Research On TIMSS-Advanced Mathematics Achievement Assessment

TIMSS and PISA are two popular international achievement assessment programs in primary and secondary schools.Their assessment theories,techniques,methods,and results have been widely accepted all over the world.The second reuniting of TIMSS was conducted in 2015 since its first simultaneous assessment for 4th,8th and twelfth grade in 1995,among which the twelfth assessment,namely TIMSS-Advanced mathematics,was the only international assessment program that targets at those students who are interested in STEM career(science,technology,engineering,mathematics)and measures the essential mathematics information for future goal of being new-generation scientists and engineers.The major goal of TIMSS-Advanced mathematics is to assess whether students have met the teaching requirements,namely the matching between the achievement assessment and the curriculum.The assessment theory,technique and method of TIMSS-A reflect forwardness and advancement of the mathematics educational assessment.Through the literature analysis method and comparative research method,the change tendency of assessment framework of TIMSS-A mathematics is summarized firstly in this paper;secondly,the theory,technique and method used in TIMSS-A mathematics assessment are demonstrated;thirdly,the connotations of content and cognition for TIMSS-A mathematics test are analyzed.Compared with the difficulty of Chinese national science mathematics test guided by new curriculum standard,it is found that the difficulty of TIMSS-A mathematics test is lower and its test characteristics were summarized;fourthly,the change tendency of TIMSS-A mathematics achievements is presented.Finally,the possible factors influencing TIMSS-A mathematics achievements are explored according to the contextual questionnaire survey.The following conclusions are drawn from this research:(1)TIMSS-Advanced mathematics has become the mainstream international assessment program with high participation value and tremendous influence.(2)TIMSS-Advanced mathematics assessment is composed of content dimension(algebra 35%,infinitesimal calculus 35%,geometry 30%)and cognitive dimension(knowing 35%,applying 35%,reasoning 30%)and it embeds cognitive dimension into content dimension for comprehensive examination;meanwhile,it sets background questionnaire(student questionnaire,teacher questionnaire and principal questionnaire)to examine the factors that influence students' mathematics achievement.(3)The theory,technique and method of TIMSS-Advanced mathematics(such as item response theory,test– curriculum matching theory,matrix sampling,etc.)provide some reference for developing and improving China's high school mathematics new curriculum reform assessment technology.(4)In TIMSS-Advanced mathematics,the students' TIMSS-A mathematics achievements in tendency country/region show an overall decline and the proportion of the top students decreases;the overall academic achievements of boys are generally better than girls,especially in reasoning field;the students have greater difficulty in learning infinitesimal calculus and they have the best performance on knowing,but do not do well in application field.(5)The factors that influence TIMSS-A mathematics academic achievements include: positive correlation factors(such as teaching time,the frequency that mathematics class requires finishing reasoning task,etc.),negative correlation factors(the frequency of using computer in other places,“other's suggestion” motivation),irrelevant factors(such as the where is the student and their parents birth,using the calculator during the test,etc.)It is worth noting that there are still some shortcomings of TIMSS-Advanced mathematics.For example,compared with TIMSS assessment for mathematics 4/8 grade,TIMSS-A mathematics is implemented in small number of countries/regions,thus,the conclusions are not enough to be promoted to other regions;Besides,TIMSS-A mathematics test is relatively easy,which may fail to measure students' preparation for the future study in STEM fields authentically;moreover,TIMSS-A mathematics item pool is not big enough with the risk of leakage because of the complex methods used in item response theory and matrix sampling and high research and development costs of test questions.However,the defects cannot obscure the virtues.In general,TIMSS-A mathematics assessment is still a large-scale international mathematics achievement comparative study project that has high comparability and great value.The key lies in how we use it to research data and how we explain the results.