TIMMS Report: Mathematics

• Mathematics Performance in California

     Math Performance in the United it’s not the best. When it comes to California we are still lagging in many skills. The good news is that 8th graders in California met the benchmarks for the TIMSS scale, this shows that 5% of these students are advanced in math. TIMSS performance is measured in a scale of 500. This educational system helps identify student test scores in math in different ethnicities as well. The results showed that Asians, white, and multiracial students’ scores are higher than other students. These scores can identify as well how teacher’s performance and skills influence students. In recent years, students’ test scores have been used to evaluate teachers’ performance (Li, Qin, & Lei, 2017). Looking over these test scores and performance levels, makes me think how our educational system can improve. How teachers can better explain math concepts to students and how the educational system can train teachers as well.

• Math scores for males and female’s students

     When it comes to math scores and better outcome performance males are higher achievers than females. According to the TIMSS blog males have higher scores. These statistics were measured in fourth graders where the outcome showed that males scored 9 points higher than females. It states that males are better in math in most countries. According to a study, “Males receive better scores on standardized math achievement tests than females (Royer, 1999). I always heard males are better than women in math in science. I believe this is true because most men are competitive.

• Math scores in different ethnicities

     Students from all types of ethnicities scored different when it came to math. According to TIMSS blog low income families had poor test scores. Most of these students that come from low income families were Black and Hispanic. The math test scores were measured by the percentage of students who received free or reduced-price lunch. The numbers were drastic and what was the most shocking is that 8th grade Hispanic and black students did not meet the 500 benchmarks. According to an article in education week, “Exposing more black, Hispanic, and low-income students to advanced math, is the hope that the demographic pool of high-level contenders will eventually begin to shift and become less insular (2016).” Low income students have many factors that at time sets them back from finding help. Most of the time low income students have uneducated parents that maybe didn’t finish high school or never attended college and this can leave students without any help in math.

References

Heitin, L. (2016). Top Math Competitions Struggle to Diversify Their Talent Pool. Education Week, 35(31), 4-15.

Li, H., Qin, Q., & Lei, P. (2017). An Examination of the Instructional Sensitivity of the TIMSS  Math Items: A Hierarchical Differential Item Functioning Approach. Educational Assessment, 22(1), 1-17. doi:10.1080/10627197.2016.1271702

Royer, J. M., Tronsky, L. N., Chan, Y., Jackson, S. J., & Marchant, I. H. (1999). Math-Fact Retrieval as the Cognitive Mechanism Underlying Gender Differences in Math Test Performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 24(3), 181-266.