IEA is delighted to have published three IEA Compass: Briefs in Education (also known as Compass Briefs) throughout 2025. The aim of Compass Briefs is to connect IEA study findings to key and recurrent questions in education policy debates at both the international and national levels.
This year, data from TIMSS, PIRLS, and ICCS have been used to answer the following questions among others:
- How can data from large-scale assessments be used to update policy that makes a difference in the classroom?
- To what extent do school leadership, student discipline, working conditions, and workload impact job satisfaction among teachers?
- What impacts can lower civic knowledge and engagement have on wider society in the future?
The Compass Briefs published in 2025 were:
- How large-scale assessments have informed education policy in Ireland authored by Aidan Clerkin and Emer Delaney from Educational Research Centre. This Compass Brief is available in English, Irish, and Spanish.
- Teacher job satisfaction: International evidence on the associations with teacher workload, school leadership, and student discipline authored in collaboration with Education International by Nurullah Eryilmaz, Alec Kennedy, Rolf Strietholt, Stefan Johansson, Pontus Bäckström, and Martin Henry. This Compass Brief is available in English, Danish, and Spanish.
- International gender differences in civic knowledge and attitudes: Implications and ways forward authored in collaboration with the World Bank by Michel Welmond, Laura Gregory, and Aidan Clerkin.
Series Editor, David Rutkowski, gave a presentation on the Compass Briefs to the IEA General Assembly in October 2025, highlighting the collaboration over the last 12 months as a key strength of the series that bridges the policy gap and provides actionable evidence to guide decision makers.
Compass Briefs are available for translation so they can be widely read nationally. IEA appreciates the time spent on translating the Briefs by General Assembly representatives and National Research Coordinators. To translate a Compass Brief, contact the IEA Communications team.