By Susan Assouline and Nicholas Colangelo
In addition to reporting the analyses of selected items from the questionnaires, we also did a presentation with Professors Miraca Gross from GERRIC at The University of New South Wales and Michael Pyryt from the Centre for Gifted Education at the University of Calgary. The results from the elementary talent searches conducted by the three countries were presented within the context of international investigations conducted by the Third International Math and Science Survey (TIMSS).
TIMSS included 26 countries, and is considered to be the largest, most comprehensive, and most rigorous international study to date. Many readers are already aware of some of the TIMSS results, e.g., that at both the 4th- and 8th- grade levels Australia, the United States, and Canada all attained science scores above the international average score. At the 4th-grade level, all three countries earned mathematics scores above the international average. However, only the Australian and Canadian 8th graders in TIMSS also earned mathematics scores that were above the international average; the U.S. 8th graders earned mathematics scores that were below the international average. Interestingly, the differences between TIMSS mathematics scores earned by boys and girls were small or non-existent.
TIMSS is a comparison of achievement of a general group of students. Although the purpose of TIMSS, as well as the general nature of the participants, differs from the Talent Search participants, we still considered the activity of international comparisons to be valid. Additionally, the international comparisons of the elementary talent searches help us make broad comparisons because the students are being measured on the same standard, and there is enough ceiling. Because TIMSS mathematics had the most differences among the three countries, we are reporting only the summary of the results comparing the EXPLORE mathematics scores of the three countries (see Graph 5):
With respect to mathematics, there were gender differences (boys' scores were higher than those of the girls') for Australia, Canada, and the United States. Canadian talent search students outperformed both the United States and Australia students.
We are not reporting the specific results of the other EXPLORE tests (English, Reading, and Science Reasoning); however, the students consistently perform less well on mathematics than on these other tests. One might then ask: What do these three countries have in common, regarding curriculum, such that mathematics is the most difficult subject? Acquiring the answer to this question is especially interesting in light of the fact that mathematics is considered by U.S. talent search students to be the most interesting subject! Thirty-nine percent of the 1999 Talent Search participants indicated that they thought mathematics was the most interesting subject, compared to those who thought English (5.4 percent), Reading (14.7 percent), or Science (26.8 percent) was the most interesting subject.