IOE Experts Take Part in TALIS 2018 International Consortium Meeting in Lisbon

On July 10–13, 2017, Lisbon, Portugal welcomed the third meeting of national supervisory groups working as part of the TALIS 2018 secondary education evaluation project. Russia was represented by IOE instructional design & practice experts Elena Chernobai and Daria Tuchkova.

A collaborative endeavor between OECD, an international education consortium as well as governments and instructor unions from over 45 countries, Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is a one-of-a-kind evaluation initiative that provides comprehensive and in-depth cross-border insights about learning environments and teaching corps’ working conditions in secondary schools.

At the country level, TALIS offers participant nations a unique opportunity to benchmark their secondary education performance against peer school settings across the globe – important evidence to draw upon in modernizing curricula, governance and organizational frameworks. For teachers and principals, this international survey means a deeper involvement and a more meaningful say in facilitating the implementation of institutional and policy upgrades.          

The latest meeting of the TALIS 2018 national supervisory teams, which was held on July 10–13, 2017 in Lisbon, Portugal, was primarily aimed at summarizing and discussing findings from the survey’s pilot stage that participant countries were hosting during 2015–2017. In Russia, the TALIS 2018 preliminary phase was conducted in February–March 2017 and covered Moscow, Moscow Region, Tambov Region and Voronezh Region.

During the meeting in Lisbon, the project consortium, where Russia was represented by IOE instructional design & practice experts Elena Chernobai and Daria Tuchkova, addressed the following organization & implementation agenda:

• Key procedures in developing TALIS 2018 evaluation tools: adapting, translating and distributing survey materials on a country basis
• Analyzing ways to boost school participation in TALIS 2018: communication, motivation and training issues
• Analyzing the surveying process: discussing issues related to electronic systems for survey monitoring; enhancing support to regional survey supervisors
• Assessing ways to better tackle challenges and difficulties reported by the participant countries during the survey’s pilot stage
• Comprehensively analyzing the pilot survey’s evaluation tools, including optimizing questionnaire format and content at the teacher and principal levels.       

In Russia, the TALIS 2018 main phase is scheduled for March–May 2018 and will span 14 national regions.