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This research study investigated whether large-scale international classroom studies have the capacity to connect with and offer insights into the classroom practices of individual teachers in Brunei Darussalam. In this study, the categorising scheme and results of the TIMSS-99 Video Study were used to examine the practices of four Grade 8 mathematics classrooms in Brunei. The comparative analyses were made possible by the application of the analytical codes of the TIMSS-99 Video Study to the Brunei video data. Adapting the Learner´s Perspective Study (LPS) data collection methods in combination with the analytical framework of the TIMSS-99 Video Study, generated a substantial body of detailed data about each of those four classrooms, sufficient to characterise the practices of those classrooms using the TIMSS-99 Video Study coding scheme and to support comparison with the TIMSS-99 Video Study findings. The study revealed between-teacher variations that problematise the usefulness of national typifications of practice, while proposing that international studies can suggest salient dimensions of practice otherwise unnoticed in familiar classrooms.

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Dr Masitah Shahrill is a lecturer and a teacher educator in Mathematics Education at the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. She completed her Doctor of Education in 2009 from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne.

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