Skip Navigation
small NCES header image
Table A-15-2. Average mathematics and content domain scale scores of 8th-grade students, by country: 2007
Country (ordered by total score) Total mathematics   Content domain            
  Number   Algebra   Geometry   Data and chance              
TIMSS scale average 500 500 500   500 500            
Chinese Taipei 598 577 617 592 566            
Korea, Republic of 597 583 596 587 580            
Singapore 593 597 579 578 574            
Hong Kong SAR1,2  572 567 565 570 549            
Japan 570 551 559 573 573            
                                 
Hungary 517   517   503   508 524              
England2  513   510   492   510 547            
Russian Federation 512   507   518 510 487            
United States2,3 508   510   501   480   531              
Lithuania4  506   506   483 507 523            
                                 
Czech Republic 504   511   484 498 512            
Slovenia 501 502 488 499 511            
Armenia 499 492 532 493 427            
Australia 496 503   471 487   525              
Sweden 491 507   456 472 526              
                                 
Malta 488 496 473 495 487            
Scotland2  487 489 467 485   517            
Serbia3,4  486 478 500   486   458            
Italy 480 478 460 490 491            
Malaysia 474 491 454 477   469            
                                 
Norway 469 488 425 459 505            
Cyprus 465 464 468 458 464            
Bulgaria 464 458 476 468 440            
Israel5  463 469 470 436 465            
Ukraine 462 460 464 467 458            
                                 
Romania 461 457 478 466 429            
Bosnia and Herzegovina 456 451 475 451 437            
Lebanon 449 454 465 462 407            
Thailand 441 444 433 442 453            
Turkey 432 429 440 411 445            
                                 
Jordan 427 416 448 436 425            
Tunisia 420 425 423 437 411            
Georgia4  410 421 421 409 373            
Iran, Islamic Republic of 403 395 408 423 415            
Bahrain 398 388 403 412 418            
                                 
Indonesia 397 399 405 395 402            
Syrian Arab Republic 395 393 406 417 387            
Egypt 391 393 409 406 384            
Algeria 387 403 349 432 371            
Colombia 380 369 390 371 405            
                                 
Oman 372 363 391 387 389            
Palestinian National Authority 367 366 382 388 371            
Botswana 364 366 394 325 384            
Kuwait6  354 347 354 385 366            
El Salvador 340 355 331 318 362            
                                 
Saudi Arabia 329 309 344 359 348            
Ghana 309 310 358 275 321            
Qatar 307 334 312 301 305            
p <05. Score is significantly higher than U.S. score.                                
p <05. Score is significantly lower than U.S. score.                                
1 Hong Kong SAR is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China.            
2 Met guidelines for sample participation rates only after substitute schools were included.            
3 National Defined Population covered 90 to 95 percent of National Target Population.            
4 National Target Population did not include all of the International Target Population.            
5 National Defined Population covered less than 90 percent of National Target Population (but at least 77 percent).            
6 Kuwait tested the same cohort of students as other countries, but later in 2007, at the beginning of the next school year.            
NOTE: Results from the grade 8 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assessment are reported on a total mathematics scale, which captures students’ overall mathematics knowledge and skills, and four content domains. The TIMSS scale is from 0 to 1,000, with the average set at 500 and a standard deviation of 100, based on the average of all the countries that participated in 1995. Successive TIMSS assessments since then have scaled achievement data so that scores are equivalent from assessment to assessment. That is, a score of 500 in grade 8 mathematics in 2007 is equivalent to a score of 500 in grade 8 mathematics in 2003, 1999, and 1995. Countries are ordered by total mathematics average score. Ordering of countries does not imply that scores are measurably different from one another. Morocco participated at grade 8, but due to sampling difficulties its data are not shown. The tests for significance take into account the standard error for the reported difference. Thus, a small difference in one country may be significant, while a large difference in another country may not be significant. For more information on TIMSS, see supplemental note 5.            
           
SOURCE: Gonzales, P., Williams, T., Jocelyn, L., Roey, S., Kastberg, D., and Brenwald, S. (2009). Highlights From TIMSS 2007: Mathematics and Science Achievement of U.S. Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Students in an International Context (NCES 2009-001 Revised), tables 3 and 7, data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), 2007.            
Would you like to help us improve our products and website by taking a short survey?

YES, I would like to take the survey

or

No Thanks

The survey consists of a few short questions and takes less than one minute to complete.
National Center for Education Statistics - http://nces.ed.gov
U.S. Department of Education