Abstract
Recent years, Finland has been one of the countries of interest in education because of its success in international comparisons. Several attempts have been made to explain what could have been behind the positive results. However, some of the challenges of Finnish education, such as the productivity (achievement/costs) or its uniformity throughout the school years have not been emphasized. Further, it is under examined in Finland, as well as worldwide, the development of the performance and the attitude during the school years. Here, 3,502 stratified sampled Finnish students’ achievement and attitude regarding mathematics were followed up from the beginning of the school (grade 0, age 7) to the end of the compulsory education (grade 9, age 16). The test scores from the different measurements were equated by using IRT modelling. The sharpest change in achievement happens during the lower grades and it evens out towards the upper grades. The achievement level of the student population entering the school is very heterogeneous. The actions during the first two years make the differences between the students disappear almost totally. The attitudes are declining during the years. During all the grades, boys feel themselves more self-efficacy in mathematics than the girls.
Highlights
Recent years, Finland has been one of the countries of interest in education because of its success in international comparisons
The result was based on the Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment which compares the performance of 39 countries and one region (Hong Kong) on two categories of education: Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment
The average achievement level of the pupils participating in the longitudinal study was 83 units at the zero level, 375 units at the beginning of third grade, 463 units at the beginning of sixth grade, and 502 units at the end of ninth grade
Summary
Finland has been one of the countries of interest in education because of its success in international comparisons. Whether the last is true or not, Metsämuuronen, Kuosa and Laukkanen (2013) suggested that it is hardly just a coincident in Finland that after 40 years of “common education for all”—after the first full generation of parents could help their children in their school assignments and give them home tuition — the results in student achievement are high. Leino (2003, 79) noted that pupils in Finland (as in other Nordic countries) are relatively humble when they describe their knowledge This “humbleness” may be reflected in attitude measurements
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