Timss Science Results Seen from A Nordic Perspective

Challenges and Support When Teaching Science Through an Integrated Inquiry and Literacy Approach

“…The participating schools were located in both rural and suburban areas of the greater Oslo area, but, in an international perspective, the students still come across as a relatively homogeneous group (cf. Kjaernsli & Lie, 2002). Table 1 summarizes information on the six participating teachers.…”

Trade and Divergence in Education Systems

“…Norwegian pupils have performed relatively poorly on international comparative tests such as TIMSS. In fact, research has documented a downward trend in their achievements in mathematics and science over the 1990s and 2000s (Kjaernsli and Lie, 2002;Welle-Strand and Tjeldvoll, 2002;Tveit, 2009;Grønmo and Gustafsson, 2010). …”

“…Equal right to education results in what is called the unified school, which has been at the heart of Norwegian education policies and a significant element of Norwegian welfare state policies since WWII (Braathe and Ongstad, 2001;Welle-Strand and Tjeldvoll, 2002). Characteristic of the system is a distaste for individual differentiation in academic achievements: there is no formal student assessment until lower secondary schools (grades 8-10), no permanent and structural streaming based on abilities, no repeating grades in the compulsory school years, and no choice for specialization in subjects before grade 12 (Braathe and Ongstad, 2001;Kjaernsli and Lie, 2002;Welle-Strand and Tjeldvoll, 2002;Tveit, 2009). In conjunction, there is a general tradition to let children be children, which is reflected in relatively short school hours in the primary years and few homework assignments after schools (Kjaernsli and Lie, 2002).…”

“…Characteristic of the system is a distaste for individual differentiation in academic achievements: there is no formal student assessment until lower secondary schools (grades 8-10), no permanent and structural streaming based on abilities, no repeating grades in the compulsory school years, and no choice for specialization in subjects before grade 12 (Braathe and Ongstad, 2001;Kjaernsli and Lie, 2002;Welle-Strand and Tjeldvoll, 2002;Tveit, 2009). In conjunction, there is a general tradition to let children be children, which is reflected in relatively short school hours in the primary years and few homework assignments after schools (Kjaernsli and Lie, 2002). This overall low academic pressure approach, with an aversion to competition and comparison in the primary school years, is likely one fundamental idiosyncratic factor for the outlying Norwegian performance observed at grade 8 in our study.…”

“…In fact, the same unified school philosophy also has a distinct touch of anti-intellectualism: general knowledge is considered to be less important than local knowledge and practical skills (Welle-Strand and Tjeldvoll, 2002). More emphasis is placed on daily-life mathematics and science-such as measure, data and mountains-than on advanced and abstract concepts-such as algebra, number and atoms (Kjaernsli and Lie, 2002;Grønmo and Gustafsson, 2010). This implies that pupils may be less well trained in terms of systematic approach to knowledge synthesis and extension.…”