3714 Learning from TIMSS Advanced Mathematics Items

Saturday, February 19, 2011: 3:00 PM
102A (Washington Convention Center )
Richard Askey , University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
In addition to the released items in the TIMSS 2007 Advanced book, there are quite a few

more which are available, and results from the countries which participated are available

for all of these questions. There were also released items from the similar test given in

1995, and four countries participated both times. Specific items from both tests will be discussed.

The United States participated in 1995 but not in 2007. One can see that certain topics are

not included in some countries, and others which are included seem not to be stressed. In a

few cases one canfind examples of topics which are stressed in one or more countries but not

in most. The dramatic slide in the results for Sweden should be raising serious questions

about mathematics education there, just as the very poor result in geometry in 1995 should

have raised questions in the United States.