• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.1-19
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• 2018

The purpose of educational assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is to compare groups such as countries. When the unit of measurement is above the student level, group-level diagnostic assessment based on multilevel item response theory (ML-IRT) can be considered just as cognitive diagnosis models are developed from item response theory. This study suggests an ML-IRT-based group-level diagnostic assessment model by modifying an item feature model by Park and bolt (2008). The model is illustrated on the recently released TIMSS 2015 Grade 8 mathematics assessment. The results provide skill profiles for the studied countries and the nine cognitive attributes; that is, the attribute effects can be compared across the countries and also across the attributes. By controlling unexplained variance, the suggested model may provide more reliable and more informative group-level comparisons. The results are interpreted using an example. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.135-151
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• 2018

This study was conducted to help establish the status of comparative education as an academic discipline by investigating its relationship with educational evaluation. Comparative education as a subfield of education covers other areas of study in education, while educational evaluation is a study of methodology. First, international comparative study was investigated, and recent methodologies in educational evaluation were introduced. International comparative study started in 1960's, and is being expanded. The participating countries hope for better education by comparing their educational curricula and practices with others. For international comparative studies, a differential item functioning analysis as a multigroup analysis can provide information on what sociocultural factors other than the construct are affecting the measurement results. The study dataset has a hierarchical structure so that multilevel item response theory is suitable to obtain multidimensional national profiles. Although there have been methodological advances in educational evaluation, the methods are not available in comparative education. In order to reduce the gap, scholars in educational evaluation should try to make the methods easily available, while those in comparative education should try to use the exact and precise methods in their studies.