SMSO Survey of Mathematics & Science Opportunities
CURRICULUM ANALYSIS TECHNICAL REPORT SERIES No. 5
GENERAL TOPIC TRACE MAPPING: DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING
May 19, 1995
Project Director: William Schmidt
MICHIGAN STATE U n i v e r s i t y
GENERAL TOPIC TRACE MAPPING: DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING ----------------------------Summary
• GTTM data are one of five data sets to be used in the TIMSS Curriculum Analysis as part of the composite portrayal of a country's intended curriculum.
• GTTM data provide information on the sequence of intended coverage of all topics of the Content Aspect of the TIMSS Curriculum Frameworks across all grades of preuniversity schooling.
• Data for the GTTM are provided by curriculum experts designated by each TIMSS National Research Coordinator.
• GTTM data collection took place in 1991-1992 and were audited 1994-1995. During the 1991-1992 period, the procedure used the version of the frameworks in place at that time. It was known as Modified Topic-Trace Mapping (MTTM). Data collected using final (May 1993) frameworks is known as GTTM.
In a separate report1, attention has been given to the various data collections that comprise the TIMSS curriculum analysis. A total of five sources of data are used, some
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designed to address the intended curricula in TIMSS participant countries in terms of the full richness of the coverage intended at certain focal grades. Other techniques are intended to provide information on curricular goals as they appear, are focussed upon, and disappear from each country's intended curriculum throughout all grades of primary and secondary education.
Continuity of Intended Coverage Information on the continuity of intended coverage can only be obtained by tracking the appearance, development and disappearance of curricular intentions as they occur through the years of schooling. Tracking these intentions results in what are known as in the TIMSS Curriculum Analysis as trace mappings. There are two procedures in this component of the TIMSS that produce such data. One is to provide rich qualitative data on a restricted subset of content topics from the TIMSS Curriculum Frameworks and is thus known as the In-depth Topic Trace Mapping (or ITTM) 2. The other is to provide data on all of the topics of the content aspect of the TIMSS Curriculum Frameworks, and is known as General Topic Trace Mapping (or GTTM).
Description Curriculum experts from each TIMSS participant nation were asked to report, for every topic from both the Mathematics and the Science TIMSS curriculum frameworks in which grade(s) the topic is intended to be introduced, at which grade(s) the topic is intended to receive special emphasis or focus, and at which grades intended instruction on the topic takes place. These data are recorded as tracings on a number line representing student ages. Figure 1 presents a small section of an actual form for science. Here we see that the topic of Earth Features / composition is introduced when students are age 9 and is no longer taught after they are age 17 -- and at age 17 this topic receives special emphasis.
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1.1
Earth Sciences
1.1.1
Earth Feathers
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composition [earth’s crust, mantle and core; distribution of metals, minerals]
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0
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land forms [mountains, valleys, continents]
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bodies of water [oceans, ponds, bottom of ocean, rivers]
FIGURE 1
Thus, GTTM data can be regarded as longitudinal data on intent in mathematics and the sciences. The TIMSS General Topic Trace Mapping is a new measurement technology in large-scale cross-national studies of curriculum. No previously published studies have used this kind of procedure in a large-scale study to chronologically document when topics are intended to be taught over the school years. GTTM data collection was conducted in late 1991 and early 1992. These data where further audited by participants in 1994-1995. Each NRC was asked to chose at least one national expert each for science and mathematics education. These experts used their professional knowledge as well as any documents of their choosing to determine the initial points, focal grades and last grades of instruction for each topic. Thus, the data source for the GTTM is similar to curriculum data collected in other IEA studies in that it relies on expert opinion, using documents when necessary, rather than on the empirical analysis of documents. However, it is a considerable enhancement as it is systematically tied to the TIMSS curriculum frameworks, and it is extended over the entire span of pre-
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university grades.
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The Role of GTTM in the Composite Portrayal of the Intended Curriculum Clearly there are weaknesses inherent in the GTTM data. Although they provide mappings of every one of the Mathematics and Science content topics from the frameworks, they are not based on stringent document-based procedures. The focus of the procedure results in data being collected on each discrete topic in an isolated fashion even though many of the topics are likely to be related to one another within the structure of any one nation's intended curriculum. The Curriculum Analysis, as designed, will portray the intended curriculum of each country using data from all five sources in a composite fashion. Each data source will contribute important elements in a composite portrayal that will be sensitive to the temporal, content, performance and perspective dimensions of the intended curriculum. The GTTM provides broad information regarding all of the topics in the frameworks in terms of cross-grade level coverage. These data thus provide the backdrop or context against which the more detailed data from ITTM and the Document Analysis can be understood.
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Analysis There are two important roles that GTTM data play in the TIMSS curriculum analysis: 1.
They permit the analysis of common intentions for all (including TIMSS non-focal) grades. That is - they provide information on which contents are commonly intended over countries (70% or more) for coverage in the grades not represented in the Document Analysis data (see Figure 2 where the fully blackened circles suggest such topics for each grade - e.g. earth processes and diversity, organization and structure of living things are commonly intended across 70% or more of the TIMSS countries in grade 5).
2.
They provide a context within which Document Analysis (DA) data can be better interpreted. Thus, it is possible to determine which contents are covered in a nation’s curriculum in grades prior or after those represented in the Document Analysis (see Figure 3 where the O and or the + represents the presence of the topic in the curriculum guides and textbooks of the country at population 2 (from the DA data) and the arrows indicate (from the GTTM data) whether the topic was intended in grades prior to (← ) or after (→ ) population 2).
•
These roles of the GTTM are important. Content topics are introduced, covered and instructionally completed across the many years of formal study in countries. To understand the curricular policies of any educational system it is important to understand which topics are introduced, when they are introduced, for how many grades they are intended, and when instruction on these topics is most concentrated.
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Notes
1
See: Survey of Mathematics and Science Opportunities. TIMSS Curriculum Analysis: A Content Analytic Approach. SMSO Research Report Series No. 57. East Lansing, Michigan 1993. 2 This procedure is the subject of a separate technical report.
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