Use and Impact of TIMSS

France participated in TIMSS for the first time at the fourth grade level during the 2015 assessment cycle. TIMSS 2015 presents the first snapshot of student achievement in mathematics and science in France. The results of future TIMSS assessments (i.e., 2019, 2023, and beyond) will allow France to make diachronic comparisons of student achievement. The 2015 cycle makes a synchronic comparison feasible, and will allow France to measure its performance against that of other participating countries.

In France each year since 2003, the Direction de l’évaluation, de la prospective et de la performance (Evaluation Directorate) administers a study called CEDRE (Cycle des Evaluations Disciplinaires Réalisées sur Echantillons, which may be translated as Cycle of Disciplinary Assessments Conducted on Samples). CEDRE measures student skills at the end of primary school (Grade 5) and at the end of lower secondary school (Grade 9). It covers most subject areas alternately in the following programs: language proficiency; foreign languages; history, geography, and civics; experimental sciences; and mathematics. Administered every six years (2007 and 2013 in science; 2008 and 2014 in mathematics), the assessments are used to track student achievement over time. The analysis of student skills in the various disciplines provides a rich resource for teachers.

The most recent cycles of CEDRE indicated that at the end of primary school:

In science, student achievement remained consistent from 2007 to 2013, and also remained consistent across the different grade levels.²⁴ In both content areas (Physics and Living Things) and skills (acquiring knowledge and reasoning) assessed, student success rates (65 percent) were consistent across the two periods, showing that reading and language skills are indicators of student success.
In mathematics, between 2008 and 2014, students entering lower secondary school performed at very heterogeneous levels.²⁵ If the average mathematics score of students at the end of Grade 5 remained consistent, the percentage of students experiencing difficulties increased substantially. The achievement gap was greater among students progressing appropriately through the grade levels and those who were at least one year behind. Looking beyond the overall consistency of student outcomes, results showed a decline in student performance in arithmetic operations and an improvement in the estimation of orders of magnitude.