Kiwi kids glide even further in math and science

Kiwi children have fallen again in the latest international math and science survey.

New Zealand students’ scores have dropped dramatically in both subjects in Year 9, the first year of high school, with the lowest score in algebra.

A math education expert, Dr. Jodie Hunter, says part of the reason is that New Zealand schools group students into skill groups much more than most countries, which excludes students from Lower groups being exposed to more difficult problems.

“In some middle schools that we work in, when we first go in, the kids have never done fractions because we’ve had them in skill groups where they’ve only done addition and multiplication and have never been given access to math problems. top-level “. she said.

“For some kids who have been placed in low-ability groups, they just don’t do algebra because the focus is on doing addition and subtraction, and that brings them to the tipping point because they never see the challenge or the joy in math.”

The latest International Study of Trends in Mathematics and Science (Timss) shows that New Zealand students have slipped slightly to 40th out of 58 countries in fifth-year mathematics, from a score of 491 in the last survey in 2015 to 487, according to a global report. average of 500 when polls began in 1995.

There was a similar slight drop in year 5 science, from 506 to 503, but it was still above the world average.

But there have been sharp drops in year 9 both in math (from 493 to 482), where we are ranked 23rd out of 39 countries, and in science (from 518 to 499, down from the 500 mark for the first time).

Year 9 math scores were weakest in algebra (464) and geometry (477), remaining slightly higher in number (483) and data and probability (496).

In terms of “cognitive domains” for mathematics, New Zealand students scored lowest in “know” (468, 20 points lower) and best in “apply” and “reason” (both down 7 points to 486) .

Only 19 percent of Kiwi Year 9 students were able to solve a simple algebraic problem in which they were given the formula (2v + v squared) divided by 20, and they were told that v = 20. (The answer was 22).

Australian students were nearly twice as successful on the same problem – 37 percent got it right. The world average was correct at 35 percent and Singapore led the world with 73 percent.

Kiwi Year 9 science scores were lower in chemistry (482) and biology (498) compared to physics (502) and earth science (510).

As in math, Kiwis scored the lowest in science for “knowing” (480) compared to “applying” (503) and “reasoning” (510).

Professor Stuart McNaughton, chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Education, said the ministry was reviewing the curriculum and was considering specifying more content knowledge in areas where we scored poorly, such as algebra and geometry, especially in the elementary years. upper and intermediate, where New Zealand teachers are still generalists. .

“We have teachers who say they have a hard time teaching math and science in the upper elementary school years,” he said.

“And we have a content knowledge problem: basic math and science skills. It’s in the Timss data, and we have it in the other assessments as well.”

He said the answer might lie in using more math and science specialists.

“We need to better focus on what we need: to have more math and science teachers in the upper elementary,” he said /.

“The number of children who have access to specialized education in mathematics and science is much lower than the OECD average. It is very small.”