|
SciMathMN Releases Preliminary 2007 MN TIMSS Analysis
Minnesota students are performing very well in math and science compared to students from other nations. Minnesota students were near the top in all 4th-and 8th-grade math and science and had higher scores than United States students.
TIMSS is the largest study of student math and science achievement around the world. Overall, TIMSS had over 60 participants, including seven regional “benchmark” participants as states or provinces, including Minnesota. Benchmarking allows Minnesota to evaluate how our students are performing compared to students from other nations. TIMSS was taken by a sample of Minnesota 4th-and 8th-graders in 2007.
Minnesota students were able to participate in the TIMSS due to public funding provided by the legislature and governor and private funding from Minnesota businesses. The Minnesota Business Partnership, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Minnesota High Tech association were instrumental in building that private/public partnership. Legislation was sponsored by Linda Scheid in the Senate and Karen Klinzing in the House.
SciMathMN and Dr. Bill Schmidt, Michigan State University Distinguished Professor of education and statistics conducted an analysis of the TIMSS results. For this analysis, SciMathMN examined how Minnesota students performed in comparison to the nations which participated in TIMSS and compared Minnesota’s results with the results from the last time state students participated in TIMSS in 1995. The SciMathMN analysis does not include the other regional benchmark participants.
The preliminary analysis found that:
- Minnesota’s 4th-grade performance gain in math was among the largest of any of the 16 countries that participated in both the 1995 and 2007 TIMSS
- In 2007 4th-grade math, four nations scored significantly higher than Minnesota; three were not significantly different than Minnesota; and 29 nations score significantly lower than Minnesota
- In 2007 8th-grade math, five nations scored significantly higher than Minnesota; and 44 nations score significantly lower than Minnesota
- In 2007 science, Minnesota maintained its relatively high level of performance being outperformed by very few countries at either 4th or 8th grade and significantly outperforming the U.S. at grade 8
- In both 4th-and-8th grade science there was no significant change in how students performed in 2007 compared to 1995
Click here to see review results of the 2007 testing of Minnesota students at grades 4 and 8. View Dr. William Schmidt's presentation from December 2008 here. Links to other current TIMSS information, as well as reports on the 1995 test results can be found here.
|
