Mathematics Education in East Asia and the West: Does Culture Matter?

Abstract

Students in East Asia outperformed their counterparts in the West in large-scale international studies of mathematics achievement. For example, the top-ranhng countries in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1995 (Beaton et al, 1996; Mullis et al, 1997), its repeated study in 1999 (TIMSS-R or TIMSS 1999) (Mullis et al, 2000), and the succeeding trend study in 2003 (TIMSS 2003) (Mullis et al, 2004) as well as the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies in 2000, 2001 and 2003 are all East Asian ones (OECD, 2001, 2003, 2004). These results are consistent with those of earlier studies (for example, Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) (Robitaille and Garden, 1989), International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP) (Lapointe