About NCES International Comparisons

NCES coordinates the participation of U.S. adults, students, teachers, principals, and schools in various international education studies. This activity entails:

• Collaborating with international organizations to develop, improve and disseminate comparable international education data; and
• Coordinating national implementation and data collection of these studies.

NCES cooperates with foreign governments and international organizations to develop and improve comparative education data. Working with representatives from other nations, NCES works to incorporate the research and policy priorities of the United States into existing and future international education studies. Among the organizations that NCES works with are the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), and UNESCO.

As a result of this collaborative work, NCES contributes to and publishes international data on education in various easy-to-use and view formats, such as:

Compilation reports: These reports present a set of education indicators that describes how the U.S. education system compares with those in other countries, most often our major economic competitors such as the Group of 20.

Data tables: Conveniently formatted tables that give a quick overview of topics of interest in international comparative education.

Snapshots: Brief analyses of international education data using the International Data Explorer.

International Data Explorer: an online data analysis tool that allows users to conduct analyses of international education data without the need for specialized software.

NCES also encourages the analysis of international assessment data by researchers through data dissemination and training.

NCES coordinates the participation of U.S. adults, students, teachers, principals, and schools in various international education studies as well as the national analysis and reporting of the data collected.

Over the years, there have been a number of international education studies conducted by NCES, some of which have continued and others that have not. Currently, NCES coordinates the U.S. participation in the following international studies:

Study	What's surveyed	Who's surveyed	How Often?	What Years?	Next Data Collection Year
PIAAC	Literacy skills, Numeracy skills, Problem solving in a technology-rich environment	Adults ages 16-65	Every 10 years	2012	2022
PIRLS	Reading literacy	4th-graders	Every 5 years	2001, 2006, 2011	2016
PISA	Reading literacy, Mathematics literacy, Science literacy	15-year-olds	Every 3 years	2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015	2018
TIMSS	Mathematics, Science	4th-graders, 8th-graders	Every 4 years	1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015	2019
	Calculus, Physics	12th-graders	Occasionally	1995, 2015	TBD
TALIS	Teachers, teaching, and learning environments	Teachers in grades 7, 8, and 9	Every 5 years	2013	2018

For a more detailed comparison of the international studies in which the United States participates, go to http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/intl_assessments_table.asp.

For a list of countries that currently participate in international studies, go to http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/intl_participation_table.asp.