1. Research Questions and conceptual framework

SITES 2006 will address three major research questions, of which two are related to investigations on the primary process of teaching and learning and a third is related to the contextual factors that could be conditional and explanatory with regard to variations in the primary processes found across schools and countries.

• RQ1 - What are the pedagogical practices adopted in schools and how is ICT used in them?
  This question finds out the key pedagogical approaches adopted by teachers generally in terms of the main characteristics of the teaching and learning process and how important is the use of ICT in realizing the different classroom processes and pedagogical approaches.
• RQ2 - What and how is ICT used in specific situations where ICT has been used relatively extensively within the pedagogical practice?
  This question aims at getting understanding from teachers' own past experience where ICT has been used extensively to support learning and teaching. In this question, teachers are asked to report in much greater detail the specific curriculum goals (including content) targeted the specific tools they have used and the contributions such use have made to students' learning. Data collected from this question will provide a more holistic picture of how ICT is actually being used in specific contexts as well as a means of triangulating with the findings from RQ1.
• RQ3 - What are the teacher, school, community and system factors that are associated with different pedagogical approaches and ICT use, and can an explanatory model be identified?
  There are factors identified in SITES-Module 2 and other research as conditional for innovative pedagogy and ICT use in teaching/learning practices. This question explores how such factors may be related to different characteristics of pedagogical practices and ICT use and whether there are systematic differences across countries in relation to the explanatory models identified.

2. Study design

• SITES 2006 will address the above three research questions through a survey of schools and (mathematics and science) teachers. In all, there will be three questionnaires, one for mathematics and science teachers, one for principals and one for technology coordinators. It is envisaged that RQ1 and RQ2 will be addressed mainly through the teacher questionnaire and RQ3 mainly through the principal and technology coordinator questionnaires (to be referred to as the school questionnaires for simplicity). However, it is important that teachers can be asked questions that elicit their perception of important school/system level factors while the school questionnaires will also elicit the principals' perception of the existing state of pedagogical practice and the current role of ICT in supporting teaching and learning in their schools.
• The population of schools will be all schools in a country that have grade 8 (target grade) students (what IEA calls population 2); the sample of school will be a stratified simple random sample of schools.
• The population of mathematics and science teachers will be all mathematics and science teachers teaching pupils in the target grade level.
• It is expected that the sample size of schools in each country will be roughly 400. As advised by the IEA sampling expert the sample size of teachers will be roughly 1600 (2 math teachers and 2 science teachers per school - these numbers may become somewhat higher in case not all teachers are ICT users).
• SITES 2006 will apply (where possible) online data collection for the school and the teacher survey.

3. Relevancy & use of the research findings

• For policy makers:
  • provision of indicators of how effective policies (both on ICT in education and more generally on making education more relevant for the information society) have been implemented at school and teacher levels.
  • provision of information about readiness of schools and teachers for pedagogical reforms and the use of ICT - important input for policy making, e.g. on professional development of school heads and other senior management staff, and teachers, but also the question whether ICT is indeed used to enhance teaching and learning.
  • international comparison with relevant 'other' countries on a number of key indicators
• For schools and educational practice:
  • provision of information of status of schools as compared to other schools, which may basis for 'bottom-up' initiatives and school policies.

3. Key dates

• Field trial in September 2005
• The main data collection will be conducted in the northern hemisphere during the period February - May 2006, and in the southern hemisphere in August - November 200
• Data processing, cleaning, analysis and reporting in 2007
• Release of international report and press conference in March 2008
• Release of international database and technical documentation in September 2009