TIMSS 2023: Germany’s elementary schoolers take a mid-ranking position

The results of the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a comparative study of fourth-graders’ attainment in mathematics and science subjects that takes place every four years, were published yesterday (December 4), with elementary schoolers from Germany taking a position in the middle of the rankings. This latest edition of TIMSS confirmed the results of other studies, finding that children in Asian countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan achieved notably better scores than children from other continents. Countries in Europe with particularly strong performances were England, Poland, and Lithuania.

The TIMSS tests for the 2023 study covered arithmetic, geometry, biology, physics, chemistry, and geography. Almost 360,000 fourth-graders from over 60 states and regions, including 22 EU member states, took part; the German cohort encompassed around 4,400 young learners.

The study’s findings for Germany, while not pointing to any significant decreases in attainment when results are compared to the previous editions of TIMSS, have uncovered notable gaps in fundamental math skills among large numbers of children. There is, however, some good news at the upper end of the achievement scale, with the proportion of children reaching advanced attainment in math increasing from 6 to 8.3 per cent. German fourth-graders showed a slightly less strong performance in the sciences than they did in the 2019 edition of the study.

The full report on the findings is available free to download on the website of the publisher Waxmann-Verlag; follow this link

About TIMSS

The elementary-school part of the TIMSS attainment study collects data on fourth-graders’ skills in mathematics and science subjects, with the aim of ascertaining information about the capacity of school systems to effectively teach elementary school students and the prior knowledge and competencies that children bring to their math and science classes when they transition to secondary school. As well as attainment in science and math, the study ascertains learners’ motivational orientations, which are also significant facets of competencies in science and math. Other topics on which TMSS collects data are key aspects of how schools and teaching work, contextual factors at school and home, and individual learner characteristics, which it considers in the context of the children’s competencies. The conduction of the study at repeated intervals enables the long-term monitoring and observation of how effectively Germany’s elementary school system is teaching knowledge and skills in science and math to children; the findings of TIMSS’ 2023 edition can therefore be compared to those of the previous four studies, which took place in 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019.

The IPN is a member of the national consortium that conducts the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in German elementary schools.