Drawing on the background questionnaires in PISA 2015 for teachers and schools, this paper aims to investigate the interdependencies and influences of teacher training and ICT infrastructure on their ability and willingness to employ modern media in a classroom setting. A multi-level approach is used to account for the data structure. Our analyses show that students' background and ICT interests provide limited predictive power concerning their test performance in the PISA 2015 sample from five European countries. Moreover, teachers and principals view shortages in staff and educational material quite differently in the background questionnaires. By these findings, new research approaches may be better suited to understand the influences teachers and school characteristics have on the learning outcomes of students in large-scale assessments. This also highlights potential problems when an analysis draws on joining different sources for a combined description.
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