Explaining differences for Serbia and Slovenia in mathematics achievement in fourth grade

Abstract

This paper presents the findings that are parts of a larger international project studying the achievements in mathematics and science for students in primary and lower secondary education. Specifically, we focused on the study of differences in mathematics achievement for Serbian and Slovenian fourth-graders. The study used a sample of 7,861 fourth-grade students from Serbia (N = 3,736) and Slovenia (N = 4,125). The results showed that Serbian students had higher overall achievement and scored higher in both the number content and the knowing cognitive domains, whereas Slovenian students scored higher on the geometry content and the data content domains, also having a higher balance among achievements for both content and cognitive domains. It was also found that Slovenian students had higher self-confidence in learning mathematics. Because there were no other significant differences between Serbia and Slovenia with respect to two other contextual variables and the correlations among these three contextual variables, the explanations of the achievement differences were based upon the consideration of various aspects of curriculum, teaching practice, and teachers' professional development in Serbia and Slovenia. The paper raises the question of educational implications of these findings and the possible directions of improving the quality of mathematics teaching.