Trends in Science Achievement of Eighth graders in Iran and regional countries within the time span of 1999-2007: A Study Based on TIMSS Findings and Aims of Iran's " 20-year Development Perspective Document"

The present study investigated the trends in science achievement of eighth graders in Iran and regional countries based on three consecutive TIMSS studies. The average achievement scores of Iranian boy and girl students were compared with the performance of regional countries’ students in total science, four content areas (chemistry, earth sciences, biology, and physics) as well as three cognitive domains (knowing, applying and reasoning). Due to the increased number of participant countries in TIMSS 2007, Iran’s rank was lowered from the second in TIMSS 1999 to the fifth in TIMSS 2007. Even though the average science performance for Iranian students in three studies was higher than the average performance of students in all regional countries, the average performance of Iranian students was lower than that of the students in Armenia, Jordan and Dubai. Improvement of science achievement for Iranian students was lower than students in Jordan, Armenia, Bahrain, Turkey, and Tunisia. Girls’ improvement scores in most of the countries including Iran were higher than boys’. Findings indicated that factors affecting students’ achievement in Iran including socio- economic status of students, science self-concept, school attachment, school climate, behavioral problems, teaching limitations, teachers’ satisfaction and success, teachers’ perception of school safety, and teachers’ interactions do not enjoy the same satisfactory trend as some regional countries. On the basis of these data, we can conclude that in the current situation, it is unlikely to achieve the aims of Iran’s “20-year development perspective document” in the realm of general education.