Country Reports

• In Event: Online Toolkit for Comparative International Education Research

Abstract

The Country Reports (CR) project is a web tool that has been designed for researchers, policymakers, the media, and the general public to further their comparative international education research. As part of the online toolkit, the CR web tool is a vital starting point for exploring indicators from numerous sources on the economic, political, demographic, and educational characteristics of 90+ countries, including all members of the Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) and many non-OECD countries.

With the increasing curiosity and interest in national performance and rankings on international educational assessments such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), it is necessary to examine the educational performance of countries within their broader economic, social, and political contexts. The CR web tool helps to make contextual data for countries easily accessible to everyone, presenting the information in a clear format that can be downloaded and used along with other research data.

The CR web tool came about from an earlier effort exploring the education systems of consistently high-performing countries and countries that demonstrated significant improvement on their academic performance as measured by PISA. The task was to explore and describe the education systems of these countries. In the course of a report, it became apparent that the performance of education systems is correlated with a number of indicators pertaining to countries’ economic standing, education policies, and demographic landscape. The research expanded itself from not only describing the education system of a country, but also to identifying indicators that can provide insight into a country’s education system.

The Country Reports are produced from a comprehensive database of indicators from The World Bank, OECD’s Education at a Glance, and the CIA World Factbook. With these data, readers can explore five distinct profiles for each country: political, demographic, economic, educational, and international assessment performance.

The CR web tool allows the user to display data from multiple countries side-by-side within each of the five profiles. The process involves choosing one or more countries for comparison with the United States, selecting indicators within the different profiles, and examining the results exported to a customized report. The tool is similar to a report builder and has the capability to export reports into a usable file ready to be downloaded.

This presentation will demonstrate the CR web tool using a few scenarios comparing data from the G-20 countries. The benefits and limitations of using the CR tool will be discussed throughout the presentation, and its capabilities will be compared to the other web tools presented in this session, the International Data Explorer and the International Cross-Time Cross-System Database.

Author

• Ariana L. Harner, American Institutes for Research