Large-scale international assessment studies such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) or Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provide researchers and policy makers the opportunity to conduct secondary analyses to answer questions related to educational outcomes and compare the impact of certain inputs on student outcomes across countries. These comparisons are made under the assumption that the questionnaire items translated to different languages are understood in the same way by its participants. Presenting a case from Turkey, this paper shows that equivalency of questionnaire items is not always achieved. The case explores demographic information related to teacher preparation and the sample is drawn from eighth grade science and mathematics teachers participated in TIMSS 2007, 2011, and 2015 in Turkey. Descriptive analysis of data collected from these teachers and comparisons across subjects and years show that teachers may have misunderstood a question regarding their major, thus limiting potential claims related to teacher preparation in Turkey. Researchers and policy analyst who use secondary data collected by international assessment studies should be aware of such comparability issues in adapted items prior to conducting any secondary analyses.

中文翻译：

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TIMSS中教师教育背景项目的可比性：以土耳其为例

大型国际评估研究，例如国际数学和科学研究的趋势（TIMSS）或国际学生评估计划（PISA），为研究人员和政策制定者提供了进行二级分析的机会，以回答与教育成果有关的问题并比较各国学生成绩的某些投入。这些比较是基于以下假设进行的：参与者将以相同的方式理解翻译成不同语言的问卷项目。在介绍土耳其的一个案例时，本文表明，并非总是能够实现问卷项目的等效性。该案例探索了与教师准备相关的人口统计信息，该样本取自参加TIMSS 2007、2011，和2015年在土耳其。对从这些教师那里收集的数据进行描述性分析，并比较各个学科和年份，发现教师可能误解了有关其专业的问题，从而限制了土耳其有关教师准备的潜在主张。使用国际评估研究收集的辅助数据的研究人员和政策分析人员，应在进行任何辅助分析之前了解适应项目中的此类可比性问题。