Singapore’s Participation in International Benchmark Studies—TIMSS, PISA and TEDS-M

Abstract

Large-scale international assessments of schooling effects attempt to provide comparative data for participating countries. Two such assessments are the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Singapore has participated in TIMSS since 1995 and PISA since 2009. These studies use student outcomes as measures of school effectiveness and educational achievement. They focus on student achievement mainly in three school subjects: mathematics, science and language. Other international studies like the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M) also provide comparative data on teachers of mathematics and related matters. Singapore participated in TEDS-M. The results of TEDS-M were available in 2012. This chapter presents snapshots of significant data and findings of Singapore’s participation in TIMSS 2015, PISA 2009 and 2015 and TEDS-M. For TIMSS 2015, it focuses on the performance of Singapore students and their engagement and attitudes for mathematics. For PISA 2009 and 2015, it focuses on the performance of Singapore students and their exposure to mathematics content and their drive and motivation to learn mathematics. For TEDS-M, it focuses on the national contexts and policies for teacher education and nature of mathematics teacher education programmes in Singapore. It also examines the performance of future teachers from Singapore in mathematics content knowledge (MCK) and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge (MPCK) and their beliefs and perceptions of opportunities to learn. The chapter concludes with possible reasons about the commendable performance of Singapore students in TIMSS and PISA.