International Results

Since 1959, IEA has been pioneering global education research and monitoring achievement through its international assessments. With the release of the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) 2023 international results, one of IEA’s flagship studies now provides twenty-eight years of trend data to support countries and education systems in making evidence-informed decisions. This is the largest pool of trend data from any international large-scale assessment in education. In this latest cycle, TIMSS’s measurement of mathematics and science achievement, as well as contextual information in the fourth and eighth grades also completes the transition to assessing students in a digital environment. This not only reflects the growing use of technology and devices both in classrooms as well as other everyday tasks, but also is a fundamental aspect of IEA’s commitment to driving innovation in the field of educational measurement and assessment to provide participating entities with the most comprehensive and robust data possible.

This shift to digital assessment allows students to engage with innovative, interactive tasks that simulate real-world and laboratory situations. The integration of PSIs (Problem Solving and Inquiry tasks) into the assessment design marks a leap forward in the ability to measure students’ application of knowledge and skills. Furthermore, the new group adaptive design ensures a better alignment between the assessment and student populations across the achievement spectrum. Another development in TIMSS 2023 comprises enhanced international reporting, which now includes process data of how students have interacted with the assessment environment. These additional layers of information will provide unprecedented insights into students’ problem-solving strategies, test-taking behaviors, and engagement levels while still maintaining the decades of trends that TIMSS fundamentally provides.

In addition to trends in mathematics and science achievement, TIMSS 2023 continues to offer a comprehensive view of education systems through its context data and the TIMSS 2023 Encyclopedia. The quasi-longitudinal design, following the fourth-grade cohort to eighth grade, provides unique insights into educational progression, acting as an early warning system for where certain reforms may be needed as well as a way to monitor these changes in four years’ time for countries that continually participate in both grades. These comprehensive data sources combined allow the examination of various factors influencing student achievement, from classroom practices to national policies. This TIMSS cycle coincided with parallel data collection from another IEA study, ICILS (International Computer and Information Literacy Study) 2023, allowing for an even more holistic view of educational outcomes.

Another important new feature of TIMSS 2023 is the increased coverage of aspects of environmental education as they relate to the attitudes and behaviors of students. The construction of environmental awareness scales started with TIMSS 2019 and is now expanded to collect data highly relevant to education in the 21st century. Equipping students with knowledge and skills in environmental topics gives them the foundation to act responsibly and contribute to developing our world positively. Subsequent TIMSS Insights reports are planned relating to themes and questions central to TIMSS, starting with one in June 2025 on this very topic.

The global impact of TIMSS also continues to grow, with 72 education systems participating in this cycle. With its connection to UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 4, TIMSS plays a crucial role in monitoring progress towards quality education for all and acts as the indicator, alongside IEA’s reading study PIRLS, for the numeracy and literacy “SDG minimum proficiency level” (indicator 4.1.1). The study’s flexibility in accommodating benchmarking systems allows for more granular regional or grade-level analysis. In addition, an option to assess the same cohort one year later in the next grade via the TIMSS Longitudinal Study provides unique data on student growth for those who took the opportunity to participate. The results of this study will be available in 2025.

This international report was made possible by the hard work of many parties involved, and I would like to thank all the individuals who contributed to TIMSS 2023. IEA studies continue to be important high-quality data sources due to the work you all do. I extend my gratitude to the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development for their commitment and leadership in this endeavor. I also recognize the valuable contributions of IEA staff, whose support has been instrumental in driving this research forward. My heartfelt thanks also go to our partner organizations—RTI International, ACER, and IPN—whose technical expertise and collaborative efforts have been crucial in ensuring the success of TIMSS 2023.

We all are especially grateful to the National Research Coordinators and research centers in each participating country. Their hard work, meticulous planning, and dedication to developing comprehensive frameworks in collaboration with many colleagues across our partner organizations have been vital to the integrity and depth of the data collected. The financial support from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture has been pivotal in enabling the participation of Western Balkan countries, enriching the diversity and scope of our findings. Additionally, we acknowledge the immense contributions of all participating education systems, schools, teachers, students, and parents. Their participation and cooperation are the backbone of TIMSS, making it possible to gather meaningful data that reflects the educational landscapes worldwide.

Last but not least, we would like to thank Dr. Ina V. S. Mullis and Dr. Michael (Mick) Martin for their long-standing leadership and for ensuring a smooth and successful transition to the new leadership of the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, which made this report possible.

Each cycle of TIMSS empowers countries with more data to make evidence-informed decisions, guiding policy and practice to enhance education systems. I encourage stakeholders to utilize this rich data repository to inform research and policies, drive innovation, and ultimately improve student learning experiences worldwide.

Dr. Dirk Hastedt
Executive Director, IEA

IEA’s TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) is an ongoing international assessment program in mathematics and science. TIMSS 2023 marks a significant milestone in the evolution of international assessments, providing results based on 28 years of trends. It also completed the transition to a fully computer-based assessment. TIMSS 2023 assesses mathematics and science achievement in representative samples drawn from fourth- and eighth-grade student populations worldwide. It also provides valuable contextual data collected from students, parents, teachers, and school principals, in addition to data on national education systems and curricula.

The international comparative nature of TIMSS 2023 allows countries to benchmark their performance against other nations, fostering a global dialogue on best practices in mathematics and science education. By collecting data about students’ achievement and various related contextual factors, TIMSS 2023 provides information that may support the development of more effective teaching and learning strategies, ultimately contributing to improved student outcomes and continuous improvement of education systems to prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century. Data from TIMSS 2023 can complement findings from in-depth national studies, thus facilitating evidence-based decisions about education policy and resource allocation.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions to education systems worldwide between the previous cycle, TIMSS 2019, and TIMSS 2023. TIMSS 2023 can provide valuable information about the state of mathematics and science education before and after the pandemic, offering insights into how educational systems have responded to this unprecedented global disruption. However, as a cross-sectional observational study, TIMSS is not an experiment or a pre/post-test design and does not re-test students. Therefore, TIMSS is not designed to provide estimates of the causal effects of the pandemic on student learning outcomes. At the same time, the depth and breadth of the data available through TIMSS gives researchers ample opportunity to look at differences in results over cycles, including those before and after the pandemic.

TIMSS is directed by IEA’s TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College in close cooperation with the IEA Amsterdam and IEA Hamburg offices. IEA is an independent international cooperative of national research institutions and government agencies that pioneered international assessments of student achievement in the 1960s to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between policy and outcomes across countries’ education systems. IEA’s history of collecting comparative data on student achievement internationally is extensive, and international projects and study centers have supported IEA’s goals to study mathematics and science achievement and contexts of achievement for more than 60 years.

TIMSS 2023 participants represent a diverse array of education systems around the world, including countries or distinct education systems within countries, as well as benchmarking participants representing specific regions or populations within countries. At the fourth grade, 59 countries and 6 benchmarking entities participated in TIMSS 2023,¹ while at the eighth grade, 44 countries and 3 benchmarking entities participated. At the fourth grade, 12,016 schools were selected and within schools, 359,098 students were assessed. At the eighth grade, 8,786 schools were selected, and within schools, 297,262 students were assessed in the TIMSS 2023 cycle. Contextual data was collected using questionnaires administered to participating students, their school principals and teachers, as well as to the parents of participating fourth-grade students.

Albania

Armenia

Australia

Austria

Azerbaijan

Bahrain

Belgium (Flemish)

Belgium (French)

Bosnia & Herzegovina

Brazil

Bulgaria*

Canada

Chile

Chinese Taipei

Côte d’Ivoire*

Cyprus*

Czech Republic

Denmark

England

Finland

France

Georgia

Germany

Hong Kong SAR

Hungary

Iran, Islamic Rep. of*

Iraq*

Ireland

Israel

Italy

Japan

Jordan

Kazakhstan

Korea, Rep. of

Kosovo

Kuwait*

Latvia

Lithuania

Macao SAR

Malaysia

Malta

Montenegro

Morocco*

Netherlands

New Zealand

North Macedonia

Norway

Oman

Palestinian Nat’l Auth.

Poland

Portugal

Qatar

Romania

Saudi Arabia

Serbia

Singapore

Slovak Republic

Slovenia

South Africa*

Spain

Sweden

Türkiye

United Arab Emirates

United States

Uzbekistan

Benchmarking Participants

Ontario, Canada

Quebec, Canada

Kurdistan Region of Iraq*

Abu Dhabi, UAE

Dubai, UAE

Sharjah, UAE

Countries participating in TIMSS 2023 administered the assessment at different times of the year based on their school calendars. Northern Hemisphere countries typically had testing windows from March to June of 2023 and Southern Hemisphere countries typically had testing windows from August to November of 2023.

While TIMSS assesses students in their fourth and eighth years of formal schooling, IEA has a policy that the average age of the students in the grade selected does not fall below 9.5 years old (Grade 4) or 13.5 years old (Grade 8) at the time of testing.² More details about the students assessed in each education system can be found in Appendix B.³

1 Iraq and the Benchmarking Participant Kurdistan Region of Iraq administered the fourth-grade TIMSS 2023 assessment, but their results did not meet international reporting standards.

2 Norway assessed students in the fifth and ninth year of schooling so students would be compared to students of similar age in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. South Africa assessed students in their fifth and ninth years of schooling to better match curricula and maintain trend measurement. Türkiye also chose to assess students in the fifth grade.

3 Appendix B provides information about important characteristics of countries’ samples, including population coverage and exclusion rates, school and student sample sizes, and sample participation rates.

The TIMSS 2023 mathematics and science assessments are based on frameworks developed collaboratively with participating countries and content area experts. The TIMSS 2023 Mathematics Framework and TIMSS 2023 Science Framework each describe achievement in relation to subject-specific content and cross-cutting cognitive domains. The content domains covered by the assessments are presented in the table below. All TIMSS assessments address three cognitive domains: knowing, applying, and reasoning.

The specification of the content and cognitive domains has remained stable across TIMSS cycles, and TIMSS 2023 continues to report on these domains separately as subscales, as well as on the main TIMSS mathematics and science trend scales.

The transition to computer-based testing, which began with TIMSS 2019, was completed by almost all participating countries and benchmarking participants in TIMSS 2023. The few remaining paper-based countries are linked to the TIMSS 2023 results by means of the portion of trend assessment materials that were retained from TIMSS 2019 and earlier in the 2023 materials.

Assessing students on computers enables the use of more innovative and engaging assessment methods that better reflect how students learn in schools and how students increasingly interact with technology in their daily lives. By leveraging digital tools and platforms, the TIMSS 2023 assessments are able to incorporate a wider range of item types, including interactive features, multimodal materials, and opportunities for test-taker exploration and experimentation, creating a more immersive and dynamic testing experience. Technology-based testing also allows for a more secure test administration, more reliable and comparable scoring, and more efficient data saving, transmission, and analysis, providing educators and policymakers with more reliable and comparable data for actionable insights into the performance of student populations. Moreover, the computer-based format enables advanced analytics using modern methodologies such as machine learning, including process data mining, to identify patterns and trends in student responses, providing a more nuanced understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and learning needs.

TIMSS 2023 features a diverse range of item types. In addition to traditional discrete items that assess a range of mathematical and scientific concepts, the assessment includes extended Problem-Solving and Inquiry (PSI) tasks composed of multiple interrelated items. These innovative PSI tasks, first introduced in TIMSS 2019, are designed to simulate real-world scenarios, presenting students with complex challenges that require them to think critically, creatively, and analytically. By mimicking authentic problem-solving experiences, including simulations of outcomes for students to observe, PSI tasks encourage students to engage in scientific inquiry, model mathematical relationships, and develop solutions to practical problems. For instance, a PSI task might ask students to design an experiment to test the effect of pH on plant growth or to optimize the shape of a container to maximize its volume while minimizing its surface area. By working through these interactive tasks, students demonstrate their ability to apply mathematical and scientific concepts to real-world contexts, think logically, and communicate their reasoning effectively. Including PSI items in TIMSS 2023 provides a more comprehensive picture of student learning outcomes, moving beyond mere content knowledge to assess the skills and competencies required for success in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

TIMSS 2023 implements targeted testing to match student populations and assessment difficulty through a country-level adaptation of booklet rotations to improve efficiency and optimize student engagement. The traditional TIMSS booklet rotation design was improved for TIMSS 2023 to allow for different rates of less and more difficult booklets within countries. The assessment items were divided into carefully crafted blocks and assembled into booklets to reflect a certain difficulty target. The administration of these booklets is rotated among students within each country. In most countries, more difficult and less difficult booklets were rotated equally. However, in some countries where it was anticipated students might struggle to answer many difficult items, less difficult booklets were administered at higher rates. In some known high-performing countries, the rate of more difficult booklets was increased. The booklet rotation approach enables the assessment to cover the entire range of content and skills while reducing the number of items each student is required to complete, and the differential rotation of more or less difficult booklets improved the match between item difficulty and the distribution of student proficiencies within countries. As a result, students were presented with a more manageable testing experience, which helped to minimize test fatigue and frustration and maximized their engagement, motivation, and effort. The country-level adaptive design also allowed for a more reliable estimation of student achievement at the country level. By optimizing the testing experience this way, TIMSS 2023 balances assessment efficiency and comprehensiveness, providing educators and policymakers with a more accurate understanding of student learning outcomes.

Building on the success of the environmental awareness achievement scale introduced in TIMSS 2019, TIMSS 2023 continues to expand its scope to assess environmental knowledge and attitudes. This component of TIMSS 2023 provides valuable insights into students’ understanding of environmental issues, including climate change, biodiversity, and conservation. By examining students’ knowledge of these topics, TIMSS 2023 sheds light on their ability to recognize the interconnectedness of human and natural systems and their capacity to think critically about the impact of human activities on the environment. In TIMSS 2023, information about students’ environmental knowledge is complemented by collecting data on their attitudes toward the natural environment and engagement in environmentally responsible behaviors. By assessing both knowledge and attitudes, TIMSS 2023 provides a more comprehensive understanding of students’ environmental literacy, which is essential for empowering them to make informed decisions about sustainability and become active participants in addressing global environmental challenges. These data can inform education policy and practice, helping to identify areas where educational systems can better support the development of environmental awareness.

TIMSS 2023 made every effort to ensure the quality and comparability of data by carefully planning and documenting standardized operational procedures, implementing an international quality control monitoring program, and conducting rigorous data verification and validation processes. The assessments were administered to nationally representative and well-documented probability samples of students in each country. The TIMSS sampling team from RTI International and IEA Hamburg worked with National Research Coordinators on all phases of sampling activities to ensure compliance with sampling and participation requirements and documented any deviations from the standards.

IEA Amsterdam worked with the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center to manage an extensive series of verification checks to ensure the comparability of translations of the assessment items and questionnaires and to conduct an international quality assurance program of school visits to monitor and report on the administration of the assessment. IEA Hamburg worked closely with National Research Coordinators during the project to organize data collection operations and to check all data for accuracy and consistency within and across countries.

Finally, full documentation of the many technical activities required to conduct TIMSS 2023 is provided in the TIMSS 2023 Technical Report. This volume includes detailed information about the processes used to develop and implement the TIMSS 2023 assessments, including sampling, translation verification, data collection, scaling, linking, and data analysis.

TIMSS 2023 International Results in Mathematics and Science is presented in a web-based format that provides users with an engaging and interactive experience. The report is organized around exhibits focusing on science and mathematics achievement, followed by exhibits that combine contextual data with achievement data. Finally, several appendices complete the presentation of the results by helping readers understand and further explore information specific to TIMSS 2023. Report exhibits are displayed as interactive tables (some including graphical elements), allowing users to explore and analyze the data from different perspectives. The report text and exhibits are presented in an integrated way, with various navigation support features, such as filters, sorting options, and hover-over descriptions. These features facilitate individualized investigations of the findings. Exhibit data is also available for download in various formats.

The innovative format of this report supports readers’ engagement with the rich information available through TIMSS 2023, making it easier for educators, policymakers, and researchers to access, understand, and use the findings to inform education policy and practice. By providing a dynamic and user-friendly reporting platform, TIMSS 2023 aims to promote a deeper understanding of student learning outcomes in mathematics and science, ultimately contributing to improved educational outcomes worldwide.

There are several considerations to keep in mind when interpreting the data in the exhibits included in this report. TIMSS 2023 was conducted in many countries, and effects of system-level differences on the data collection can be reduced but not fully eliminated. While the vast majority of countries have high-quality, reliable, valid, and comparable data, there are differences in response rates, reliability of achievement estimates, and the extent to which the standards established for ensuring comparable assessment results were followed. Following best practices, this report provides estimates of statistical variability in the form of standard errors and confidence intervals where possible. It provides footnotes to contextualize sampling, response rate, and other limitations where needed.

Starting February 2025, the TIMSS 2023 International Database can be downloaded in commonly used formats (R, SPSS, and SAS). Users can analyze the data according to their research questions and explore findings beyond the ones presented in this report. TIMSS 2023 results can also be further contextualized using the TIMSS 2023 Encyclopedia, which provides system-level information about education policy and practices in the participating TIMSS countries.