Analyzing Tools

A selection of online tools and tutorials for exploring PIRLS data are provided below.

International Data Explorer (IDE)

This user-friendly, online analysis tool provided by NCES allows you to work directly with the PIRLS data and produce your own analyses, tables, regressions, and charts.

Distance Learning Dataset Training (DLDT)

These NCES training modules are available online and allow you to learn at your own pace about the statistical procedures and methods that are available to analyze the PIRLS datasets.

International Database (IDB) Analyzer

The IDB Analyzer is a free Windows-based software tool developed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) that can be used to combine and analyze data from PIRLS and other large-scale education studies. The IDB Analyzer creates SAS code or SPSS syntax that takes into account information from the sampling design in the computation of sampling variance and that also handles plausible values (described in NCES’s Distance Learning Dataset Training modules).

EdSurvey R Package

EdSurvey is an R statistical package that is tailored to the processing and analysis of NCES large-scale education data and that takes into account their complex sample survey design and use of plausible values. Key functions of EdSurvey include data processing and manipulation, cross-tabulation, analysis of achievement levels and benchmarks, percentiles, correlations, linear regression, logistic regression, and gap analysis. EdSurvey was developed by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and commissioned by NCES.