Questionnaire Development in International Large-Scale Assessment Studies

Questionnaires are a crucial part of international large-scale studies of educational achievement, such as the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) studies on mathematics, science, reading, computer and information literacy, and civic and citizenship education. Building on IEA’s well-established technical standards, this chapter provides an overview of the purpose of this type of instrument, approaches to its development, and the evolving challenges in this area. While large-scale assessment studies have traditionally employed questionnaires to gather contextual information to explain variation in the respective outcome variables of interest, over time there has been a shift toward also collecting information and reports on students’ attitudes, dispositions, or behaviors as outcome measures. More recently, development of alternative item formats and approaches have further increased the reliability, validity, and comparability within and across education systems. Approaches to questionnaire purpose and design can vary and instrument can be targeted to different groups and populations. Contextual information has to be collected across highly diverse educational systems creating issues regarding cross-national validity. The challenges of maximizing measurement invariance across highly diverse national contexts and the opportunities provided by a computer-based delivery may lead to future changes and improvements in the approach to questionnaire development.