Pilot and Standardisation Studies

Before test items are used nationwide for educational monitoring, they must be thoroughly trialled. This includes examining how challenging the tasks are for different groups of children and whether they can be worked on and evaluated effectively. To this end, the IQB conducts pilot studies, administering several hundred test items to a large group of children, with each child working on only part of the overall item pool. The results allow the test items to be reviewed in detail, guide targeted revisions, and ensure they are optimised before being used in the main surveys.

Standardisation studies also provide an important foundation for educational monitoring. In these studies, a large set of finalised and thoroughly piloted test items is administered to a nationally representative sample of children. Standardisation studies form the basis for the development of proficiency level models.