TIMSS - Science for Grades 4 and 8: International Benchmarks

Science for Grades 4 and 8: International Benchmarks

TIMSS 2015 Results

Figure 7. Percentage of 4th-grade students reaching the TIMSS international benchmarks in science, by education system: 2015
Education system	Percentage of students reaching each international benchmark
Education system	Advanced (625)		s.e.	High (550)		s.e.	Intermediate (475)		s.e.	Low (400)		s.e.
† Not applicable. # Rounds to zero. *p<.05. Percentage is significantly different from the U.S. percentage at the same benchmark at the .05 level of statistical significance. ¹ National Defined Population covers 90 to 95 percent of the National Target Population. ² Met guidelines for sample participation rates only after replacement schools were included. ³ National Defined Population covers less than 90 percent of the National Target Population (but at least 77 percent). ⁴ National Target Population does not include all of the International Target Population. ⁵ The number in parentheses indicates years of school not grade in schooling. ⁶ Nearly satisfied guidelines for sample participation rates after replacement schools were included. ⁷ Reservations about reliability because the percentage of students with achievement too low for estimation exceeds 15 percent but does not exceed 25 percent. ⁸ Did not satisfy guidelines for sample participation rates. NOTE: Education systems are ordered by the percentage of students reaching the Advanced international benchmark. Education systems that are not countries are designated by the appended three-letter international abbreviation for their country. Participants that did not administer TIMSS at the target grade are not shown; see the international report for their results. U.S. state data are based on public school students only. The TIMSS international median represents all participating TIMSS education systems, including the United States, shown in the main part of the figure; benchmarking education systems are not included in the international median. Standard error is abbreviated as s.e. For TIMSS 2015, Norway revised its assessed population to students in their 5th and 9th years of schooling to obtain better comparisons with Sweden and Finland. However, in previous TIMSS cycles Norway assessed students in their 4th and 8th years of schooling, which were defined as 4th and 8th grades but have been redefined as 3rd and 7th grades because year 1 in Norway is now considered the equivalent of a year of kindergarten. To maintain trend with previous TIMSS cycles, in 2015 Norway also collected data from students in their 4th and 8th years of schooling, which is used in trend tables. Jordan did not participate in the science assessment at the 4th grade. SOURCE: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), 2015.
Singapore¹	37	*	2.0	71	*	1.8	90	*	1.1	97	*	0.5
Korea, Republic of	29	*	1.6	75	*	1.1	96	*	0.5	100	*	0.1
Russian Federation	20	*	1.5	62	*	2.0	91	*	1.0	99	*	0.3
Japan	19	*	0.9	63	*	1.3	93	*	0.5	99	*	0.2
Kazakhstan	19		1.7	49		2.5	81		1.4	96		0.6
Hong Kong-CHN²	16		1.2	55	*	1.8	88	*	1.1	98	*	0.4
Bulgaria	16		1.5	50		2.5	77		2.2	90	*	1.5
United States^{1, 2}	16		0.8	51		1.1	81		0.9	95		0.5
Chinese Taipei-CHN	14		0.7	56	*	1.2	88	*	0.8	98	*	0.3
Hungary	14		1.1	50		1.5	81		1.6	94		0.9
Finland	13	*	0.9	54		1.4	89	*	0.9	99	*	0.4
Poland	12	*	0.9	51		1.4	85	*	1.3	97	*	0.4
Sweden¹	11	*	1.1	47		2.1	82		1.5	96		0.8
Slovenia	11	*	0.9	49		1.4	84		1.0	97	*	0.5
England-GBR	10	*	0.8	43	*	1.5	81		1.2	97	*	0.5
Slovak Republic	9	*	0.6	40	*	1.4	74	*	1.2	91	*	0.8
Czech Republic	9	*	0.7	43	*	1.4	81		1.1	96		0.6
Serbia³	8	*	0.7	40	*	1.5	77	*	1.7	93	*	1.1
Australia	8	*	0.7	39	*	1.6	75	*	1.4	94		0.8
Germany	8	*	0.6	40	*	1.7	78		1.3	96		0.6
Canada^{1, 2, 4}	7	*	0.5	38	*	1.2	77	*	1.4	95		0.7
Norway (5)⁵	7	*	0.9	44	*	1.8	85	*	1.1	98	*	0.6
Ireland	7	*	0.9	40	*	1.6	79		1.2	96		0.6
Lithuania¹	7	*	0.8	39	*	1.6	78	*	1.2	96		0.5
Denmark^{1, 2}	7	*	0.6	39	*	1.5	78	*	1.3	96		0.5
New Zealand	6	*	0.6	32	*	1.1	67	*	1.4	88	*	0.9
United Arab Emirates	6	*	0.4	22	*	0.9	46	*	1.0	67	*	0.9
Croatia	6	*	0.7	41	*	1.3	83		1.1	98	*	0.4
Northern Ireland-GBR⁶	5	*	0.6	34	*	1.3	76	*	1.3	95		0.6
Spain¹	5	*	0.5	34	*	1.3	74	*	1.6	95		0.7
Oman	4	*	0.4	16	*	0.8	38	*	1.2	61	*	1.0
Bahrain¹	4	*	0.4	19	*	0.9	47	*	1.2	72	*	1.0
Turkey	4	*	0.5	24	*	1.1	58	*	1.4	82	*	1.2
Italy¹	4	*	0.5	32	*	1.5	75	*	1.7	95		0.7
Qatar	3	*	0.5	15	*	1.2	39	*	1.7	64	*	1.6
Netherlands²	3	*	0.4	30	*	1.5	76	*	1.4	97		0.6
Belgium (Flemish)-BEL²	3	*	0.4	27	*	1.5	73	*	1.4	96		0.6
France	2	*	0.3	20	*	1.2	58	*	1.6	88	*	1.1
Portugal¹	2	*	0.3	25	*	1.2	72	*	1.5	96		0.6
Cyprus	2	*	0.3	18	*	1.1	56	*	1.4	86	*	1.0
Chile	2	*	0.2	16	*	1.2	53	*	1.5	85	*	1.2
Georgia⁴	1	*	0.6	12	*	1.3	41	*	1.7	74	*	1.7
Saudi Arabia	1	*	0.3	8	*	0.9	25	*	1.4	48	*	1.8
Iran, Islamic Republic of	1	*	0.3	9	*	0.8	33	*	1.5	61	*	1.7
Morocco⁷	1	*	0.3	5	*	0.7	17	*	1.3	35	*	1.8
Indonesia	1	*	0.2	6	*	0.7	24	*	1.8	51	*	2.1
Kuwait⁷	1	*	0.2	4	*	0.6	15	*	1.4	33	*	1.9
International median	7	*	0.0	39	*	0.0	77	*	0.0	95		0.0
Benchmarking participants
Florida-USA⁴	16		2.1	51		2.7	83		1.7	96		0.9
Dubai-UAE	14		0.6	42	*	1.0	70	*	0.9	86	*	0.5
Ontario-CAN	9	*	0.9	41	*	1.4	79		1.3	96		0.6
Quebec-CAN⁸	6	*	0.9	35	*	2.5	78		2.0	97	*	0.6
Abu Dhabi-UAE¹	4	*	0.7	15	*	1.5	35	*	2.0	55	*	2.0
Buenos Aires-ARG	#	*	†	6	*	0.8	28	*	1.9	58	*	2.3