Introduction

This report examines the mathematics results for New Zealand Year 5 students from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2014/15¹. Along with the reports on New Zealand's results for mathematics at Year 9, and for science at Years 5 and 9, this report forms part of a series of publications about New Zealand's participation in TIMSS 2014/15 (Caygill, Hanlar, & Singh, 2016a,b; Caygill, Singh & Hanlar, 2016). International findings for mathematics for TIMSS 2014/15 have been published by the IEA² along with a separate international report for science (Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Hooper, 2016; Martin, Mullis, Foy, & Hooper, 2016).

This report examines New Zealand's mathematics achievement in relation to other countries that participated in the study, as well as trends at the Year 5 level from 1994 to 2014. An examination of the TIMSS assessment questions in relation to New Zealand's mathematics curriculum is presented, followed by analyses of achievement by sub-groupings (such as gender and ethnicity) and student background factors. Comprehensive coverage of background questions about teaching and learning, as well as the school context for learning, is also provided.

Footnotes

1. Internationally this cycle of the study is called TIMSS 2015. As New Zealand conducted TIMSS towards the end of 2014, it is referred to as TIMSS 2014/15 throughout this report.
2. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is an independent, international cooperative of national research institutions and governmental research agencies. It conducts large-scale comparative studies of educational achievement and other aspects of education.