Trends in International Benchmarks (Grade 8)

Trends in Distributions of Students Reaching the TIMSS International Benchmarks of Science Achievement

Exhibit 2.2.12 provides bar graphs for each country and benchmarking participant with comparable data from previous TIMSS assessments, presenting the distribution of students at the TIMSS International Benchmarks with a bar for each cycle from 1995 to 2023. Each bar displays the percentage of students reaching each of the International Benchmarks for a given assessment cycle. The shading of the bar segments ranges from dark to light green, and each lighter colored segment indicates the cumulative percentage of students that reached the less demanding benchmarks. Few students in most countries reach the Advanced Benchmark (darkest green segment); more students reach the High Benchmark (dark green plus medium green segments); even more students reach the Intermediate Benchmark (indicated by three darker segments); finally, in most countries, a large majority of students reaches the Low Benchmark (all shades of green combined). The gray area indicates the percentage of students that did not reach the Low International Benchmark (i.e., were “below low”). The achievement of these students cannot be characterized by any of the TIMSS 2023 International Benchmarks.