U.S. 8th grade students rank below the international average in mathematics and above the international average in science, and are still far from reaching the national goal of being "first in the world in mathematics and science achievement by the year 2000." This is just one of the findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which, late last fall, released achievement results from its test of half a million 7th and 8th grade students from 41 countries.
These achievement results reveal a troubling truth about mathematics and science education in the United States, say TIMSS researchers. The U.S. education system allows for a great diversity of approaches in teaching math and science, but, in embracing that diversity, educators often fail to coordinate their efforts. As a result, the education that students receive is uneven and disjointed.
"No single vision for math and science education exists in the United States," says William Schmidt, professor and executive director of the U.S. National Research Center, which housed the curriculum-analysis component of TIMSS. If student performance on achievement tests like those administered by TIMSS are disappointing, then "the splintered vision of our curriculum is one of the important factors for explaining that performance," he contends.
Schmidt makes a case for this conclusion in A Splintered Vision: An Investigation of U.S. Science and Mathematics Education, a TIMSS report that interprets the data collected from an analysis of 628 textbooks and 491 curriculum guides from around the world. Released last October, the report reveals that U.S. students are introduced to a greater number of math and science topics than students in other countries, but they seldom explore these topics in much depth.
"Our approach is very different from those taken in other countries," explains Schmidt. Textbook authors in other countries introduce topics into the curriculum for a short time and then discontinue them once they think teachers and students have had an opportunity to focus on them. In the United States, topics are introduced into the curriculum, but are never discontinued. "U.S. science and mathematics textbooks tend to be 'a mile wide and an inch deep,'" write the authors of A Splintered Vision.
"It looks like an overwhelming number of things to cover—if the teacher tries to cover them all," agrees Larry Suter, deputy director of research and evaluation at the National Science Foundation, which funded TIMSS.
And "cover them all" is what teachers try to do, TIMSS researchers argue. Teachers throughout the world use textbooks to guide their instruction (mathematics teachers in Japan, Germany, and the United States base about 60 percent of their weekly teaching time on textbooks; science teachers from these countries base about 50 percent of their weekly teaching time on textbooks), so textbooks greatly influence how content is delivered. If textbooks present many topics without giving teachers ideas of how to deeply explore these concepts with their students—as is the case with many U.S. textbooks—it should not be surprising that teachers "often cover something of everything and little of any one thing," note the authors of A Splintered Vision.
Still, encouraging textbook companies to change their strategies will be a challenge, experts say. "When you write a textbook and want to sell it to a lot of people, you want to add topics so it appeals to the masses," says Marcia Linn, professor of math and science technology education at the University of California at Berkeley. Linn, a member of the TIMSS National Steering Committee, thinks curriculum developers and textbook authors should concentrate less on "squeezing more topics into the curriculum" and concentrate more on helping set a vision for science education that includes making science relevant to students' lives. Schools should then personalize that curriculum "to take advantage of local scientific issues," she says.
"We need to rethink our curriculum so learning extends beyond the classroom," Linn explains. "We need to teach science in such a way that students regularly revisit the concepts they discuss in class in their lives."
Suter agrees, and suggests that the TIMSS achievement results support the need to make content personally relevant. Take achievement in science, for example: "When we look at individual scores, per grade level, per topic, we find we have some respectable scores," he says. In fact, U.S. students scored very high in environmental science. "My immediate hypothesis is that, in addition to what they learn in class, our kids learn environmental science from television and the pop culture, and they have better access to information about the environmental sciences than do kids in other countries." U.S. students scored low in chemistry and physics, however, and part of the reason, Suter contends, is that there isn't as strong a link between what students learn in class and what they encounter in their local cultures.
Many science and mathematics curriculums do help students draw such connections, say researchers. Some curriculums engage students in problem-solving activities, allow them to fully explore the concepts that are introduced, and develop the skills they'll need to make intelligent decisions in their lives. Still, experts warn, without a single, "coherent" vision for mathematics and science education, these independent efforts at currirculum reform will have a scattershot effect, with no guarantees that a majority of U.S. students will have access to such meaningful educational experiences.
"We need to look at long-term solutions. Quick fixes won't get at the changes we need to make," says Ken Travers, professor of mathematics education at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and member of the TIMSS steering committee. The TIMSS data suggest to Travers that U.S. reform efforts, including developing standards and benchmarks for science and mathematics, are right on track. The mathematical practices adopted by teachers in other countries "are totally consistent with what we want for this country and are the practices we should be emulating," he says.
"We shouldn't copy other countries mindlessly, but there is much to learn from them that can give us ideas to consider in our cultural and political context," agrees Elizabeth Stage, codirector for science for the New Standards Project and member of the TIMSS steering committee. Stage adds that not all of the data collected has been analyzed, so subsequent TIMSS reports will allow educators to continue the debate about what strategies employed by other countries might work in the United States.
"To encourage dialogue about what changes are needed" is the intent of TIMSS, notes Schmidt. The achievement results show how U.S. students compare to their peers worldwide, and the report, A Splintered Vision, "helps us understand why and gives us a better idea of what we need to do to help our children learn math and science better."
What is TIMSS?
What is TIMSS?
The Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) collected data on half a million students from 41 countries. The resulting study offers a comprehensive look at how teaching and learning occurs in classrooms around the world. In addition to the achievement results released late last fall, TIMSS also collected data from a curriculum analysis; a video study of 8th grade mathematics classrooms; and student and teacher questionnaires that surveyed background factors that contribute to achievement, such as attitudes toward these subjects and how well-prepared teachers are to teach the subjects. Information is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.ed.gov/NCES/timss. For more information on TIMSS, call (202) 219-1395.
Student Achievement Linked to Teacher Professionalism
Student achievement may be directly linked with teacher quality, researchers suggest in a report released last fall that describes the TIMSS achievement results. Among the factors that may be associated with students' performance is the evidence that U.S. teachers do not receive as much practical training and daily support as their German and Japanese colleagues, note the authors of Pursuing Excellence: A Study of U.S. Eighth-Grade Mathematics and Science Teaching, Learning, Curriculum and Achievement in International Context.
"Our study found that teachers in the United States spend more time in front of the classroom and they don't have as much time to prepare for instruction," says Larry Suter of the National Science Foundation. Schools in other countries, whose students fare better in international comparisons, "organize their instructional weeks to allow for preparation."
Giving teachers time to prepare could add cohesion to an unfocused curriculum, adds Marcia Linn, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Japanese teachers work together to create demonstration lessons before they're introduced into the classroom, she says, and "U.S. teachers would love to be able to do that."
Pursuing Excellence also reports that, although U.S. teachers have more college education than most of their international colleagues, they don't have opportunities to share expertise with other teachers. Nor are they guided by veteran teachers in those first years of teaching. "In Japan, teachers are paired with a mentor for five years. We don't have anything like that," says Suter.
"We let new teachers sink or swim," agrees Ken Travers, a professor at the University of Illinois. "Other countries don't do that."
It's All in the Videotape
The camera doesn't lie, researchers found as they analyzed 250 videotaped 8th grade math lessons taught in Japan, Germany, and the United States for the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS).
The videotapes tell a story the achievement results can't, says Ken Travers, professor at the University of Illinois. For example, "the videotapes revealed that there are a lot of interruptions in U.S. classrooms—the bell rings, there are intercom announcements, and so on. Other countries don't allow as many interruptions," he explains.
Other countries, such as Japan, also seem to be doing what teachers in the United States have just begun talking about, Travers observes. "We talk about the importance of engaging students, of collaboration, and of problem solving. The videotapes provide ample evidence that Japanese teachers are already doing this."
The videos also show that Japanese math classes are more challenging and focused than those in the United States. "In Japan, teachers view math as a story, with a plot and a story line, that needs to unfold. In the United States, teachers see math as a series of unrelated episodes and, as a result, our students have episodic encounters with math," explains William Schmidt, executive director of the U.S. National Research Center.
And students in Japan are required to grapple with making sense of mathematical concepts, while U.S. students are required to focus primarily on procedure, adds Travers. "If the topic is the Pythagorean theorem, for example, students in Japan will discuss what the theorem means and in what [real-life] situations it would be used." In the United States, students are given the equation and simply shown how to use it.
