The role of information and communication technology (ICT) has become increasingly integral in shaping how we work, learn, and connect with others. This is especially recognized by UNESCO, who describes ICT as a “social necessity” for ensuring education as a basic human right, particularly in times of crises (UNESCO, 2023).

International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) such as those conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), provide a lens to monitor the evolving role of ICT in education and its connections to student outcomes. Furthermore, ILSAs provide extensive contextual data, enabling comprehensive analyses of various aspects of ICT, such as access to ICT resources, students’ attitudes towards ICT, or teacher preparedness for the use of ICT in the classroom.

The goal of this symposium is to demonstrate how different ILSAs can be used to address a wide range of research questions related to ICT in education and to inform research, policy and practice. We focus on two IEA studies: the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

ICILS aims to respond to the question: how well are students prepared for study, work, and life in a digital world? (Fraillon & Rožman, 2023). It examines eighth-grade students’ computer and information literacy and, as an optional module, students’ computational thinking. The 2023 cycle of ICILS marked 10 years of the study. PIRLS measures fourth-grade students’ reading achievement. Its latest cycle, conducted in 2021, is the only ILSA that successfully collected data during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing a rich data source to inform about the impact of the pandemic on reading achievement (Mullis et al., 2023). Despite these two studies having different research questions and focusing on different content domains, both ICILS and PIRLS provide valuable information on the topic of ICT in education across a diverse range of educational systems.

Four symposium papers provide different perspectives on how ICILS and PIRLS can be used to study the role of ICT in education. The first paper gives an overview of IEA studies on ICT in education, to then look at their representation in the academic literature. The main goal is to map the evolution of publications and to describe the type of research that has been conducted.

The second paper uses ICILS 2018 data to explore digital applications usage among foreign language teachers. Specifically, it aims to identify different classes of digital application usage as well as factors related to the identified classes.

Using PIRLS 2021 data, the third paper examines the implementation of remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Dinaric region. In particularly, it examines the different response measures implemented as well as the preparedness for digital remote learning.

The fourth paper evaluates two question formats used to assess teaching beliefs in the field trial of ICILS 2023. The two formats are compared on multiple criteria of data quality, providing insights into the use of alternative question formats in digital context questionnaires.

The presenting authors will focus on the main findings of their studies, highlighting the different ways in which ICILS and PIRLS data can be used. The discussant of the symposium will offer remarks about the presentations, reflecting on the evolving role of ICT in education and how ILSAs can help us study this topic from different thematic and methodological perspectives.

Fraillon, J. & Rožman, M. (2023). International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2023. Assessment Framework. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). https://www.iea.nl/sites/default/files/2023-12/20231221%20ICILS2023_Assessment_Framework__Final_0.pdf Mullis, I. V. S., von Davier, M., Foy, P., Fishbein, B., Reynolds, K. A., & Wry, E. (2023). PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading. Boston College, TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center. https://doi.org/10.6017/lse.tpisc.tr2103.kb5342 UNESCO. (2023). Digital Education: What You Need to Know. https://www.unesco.org/en/digital-education/need-know