In addition to the following questions about TIMSS, more FAQs about international assessments are available at: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/faqs.asp.

• What areas of mathematics and science are assessed in TIMSS?
  
• How many U.S. schools and students participated in previous TIMSS cycles?
  
• How does TIMSS select a representative sample of students?
  
• Have there been changes in the countries participating in TIMSS?
• If the makeup of the countries changes across the years, how can one compare countries to the TIMSS scale average?
  
• How do the results of TIMSS compare with the results in PISA?
  
• How does the mathematics and science achievement of U.S. students on TIMSS compare with achievement on NAEP?
  
• Can you directly compare TIMSS scores at grade 4 to scores at grade 8?
  
• On TIMSS, why do U.S. boys outperform girls in mathematics at grade 4 but not at grade 8, and U.S. boys outperform girls in science at grade 8 but not at grade 4? Why aren't differences between the sexes more consistent?
  
• When are TIMSS data collected?
  
• Where can I get a copy of the TIMSS U.S. Report?
  
• When is TIMSS scheduled to be administered next?
  

Have there been changes in the countries participating in TIMSS?

Yes. The composition of participating countries in TIMSS has changed somewhat from 1995 to 2007, as some countries have dropped out and others have joined.

In 2007, more than 56 separate countries participated in TIMSS. TIMSS also allows subnational entities to participate as benchmarking partners in the assessment. The subnational entities that participated in TIMSS 2007 were as follows: the Basque country in Spain, four Canadian provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec), Dubai, and two states in the United States (Massachusetts and Minnesota). In the case of the Canadian provinces, the Basque country, and Dubai, the larger nation in which they are located chose not to participate. In the case of the states of Massachusetts and Minnesota, students in these states were eligible for participation in the U.S. national sample as well as in the separate samples that these states drew for the study.

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