Differences in average mathematics scale scores of fourth-grade students, by country: 1995 and 2003

Percentage of 4th-grade students reaching the TIMSS international benchmarks in mathematics, by education system: 2011

TIMSS Results 2003

Table 3. Differences in average mathematics scale scores of fourth-grade students, by country: 1995 and 2003

Country	1995	2003	Difference¹
Singapore	590	594	4
Hong Kong SAR^2.3	557	575	18^
Japan	567	565	-3
(Netherlands)³	549	540	-9~
(Latvia-LSS)⁴	499	533	34^
England³	484	531	47^
(Hungary)	521	529	7
United States³	518	518	#
Cyprus	475	510	35^
(Australia)³	495	499	4
New Zealand⁵	469	496	26^
Scotland³	493	490	-3
(Slovenia)	462	479	17^
Norway	476	451	-25~
Iran, Islamic Republic of	387	389	2
#Rounds to zero. ^p<.05, denotes a significant increase. ~p<.05, denotes a significant decrease.

¹ Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China.
¹ Difference calculated by subtracting 1995 from 2003 estimate using unrounded numbers.
² Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China.
³ Met international guidelines for participation rates in 2003 only after replacement schools were included.
⁴ Designated LSS because only Latvian-speaking schools were included in 1995. For this analysis, only Latvian-speaking schools are included in the 2003 average.
⁵ In 1995, Maori-speaking students did not participate. Estimates in this table are computed for students taught in English only, which represents between 98-99 percent of the student population in both years.
NOTE: Countries are ordered based on the 2003 average scores. Parentheses indicate countries that did not meet international sampling or other guidelines in 1995. All countries met international sampling and other guidelines in 2003, except as noted. See NCES (1997) for details regarding the 1995 data. The tests for significance take into account the standard error for the reported difference. Thus, a small difference between averages for one country may be significant while a large difference for another country may not be significant. Countries were required to sample students in the upper of the two grades that contained the largest number of 9-year-olds. In the United States and most countries, this corresponds to grade 4. See table A1 in appendix A for details. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.
SOURCE: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), 1995 and 2003.

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