Fourth grade students’ performance in Mathematics at international level

Abstract

The National Education Research and Evaluation Centre (NEREC), Faculty of Education, University of Colombo in Sri Lanka has conducted a series of national level studies to investigate fourth grade students’ performance in First language, Mathematics, Science and English (in 2003, 2007 and 2009). In 2009, in addition to the national test a test containing items used in an international study: TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) was administered. Sri Lankan students performed relatively poorly on the international items (NEREC, 2009). On items classified as measuring cognitive skills, Sri Lankan students performed relatively well for lower-order ‘knowing’ skills, but relatively poorly for higher-order ‘applying’ and ‘reasoning’ skills. On items categorized in terms of content, Sri Lankan students performed relatively well in the “number” and “data display” areas, but relatively poorly in the “geometric shapes and measures” area. These results found some support in an analysis of the Sri Lankan curriculum as set out in student textbooks and teachers’ instructional manuals. It would seem that teacher in teaching and assessing students pay more attention to the ‘knowing’ area than to ‘applying’ and ‘reasoning’. Failure to teach some topics, unfamiliarity with the format of some test items, and lack of a specific mathematics assessment framework may also have contributed to the poor performance of Sri Lankan students relative to students in an international study.