Key Findings

Student contact with maths:

• Students in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom spent considerably less time learning maths per week than their counterparts in Canada and Singapore. The average in New Zealand was just over 4 hours per week.
• No significant relationship between time spent learning maths per week and achievement was found in New Zealand.
• High proportions of New Zealand students attended schools that offered maths competitions (96%) and enrichment and remedial maths lessons (76%), but fewer students attended schools with maths clubs (25%).
• In New Zealand, students that attended schools offering many extra-curricular maths activities scored higher on average than students whose schools did not offer as many activities.

Covering different areas of maths

• New Zealand students were most familiar with certain mathematical concepts such as probability, polygons, and linear equations.
• Up to 60 per cent of students indicated they had never heard of mathematical concepts such as congruent figures, radicals, and divisors.
• New Zealand students were less exposed to formal maths than students in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and particularly in Singapore.
• A students’ exposure to formal maths — such as algebra and geometry — was strongly linked to their maths achievement.
• New Zealand stood out among PISA participants for having one of the largest differences in achievement related to the level of exposure to formal maths.
• The higher a students’ socio-economic status, the higher their exposure to formal maths.
• Exposure to formal maths was highest students from socio-economically advantaged schools and students in urban schools.