User Guide for the TIMSS International Database.pdf - TIMSS and ...

C H A P T E R 7 D A T A B A S E F I L E S
Not Administered Codes (8, 98, 998, ...)
Special codes were given for items that were "not administered" to distinguish these cases from
data that are missing due to non-response. The specific Not Administered Code value given
depends on the number of valid codes available for each item, as described above for the Omitted
Response Codes.
There are two general cases when the Not Administered Codes are used.
1) Data were not collected for a variable for specific individuals. Reasons for this include:
Booklet not assigned to the student - Only one of the eight rotated booklets used in the
TIMSS study was assigned to each student. All variables corresponding to items
which were not given to a student have been coded to "Not administered".
Booklet not received / booklet lost - If a respondent did not receive the instruments
assigned to him/her, or the instruments were lost after administration, all items have
been coded to "Not administered."
Student absent from session - If a student was not present for a particular testing session,
then all variables referring to that session have been coded to "Not administered".
However, if a student participated in a session and did not answer any of the items,
these questions have been coded to "Omit."
Item left out or misprinted - If a particular question or item (or a whole page) was
misprinted or not available to the student, teacher, or school, the corresponding
variables have been coded to "Not administered.”
2) An item was omitted for all cases in a country. All cases are coded to "not administered".
Cognitive items omitted or mistranslated in student test booklets - Any items identified
during the translation verification or item analysis processes that were mistranslated
such that the nature of the question was altered were removed for a country.
Background questionnaire items were omitted - Questions in the student, teacher, or
school background questionnaires that were considered not applicable in some
countries were not included in their questionnaires.
Background questionnaire items were mistranslated or not internationally comparable -
In some cases, questions in the international version of the questionnaires were
mistranslated or modified to fit the national situation. Whenever possible, modified
background questionnaire items were recoded to match as closely as possible the
international version of the items. This could not be done in all cases, however, and
some national data were recoded to "not administered" in order to include only the
internationally comparable data. Background questionnaire items that have been
omitted or where internationally-comparable data are not available for some
countries are documented in Supplement 3 of this user guide.
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