SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The results from the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) were released on 29 November and, in general, the results are largely the same as in prior years: namely that a group of East Asian countries (Taiwan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan) were far ahead of the rest of the world, particularly in math, on both tests administered (4th and 8th grade).
One difference: for the first time this year, the TIMSS also tracked the progress of the same set of students by giving them a third test in their last year of school. The test, called TIMSS Advanced, was given in the nine countries that agreed to participate. These results found that the scores across the three tests from the students who were taking the most challenging math and science classes in their senior year progressively got worse over time. For instance, US students who scored 29 points above the midpoint on science as 4th graders scored 13 points above as 8th graders, and ended up 63 points below midpoint in their senior year. This trend was generally the same in the other countries except for an elite group of Russian students who take an extra class of math a day, and Slovenian students who bucked the trend in science but not math.
This article from sciencemag.org notes:
The advanced students also struggled to meet the international benchmark for the tests. In math, only 2% of the 32,000 students scored at an “advanced” level, and only 43% demonstrated even a “basic knowledge” of algebra, calculus, and geometry. The results were similar in physics: Only 5% of the 24,000 students were advanced, and a total of 46% showed a basic understanding of the subject. That means more than half the students tested weren’t really performing at an advanced level.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:39AM
When I went to grade school (some 30 years ago), grade 1-6 I was a C or D student (grading from a-d and f), even held back for a couple months one year. But in junior high (grade 7-9), I was getting 70-75% grades and in high school (10-12), I was getting 85%+ and taking the advanced versions of math physics and chemistry. And it definitely wasn't because I was spending extra time or effort on schoolwork, as for all of junior high and high school, I was primarily focused on programming computers.
It is likely a combination of each students speed of development, the specific teachers they have and how the student responds to how they teach, and how interested the students are at that time in doing schoolwork (ie, burnout, they were considered to be well above-average, so a lot more work was dumped on them sooner, and they just got tired of only doing schoolwork).