A Summary of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study Repeat Project (TIMSS-R)
Ontario Report: Grade 8 Students

Mary Lou Kestell

In May of 1999, a nationally representative sample of several thousand Canadian Grade 8 students took part in TIMSS-R. For those countries and provinces that participated in both the original TIMSS and TIMSS-R, it was possible to compare students achievement results of the student cohort that was in Grade 4 in 1995 and in Grade 8 in 1999. Five provinces drew large enough school and student samples (over-sampled) to generate representative, generalizable provincial statistics: British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. A full copy of the report is accessible from the Web site of the Education Quality and Accountability Office at http://www.eqao.com.

Ontario Grade 8 students performed significantly better in mathematics in 1999 than they had as Grade 4 mathematics students in 1995. In 1999, ten countries scored above Ontario and nineteen countries scored below.

In 1993, The Common Curriculum from the Ontario Ministry of Education, described a mathematics education for students in Ontario that required them to use problem solving to learn mathematics itself and began to ask them to explain their thinking. The curriculum described a mathematics program with learning expectations outlined in five strands. In 1997, The Ontario Curriculum: Grades 1-8, Mathematics was released. It describes performance for students in five strands: Number Sense and Numeration, Measurement, Geometry and Spatial Sense, Patterning and Algebra, Data Management and Probability. It also describes achievement in the four categories: Problem solving, Understanding of concepts, Application of mathematical procedures, and Communication of required knowledge related to concepts, procedures, and problem solving.

There may not be a single factor to explain Ontario's improved achievement from 1995 to 1999 but the implementation of new curriculum could certainly be considered one factor.

In the TIMSS-R report it shows that student in Quebec did even better than students in Ontario and it is the case that their curriculum is focused on students learning to explain their mathematical thinking through problem solving.

The table below shows comparative scores for the Canadian participants and compares each score to the International average. Notice that Ontario scores are significantly higher than the international average in every content area.

Achievement on Mathematics Content Areas

The following chart provides a summary of Canadian, provincial and international student achievement on the five mathematics content areas.

The achievement scale scores and standard error statistics in the above chart are rounded figures; consequently, a few jurisdictions may appear to be incorrectly categorized as significantly higher than or essentially the same as the international average. The categorization of provincial achievement scores is accurate and reflects the international scale scores with means of 500.

Summary of Achievement Results

Canada:

• Canadian Grade 8 students performed relatively well in mathematics and science. Only six countries had achievement results that were significantly higher than Canada's in mathematics and only five in science. (The countries whose students had significantly higher scores than Canadian students, in both mathematics and science, were Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.)
• Canadian Grade 8 students had achievement scores that were significantly higher than the international average in all of the content areas of mathematics and science.
• Of the 26 countries that participated in both the original TIMSS (1995) and TIMSS-R (1999), Canada was one of only three countries in mathematics and one of only four countries in science that showed statistically significant score gains between the two studies.

Ontario:

• In both mathematics and science, Ontario Grade 8 student achievement was the same as Canada overall. (In 1995, Ontario Grade 8 students scored lower than Canada as a whole in both mathematics and science.)
• Among the five provinces that over-sampled, only Quebec Grade 8 students achieved higher scores than Ontario students in mathematics.
• In mathematics, Ontario Grade 8 student achievement scores (Ontario English and Ontario French) were significantly higher than the international average in all five content areas: fractions and number sense, measurement, data representation analysis and probability, geometry and algebra. (In 1995, Ontario Grade 8 students performed at about the international average overall but scored lower than the international average in geometry, algebra and measurement.)
• In both mathematics and science overall, the achievement of Ontario Grade 8 students overall improved by a statistically significant margin between 1995 (TIMSS) and 1999 (TIMSS-R).

Submitted to MathematicallySane.com by Author.