• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.109-135
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• 2012

In December of 2009, General Curriculum Revised in 2009 was announced and research on corresponding mathematics curriculum revision has been initiated from that period. Finally, in August 2011, Mathematics Curriculum Revised in 2009 was announced. In this new curriculum, Creativity is emphasized as the ability pursued in General Curriculum Revised in 2009. Accordingly, for the purpose of fostering students with creative and challenging minds, teaching and learning methods including the objectives and content should be more carefully implemented in math class. In case of the area of Probability and Statistics closely related to real life situations, it is suggested that school curriculum in mathematics would not deal with only mathematical problems on algorithm, but rather present teaching and learning materials related to the real life in order to recognize the usefulness of the content of Probability and Statistics and to learn how to think about it. In this paper, effective guidelines for teaching and learning the content of Probability and Statistics and its activities that follows the direction on Mathematics Curriculum Revised in 2009' are suggested based on the analysis of the PISA and TIMSS international assessments items. Thus, the guidelines suggested in this study would be used efficiently and appropriately for developing instructional materials or planning curriculum revision and setting its direction in the future.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.66-79
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the effects of the educational context variables on 8th-grade science achievement of 5 top performing countries(Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan) in TIMSS 2015. TIMSS 2015 science data and questionnaire results were used for fitting Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) in this study. According to the results, such student-level variables as home resources for learning, students' interest in science learning, valuing science, Students' Educational Expectations gave significant influence on the science achievement of Korean students. School-level variables including Student Economic Background, and School Emphasis on Academic Success gave significant influence on the science achievement of Korean students. Comparing 5 countries, home resources for learning, students' interest in science learning, Students' Educational Expectations gave significant influence on the science achievement in all 5 countries. At the school level, Student Economic Background is statistically significant in explaining students' science achievement gap in all countries except Japan, and Teaching Limited by Student Needs gave significant influence on the science achievement in all countries except Korea. Discussed in the conclusion are ways to improve middle-school science teaching and learning including reducing the education divide among socioeconomic status, teaching innovation for competency education, inquiry and reinforcement of lab activities in science classes, and so on.

• School Mathematics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.473-491
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• 2010

In the TIMSS assessment goal and open TIMSS 2007, Singapore recorded a lower overall achievement level compared with Korea; however, the excellent results shown by Singapore furnished an opportunity for various countries to research into the education in Singapore. This paper conducted a comparative analysis of the "Proportion, Proportional Expression, and Percentile" area out of the three topics involving "Fractions and Decimals", "Proportion, Proportional expression, and Percentile", and "Measurement", in all of which Singapore exhibited a higher percentage of correct answers than Korea. The paper was able to discover the following differences through a comparative analysis of how Korean and Singaporean textbooks deal with the open questions of TIMSS 2007 after looking into them according to four assessment goals. First, the Singaporean textbook introduced the concept of proportion one year ahead of the Korean textbook. Second, the Singaporean textbook repeatedly coped with the topic of "Proportion, Proportional Expression, and Percentile" in depth and by academic year, and its volume was larger than that of the Korean textbook. Third, there was a difference in the introduction and definition of the concept of proportion. Fourth, the way of introducing a proportional expression was also different, and the Singaporean textbook proposed many more questions that utilize this expression in ordinary life. Based on these differences, the paper suggested implications that could be applied to the Korean curriculum and textbook.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.207-220
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to verify the trends of Korean students' achievement of earth science, especially the gender differences, in recent two international comparative studies, TIMSS-R (The Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat) and PISA 2000 (Programme for International Student Assessment). To achieve this purpose, the 33 earth science items in TIMSS-R and 13 earth and environmental science items in PISA 2000 were analyzed. As a result of the comparison between Korean- and international percent correct, Korean students showed especially higher achievement in close-ended items or items required 'understanding of simple information.' Korean students, in particular Korean male students, also showed higher achievement in items of data interpretation. On the other hand, Korean students, in particular Korean female students, showed relatively lower achievement in astronomy items. The serious gender differences occurred in all aspects of items, regardless of item content, item format, and performance expectations.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.649-659
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to analyse students' achievement of 'Earth Science' in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat(TIMSS-R), which was performed in 1999 with 38 nations participating. Korean 8th grade students' achievement of 'Earth Science' was compared with those of other countries and other content areas in science. Average percent correct of items in each subcategory was also analysed. Most of the 'Earth Science' topics were included in the intended curricula of Korea; they were taught to most of the students in science classes. Korean students ' average scale score of 'Earth Science' was significantly higher than the international average, but in comparison with other science content areas, achievement of 'Earth Science' was relatively low. The teachers' confidence in teaching earth science was lower than their confidence in teaching other science areas. The paper presents the results of item analysis and their implications for science education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.491-509
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to compare and analyze the elementary science curriculum of Finland, which ranked at the first place in the science domain of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a comparative study on the academic achievements of OECD member nations, for three consecutive years and recorded a high national competitiveness index, and that of South Korea, thus providing information needed to develop curriculums and textbooks in the middle of occasional curriculum revisions and giving useful implications for the implementation of curriculum in the field of education in South Korea. The research findings were as follows: First, as for the science content areas based on the ratio of large area items according to the evaluation and analysis framework of TIMSS 2007, South Korea's ratio of life, chemistry, physics, and earth hardly showed fitness for TIMSS 2007 and exhibited equal distribution among the areas. In Finland, the ratio of life, chemistry, physical, and earth was similar to the fourth grade level of TIMSS 2007. The country showed differential distribution with life accounting for the highest percentage. Second, as for the cognitive domains, South Korea showed a high percentage in "Uses and Procedures of Tools" of "1. Knowing" and "Making Connections," "Comparison/Contrast/Classification," and "Uses of Models" of "2. Application." Finland recorded a high percentage in "Information Interpretation" of "2. Application." While South Korea focused on the uses and methods of scientific instruments during scientific activities, Finland made an approach with a focus on problems related to daily life such as the interpretation of information including reports and graphs from an interpretative perspective.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.139-155
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• 2012

This study researched the trends of mathematics education in Korean mathematics class in the aspects of teaching and learning method, assessment and teachers' competency based on TIMSS 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007. For the mathematics teaching and learning method, the differentiated instruction rate is higher. The activities focused on students not teacher are more, and frequencies of homework are higher but time spent for homework is less than the past. Especially, mathematics teachers link homeworks to instructions. And mathematics teachers uses more multiple choice items and more various assessment methods than the past. The average age of mathematics teachers tends to become older since 1995. The major of mathematics teacher are primarily mathematics and mathematics education. Korean mathematics teachers have less self-esteem for teaching mathematics contents and have more various interactions with peers. The rate of participating in-service training is more or less according to training contents.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.167-180
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• 2019

This study analyzed the effects of the educational contextual variables on fourth grade students' mathematics achievement in five East Asian countries(Singapore, Hong Kong Taiwan, Japan and Korea) using TIMSS 2015 data. There are four findings of this study. The first is that the common student-home-level variables that give significant influence on the mathematics achievement in all 5 countries are 'Home resources for learning' and 'Parents' educational expectations'. But 'Literacy and numeracy activities before entering a school' and 'Parents' attitude for mathematics and science' are not common variables. The second is that 'Students' interest in math learning' gave significant influence on the mathematics achievement of in all 5 countries. The third is that 'Teaching limited by student needs' does not give significant influence on the math achievement in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan but in Singapore and Hong Kong. The fourth is that 'Student economic background' gave more significant influence in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan than Singapore and Hong Kong. Suggestions to improve elementary school mathematics teaching and learning are discussed in the conclusion.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.83-94
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• 2019

Current mathematics curriculum of South Korea suggests that students learn mathematics in school with calculators except that the aim of the math lessons is to achieve calculation skills, but we can't be sure that elementary school students use calculators in math lessons of school. Actually we don't have enough data to identify how many elementary school students use calculators in math lessons. The aims of this study are to compare the ratio of elementary school students using calculators in math lessons of school between 20 countries and to analyse the relation between using calculators in math lessons and the achievements of math through $4^{th}$ grade mathematics test of TIMSS 2015. The results of this study are two. One is that generally $4^{th}$ grade students did not use calculators in math lessons. The other result is that generally there is no relation between using calculators in math lessons and the achievements of the math test through $4^{th}$ grade mathematics test of TIMSS 2015. Only in Hong Kong SAR, students without using calculators have higher achievements than students using calculators. In England and USA, students using calculators have higher achievements than students without using calculators. Finally, researcher in this study suggests some implications on using calculator in elementary schools.

• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.1-19
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• 2018

The purpose of educational assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is to compare groups such as countries. When the unit of measurement is above the student level, group-level diagnostic assessment based on multilevel item response theory (ML-IRT) can be considered just as cognitive diagnosis models are developed from item response theory. This study suggests an ML-IRT-based group-level diagnostic assessment model by modifying an item feature model by Park and bolt (2008). The model is illustrated on the recently released TIMSS 2015 Grade 8 mathematics assessment. The results provide skill profiles for the studied countries and the nine cognitive attributes; that is, the attribute effects can be compared across the countries and also across the attributes. By controlling unexplained variance, the suggested model may provide more reliable and more informative group-level comparisons. The results are interpreted using an example. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.