International large-scale assessment studies aim to monitor student achievement at international and national levels. In addition, the major large scale assessment studies take into account important information on students’ personal background and the context of learning both in and out of school. As most studies are designed to focus on a major competence domain it is usual that the obtained proficiency scores are analyzed and reported separately for each competence domain. Thus, a systematic consideration of potential relationships within or between multiple competencies has not been the subject of many publications.

In 2011 the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) accomplished a joint administration of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (Martin & Mullis, 2013). More than 30 countries participated with representative samples of grade 4 learners common to the assessment of reading literacy, mathematics and science. This endeavor provides a unique dataset to investigate educational phenomena across or in relation to different achievement domains.

Mullis (2013) did show on the basis of an country specific but comparable analysis of the percentages of learners reaching the high and low international TIMSS and PIRLS benchmarks in all three competence domain, that in most European countries the percentage of learners with excellent achievement results in all three domains is rather low, when compared with the percentage of learners reaching the high benchmarks by domain. From a European perspective a limitation of this analysis for most countries is that the high international benchmark only allows to describe proficiency profiles of excellent but not of very good learners. Here, the Intermediate Benchmark would have been a better reference point. Furthermore, from a methodological point of view the usage of benchmarks can be questioned: The categorization of proficiency scores into benchmarks reduced the variance of the scale and does not allow the identification of learner specific proficiency patterns which could reveal patterns of subject specific strength or weaknesses.

Bos et al., 2012 did show for the German PIRLS/TIMSS-dataset that using latent profile analyses (LPA) can be a helpful to overcome these limitations. Conducting LPA across the reading, mathematics, and science achievement, seven distinguishable proficiency patterns could be found. Interestingly for Germany it could be found that the proficiency patterns differentiated only between competence levels. Mixed patterns (e.g. none of the profiles show high/low values on a domain and low/high values on the other domains) were not observed. This lead to the finding, that if at all only a small proportion of Germans grade 4 learners are unilaterally gifted, at least with respect to the tested competences.

The paper presented aims to extend the German analysis to more European conutries. The research questions to be addressed are: What kind of achievement profiles can be found across the three domains in the different European countries when using latent class analysis? Is it possible to identify different groups of learners with distinguishable achievement patterns, when analyzing achievement across competence domains? And which background characteristics or contextual factors appear to be import and when analyzed in relation to the different proficiency patterns?

Bos, W., Wendt, H., Ünlü, A., Valtin, R., Euen, B., Kasper, D. & Tarelli, I. (2012b). Leistungsprofile von Viertklässlerinnen und Viertklässlern in Deutschland. In: W. Bos, H. Wendt, O. Köller & C. Selter (Hsrg.). TIMSS 2011 - Mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen von Grundschulkindern in Deutschland im internationalen Vergleich. (S. 269 - 301). Münster: Waxmann. Foy, P. (2013). TIMSS and PIRLS 2011 User Guide for the Fourth Grade Combined International Database. Chestnut Hill, MA: TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, Boston College. Martin, M. O. & Mullis, I.V.S. (2013). TIMSS and PIRLS 2011: Relationships Among Reading, Mathematics, and Science Achievement at the Fourth Grade—Implications for Early Learning. Chestnut Hill, MA: TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, Boston College. Vermunt, J. K., & Magidson, J. (2005). Technical guide for latent gold 4.0: Basic and advanced [Computer software manual]. Belmont, MA: Statistical Innovations Inc.