The global knowledge assessment Timss 2023 shows that Swedish students are performing historically well in mathematics. Eighth-graders have not had a better result throughout the 2000s.
My guess was that Sweden would be at the same level as last time. So I was a bit surprised by the improvement, says Samuel Sollerman, university lecturer at Stockholm University and researcher in mathematics knowledge assessments.
But what lies behind the math improvement is "super difficult" to say, he continues.
It's hardly possible to grasp what affects knowledge development in school, since there are so many factors that affect it.
Moreover, all changes take a long time. It takes many years before a certain reform in school has an impact.
Short answers
But Samuel Sollerman points out a possible explanation for why the boys in particular made a math improvement: the test design may have favored them.
Boys are often better at multiple-choice questions and short-answer questions. Girls are a bit more skilled at reasoning and showing how they think. And all international studies are moving more and more towards short answers and multiple choice.
Another circumstance is that the eighth-graders who successfully wrote Timss last year are two years younger than the cohort that was tested at the age of 15 in the Pisa measurement and showed a knowledge decline.
The students who wrote Pisa were in high school during the pandemic, while the students who were tested in Timss were in middle school. The younger ones have thus had more time to repair any knowledge gaps from the pandemic years.
Usually follows
Even if Pisa and Timss are two different measurements, they are not different like night and day, he continues.
It's not strange if the results are a bit different. But they usually follow each other fairly well over the years. In that way, it's interesting to see the higher results in Timss this year.
If you compare the two latest Timss measurements, one before and one after the pandemic, you also see a knowledge improvement. But what it depends on must be researched, according to Samuel Sollerman.
Grade 4, girls: 522 points
Grade 4, boys: 538 points
Grade 4, girls and boys: 530 points
Grade 8, girls: 514 points
Grade 8, boys: 521 points
Grade 8, girls and boys: 517 points
Source: IEA
