TIMSS 2019: Does gender or grade affect how much we like mathematics? On International Day of Mathematics 2021, IEA finds more boys than girls internationally

This year, the day centers on ‘Mathematics for a Better World’ as the discipline plays a key role in understanding, monitoring, and mitigating current challenges such as climate change, natural disasters, and pandemics, but how many students would like a job involving mathematics to work on these key issues? Across the 39 countries that participated in TIMSS 2019 at the eighth grade, 26% of boys s. [...] At the fourth grade, 46% of boys very much like learning mathematics, compared to 43% of girls, and at the eighth grade, 21% of boys very much like the subject, with fewer girls in agreement at 19%. [...] TIMSS 2019 found the number of students that very much like learning mathematics decreased from 45% at the fourth grade to 20% at the eighth grade, and conversely those that said they do not like learning mathematics rose from 20% at the fourth grade, to 41% at the eighth grade. [...] An upcoming IEA Compass: Briefs in Education will be released in partnership with UNESCO on 22 April for International Girls in ICT Day, exploring the relationship between the gender of the teacher and students’ mathematics and science achievement, as well as gender differences in science and mathematics teachers’ self-efficacy and its relation to job satisfaction. [...] About TIMSS 2019 TIMSS 2019 is the seventh assessment cycle of the IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, and was administered to nationally representative samples of students in 64 countries and 8 benchmarking systems in total (58 countries and 6 benchmarking entities at the fourth grade, and 39 countries and 7 benchmarking at the eighth grade).