| Abstrakt: |
Secondary school students in Taiwan have experienced a decline in mathematics performance since 2012. A significant decrease was first observed in 2015, and by 2018, student performance had reached a record low. However, international mathematics assessments conducted in 2019 and 2022 have showed a recovery, with the performance of high school students in Taiwan reaching a level equivalent to, or close to, that of Singapore, the top-performing country. The purpose of this research is to analyze this U-turn in mathematics performance and to propose a number of policy-related explanations. Findings show that changes in student characteristics across survey years do not account for the decline, but in one case, do partially account for the rebound. Notably, the decline occurred after 2014 when the senior high school entrance examination was modified from a norm-referenced, to a criterion-referenced, examination in which test scores in each tested subject were reduced to merely seven ranks. The higher-performing student cohorts that contributed to an upward trend after the decline overcame possibly negative influences of the new grading system, and were subject to more coherent curricular guidelines in learning mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
