Data protection

What information will be collected and why?

Pearson UK and their partners at UCL have been commissioned to carry out the TIMSS 2023 study in Northern Ireland on behalf of the Department of Education (DE). The privacy and data security of the young people and schools we work with is very important to us and no individual pupil, teacher, principal, or school will be identified or identifiable in any reporting.

We will collect information on what pupils have learnt about mathematics and science from their answers to the TIMSS assessment questions. We will also ask them contextual information, such as questions about their home life and interest in reading. If there are any questions pupils do not wish to answer, they may leave them blank.

We will use school, principal and teacher details to personalise the school study materials and correspond with schools throughout the project. We will also ask teachers and principals in participating schools questions about their school, teaching strategies, and the school’s learning environment.

We will use information from the Early Learning Survey, completed by parents/guardians, to provide further context from the home environment.

We do not publish the answers to any question, and no pupil, school, teacher or principal, parent or guardian can be identified from any report or publication.

Here are examples of the type of questions which are included in the TIMSS study and the context questionnaires for pupils, teachers and schools.

View examples of questions and context questionnaires used in the TIMSS study

How we use personal data

For the purposes of this research, the Department of Education (DE) and its approved contractors will link the information to other information the DE already holds (such as on the School Census) or that it is lawfully permitted to access from other sources. This is to avoid repeatedly asking participants to give us information that we already hold and to enable analysis of the longer-term benefits of early learning. Full privacy notices are available using the links below.

Full privacy notices

Read the Department of Education’s Privacy Notice for TIMSS 2023: