CHAPTER 2 - POPULATION 1 TEST SCORES

Abstract

Population 1 consists either 10 year old students or all children in the grade where most 10 year old students were to be found in the system. Population 1 for all countries is either in elementary school or in the primary grades of the comprehensive school system. In some countries, science is not taught as a separate subject but as part of general or social studies. This chapter presents the information on the scores of the population 1 students on the 24 item core test followed by the information on achievement differences among schools. The national mean scores range from 9.5 in the Philippines to 15.4 in Japan and Korea. With the exception of the Philippines, the country scores cluster within a standard deviation of each other. For 10 year old students in school, science is taught as a separate subject in some schools and as part of general or social studies in others. Japan, Korea, and Finland have high achievement levels; however, England, Singapore, and Hong Kong have low achievement scores. The magnitude of the difference in levels of achievement in these two groups of countries represents between 3 and 4 years of schooling. The difference might be related to the extent of formal teaching in science in the schools of the countries in the two groups.