IQB Pilot Study 2025

Since summer 2023, teachers have been developing new test items for key competences in German, English, and French at the lower secondary level under the coordination of the IQB and with guidance from academic cooperation partners in subject didactics. The creation of new task pools is part of a comprehensive modernisation of the IQB’s testing systems, aligning assessments with the competences outlined in the revised educational standards and shifting towards technology-based testing.

The pilot study 2025 aimed to administer the newly developed test items to a larger group of students to confirm that they were set at an appropriate level of difficulty and clearly understood. The findings from the pilot study inform the refinement of the test items before their use in further assessments and educational monitoring.

Assessing the quality of the test items also required collecting information on learning conditions, both inside and outside school. For this reason, students, teachers, and headteachers were asked to complete a questionnaire.

Grade 9 students from both mainstream and special schools across eight German federal states participated in the pilot study for German and English. Testing took place from May to July 2025.At each school, the assessment was usually carried out on two consecutive mornings within this time frame. At special schools, the assessment took place on just one day.

The pilot study for French took place from September to October 2025 and involved Grade 10 students from mainstream schools across six German federal states. At each school, the assessment was typically conducted on one morning within this time frame.

The study is conducted as part of the KMK’s overall strategy for educational monitoring and is based on decisions adopted by the education ministers of the German federal states. Overall responsibility for scientific oversight and data protection compliance rests with the Institute for Educational Quality Improvement (IQB) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin under the academic leadership of Prof. Dr Petra Stanat. The IQB developed and pre-tested the assessment instruments used in the study. IEA Hamburg was responsible for organising and conducting the data collection. IEA Hamburg also trained external test administrators, who then carried out the assessments in the schools.

In German, the assessment included test items covering the competence domains of Reading and Listening Comprehension, Orthography, and Language and Language Use. In English and French, both Reading and Listening Comprehension were tested. The assessment encompassed various item formats, including closed-format items (such as multiple-choice items with multiple possible answers) and constructed response items that required a short answer.

Because the study was designed to pilot a wide range of item formats, students received different sets of test items. As a result, each student completed only a small proportion of all the test items being trialled. A random process assigned each student a set of test items to complete. In the assessment on German and English, students with special education needs in the areas of learning, language, and emotional and social development were given test items adjusted in difficulty and a shorter questionnaire.

At most schools, students completed all test items on a PC or laptop. In some cases, students worked on the test items on a tablet to assess how the device or medium affected their completion.

At no point do teachers, other educational staff, or legal guardians have access to the students’ test responses or questionnaire data. All data from the tests and questionnaires are collected and processed in pseudonymised form, meaning that no school or student names are recorded. All reports on the study’s findings will be based on aggregated data. Therefore, it will not be possible to link the results to individual students.

Compliance with data regulations is a crucial aspect of conducting the study. All materials and processes used in the context of the study have been assessed with regard to data protection regulations and authorised by the respective federal state’s ministry of education. Please note our explanations on data protection in the IQB Trends in Student Achievement.