Use and Impact of TIMSS
Chile’s participation in TIMSS in 1999, 2003, 2011, and 2015 not only has helped to assess the learning of Chilean students in mathematics and science, compared with international standards, but also to measure changes in student learning over time, monitoring the Chilean education system. TIMSS has had great impact in terms of the recognition of Chile’s educational system. TIMSS results over time have shown an improvement in mathematics at the eighth grade. Policymakers in Chile took note of the national average score for eighth grade science from 2003 to 2011. These results led to the evaluation of educational policies in the country against suggested policy guidelines.43
TIMSS data has shown socioeconomic and gender gaps that affect the Chilean education system. Chile has presented a constant outcomes gap between boys and girls, such that boys achieve significantly better results than girls in mathematics. Another gap presents among different types of schools (i.e., public sector schools, populated mostly by students from lower socioeconomic groups, exhibit lower achievement than private paid schools). The same gaps present in the eighth grade science results in socioeconomic status and gender.44
Chile’s participation in TIMSS also has provided a stimulus and a point of reference for making improvements to the national curriculum. It has provided information contributing to a better understanding of school organization, teacher education, and teaching practices in a comparative context. The curricular basis of the Chilean education system has undergone several updates since 2000, informed by the assessment frameworks of international studies such as TIMSS.
Despite the fact that important reforms were made to the national curriculum in 2000, TIMSS 2003 showed continuing gaps between the TIMSS framework and the Chilean curriculum, especially in algebra and geometry and in physics and environmental science. As a result, the Chilean curriculum was updated again in 2009, taking into account the curriculum framework provided by TIMSS 2003.45 Subsequent content updates to Chile’s mathematics and science curricula were informed by the frameworks of TIMSS 2011—in particular, fourth grade science (2012), eighth grade science (2013), and eighth grade mathematics (2013).46
Participation in TIMSS also has impacted Chile’s national standardized testing system (Simce). In Chile, TIMSS is regarded as a benchmark for assessment methodologies, evaluation frameworks, designing and coding of open ended questions, and results reporting, among other components of assessment.47