Quality Control During Data Collection: Refining for Rigor

Studies undertaken under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) use rigorous quality control processes to help ensure high quality data and facilitate cross-country comparisons of study results. This chapter provides an overview of the quality control processes implemented during data collection including the production of detailed manuals to standardize data collection procedures and the monitoring of how these procedures are implemented through national and international quality control programs. National and international quality control procedures help to confirm the validity of the data by monitoring data collection efforts. National quality control programs are carried out by participating countries with specific guidance provided by IEA and the international study centers (ISCs). International quality control monitoring ensures that sampling procedures are followed at participating school, classroom, and student levels, monitors on-site data collection to check whether the test administration procedures and security guidelines set by IEA and the ISCs are met, and provides information on circumstances that occurred during data collection that could influence the data reliability and quality. This chapter provides a history of the development of these different quality control procedures and information on their implementation within IEA studies. The chapter concludes with a series of recommendations for potential improvements to consider for the future.