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East Asian students outperform other countries in mathematics, according to new TIMSS results.

By on December 8, 2020

TIMSS, the longest running, international assessment body of mathematics and science education in the world, has just released its 7th assessment cycle for TIMSS 2019.

Of the 580,000 students in 64 countries that participated,  the results reveal Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong SAR, have outperformed in mathematics by a substantial margin at the fourth and eighth grades.

Although the same countries performed well in science too,  the results were more varied. For example, in fourth grade science, the highest achievers were Singapore and Korea, followed by a 21-point gap before Russia and Japan, with Chinese Taipei and Finland also performing well. In eighth grade science, Singapore scored the highest at 34 points outperforming Chinese Taipei, Japan, and Korea but Russia and Finland did well too.

Although Japanese eighth graders’ math score of 594 was an improvement by 8 points from the previous assessment cycle, their scores in science have declined by 7 points down to 562. The eight grade students’ average score was one point down from previous cycle.

TIMSS 2019 shows that the achievement trends are up, with more countries registering increases than decreases, except in the short term in science at the fourth grade.

“The positive trends indicate education is improving worldwide, and it’s not at the expense of equity between high and low achieving students,” said Dr. Mullis of IEA. “Remarkably, most countries have been able to educate most of their fourth and eighth grade students to at least minimum proficiency.”

 

TIMSS 2019 is the seventh TIMSS assessment cycle, providing 24 years of trends since the first assessment in 1995. By reaching its 24-year milestone, TIMSS earns the distinction of establishing the longest trend line of any international education assessment. TIMSS is the flagship study of the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement).

 

 

 

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