Abstract

If large international studies are to offer insight into the classroom practice of individual teachers then research must address how the results of such studies can be connected to the practice of individual teachers and, ultimately, inform those practices. For the purposes of comparison, the individual teacher’s practice must be documented in some fashion. It is essential to note that a teacher’s practice cannot be characterized by a single lesson. This paper examines the methodological implications in adapting the research design and connecting the findings of a large-scale international classroom video study to a small-scale classroom video study in Brunei Darussalam. One of the key issues in the application of the findings of a video study in another context is the confidence with which the original codes can be defined, interpreted, and applied in a new context. Reporting on the coding application is one of the ways to inform readers which of the codes created in the video study are the hardest to interpret and which are relatively straight-forward. This is important not just for anyone considering applying the TIMSS 1999 Video Study codes for research purposes, but also as an indication to any readers of the reports of the TIMSS 1999 Video Study results regarding how easily the classroom practices represented by the codes can be recognised in actual classrooms.