coverage

The publication features results on teachers and school principals working in schools providing lower secondary education (ISCED level 2) in 48 countries and territories, as well as in 2 sub-national entities (the Flemish Community of Belgium and the French Community of Belgium) that opted for their data to be adjudicated.

In tables, countries and territories are ranked in alphabetical order. There are two exceptions to this rule:

• The Flemish Community of Belgium and the French Community of Belgium are indented and italicised, under Belgium.

• Countries that have not met TALIS standard participation rates are placed at the bottom of the tables.

There are six sub-national entities participating in TALIS 2018. They are referred to in the following manner:

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

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

• The French Community of Belgium is referred to as French 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.

• The municipality of Shanghai, in China, is referred to as Shanghai (China).

The People’s Republic of China is hereafter referenced as “China”.

Chinese Taipei and Cyprus 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.

Two notes are added to the information on Cyprus:

• Note by Turkey: The information in this document with reference to “Cyprus” relates to the southern part of the Island. There is no single authority representing both Turkish and Greek Cypriot people on the Island. Turkey recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Until a lasting and equitable solution is found within the context of the United Nations, Turkey shall preserve its position concerning the “Cyprus issue”.

• Note by all the European Union Member States of the OECD and the European Union: The Republic of Cyprus is recognised by all members of the United Nations with the exception of Turkey. The information in this document relates to the area under the effective control of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.

The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.

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).

This report focuses on lower secondary education (ISCED level 2).

Reporting teacher data

The report uses “teachers” as shorthand for the TALIS target population of lower secondary teachers. TALIS covers teachers who, as part of their regular duties in a target school, provide instruction in programmes at the ISCED 2 level (lower secondary education).

Reporting principal data

The report uses “principals” and “school leaders” as equivalent shorthand for the TALIS target population of lower secondary principals. 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 weighted by the school weights.

International averages

The OECD and TALIS averages correspond to the arithmetic mean of the respective country estimates. They are calculated for most indicators based on the main survey data (ISCED level 2) presented in this report. The European Union average, called “EU total”, takes the European Union member states as a single entity, to which each country contributes in proportion of the estimated size of the target population. It can be used to assess how a country compares with the European Union as a whole.

The system-level estimates of the Flemish Community of Belgium and the French Community of Belgium are not included in the international averages, as these sub‑national entities already contribute to the international averages through the means of Belgium as a whole.

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 lower secondary principals in Australia.

In the case of some countries, data may not be available for specific indicators, or specific categories may not apply. Readers should, therefore, keep in mind that the terms “OECD average”, “TALIS average” and “EU total” refer to the countries included in the respective averages. Each of these averages may not necessarily be consistent across all columns of a table.

The number of countries or territories included in an international average is indicated next to that average:

• OECD average-31: arithmetic average based on ISCED 2 teacher data across 31 OECD countries and territories with adjudicated data. The report refers to the average teacher “across the OECD” as equivalent shorthand for the average teacher “across the 31 OECD countries and territories participating in TALIS”.

• OECD average-30: arithmetic average based on ISCED 2 principal data across 30 OECD countries and territories with adjudicated data. The report refers to the average school or principal “across the OECD” as equivalent shorthand for the average school or principal “across the 30 OECD countries and territories participating in TALIS”.

• TALIS average-48: arithmetic average based on ISCED 2 teacher data across 48 TALIS 2018 countries and territories with adjudicated data.

• TALIS average-47: arithmetic average based on ISCED 2 principal data across 47 TALIS 2018 countries and territories with adjudicated data.

• EU total-23: weighted average based on ISCED 2 teacher or principal data across all EU member states that participate in TALIS with adjudicated data.

The list of countries and territories 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.

• n: Data is missing due to computational process (e.g. regression coefficients are missing if there is at least one variable without valid data included in a regression model; or else in the case of non‑convergence of the maximum likelihood function).

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

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 volume 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.

percentage-point difference

Coef.

regression coefficient

ICC

intra-class correlation

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

[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.

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