By Lucy Carroll and Christopher Harris
Australia’s gender gap in students’ maths performance is among the biggest in the world, the latest international tests reveal, with boys now eclipsing girls at both primary and high school.
The nation’s year 4 students achieved their strongest-ever results in the latest round of global maths and science testing, with male students more than 20 points ahead of female students.
Experts have sounded the alarm over the growing maths gender gap. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
In NSW, year 8 pupils reported a significant drop in maths results – the sharpest decline of any state or territory – while scores in that year’s group across Australia have shown no improvement since testing began in 1995.
Experts have sounded the alarm over the growing maths gender gap, warning that despite the emphasis on addressing STEM disparities, the gap is widening between boys and girls from primary school.
Australian Council for Educational Research senior research fellow Nicole Wernert said girls recorded a drop in scores in year 8. “This is our warning light,” she said.
Almost 14,000 year 4 and year 8 Australian students sat the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) tests, held in 64 countries every four years.
Singapore remained the top-ranked country on every indicator, while Chinese Taipei, Korea and Japan held top-five spots in maths at both year levels. It is the world’s longest-running large-scale international assessment of mathematics and science.
For the first time, Australian male students eclipsed their female counterparts in both maths and science at both year levels, a trend the Australian Council of Educational Research said is driven by a higher share of male students in the top performance band.
Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Glen Fahey said success in maths breeds confidence and too many students in Australia don’t experience success in maths early in their primary school years. “This impacts their confidence and engagement,” he said.
“Girls who struggle with maths are more likely to suffer anxiety, which can lead to avoiding the subject, and then that can spiral. Part of the reason we see a gender gap is poor results in core number foundations. When children experience lots of success doing number computations, their confidence grows.”
University of NSW professor of mathematics education Kim Beswick said girls tend to be less confident than boys about their ability, even when they are doing at least as well.
“It relates to the social stereotype of maths being a male thing, and STEM careers are more male dominated. And that subtly influences how teachers and parents interact with students around maths,” she said.
“There is no reason for there to be a difference between boys’ and girls’ performance in maths,” Beswick said. “If it is showing up in year 4, it is likely to get worse. There are data that says primary school teachers are rather frightened of maths and not confident, but that has been the case for decades.”
In NSW, year 8 students’ maths results dropped 25 points compared with 2019, while scores are lower than when testing began in 1995.
Maths professor Kim Beswick said girls’ confidence in maths is likely impacting performance.Credit: James Brickwood
About 14 per cent of NSW year 8 maths students were marked “very low performers”. The share of low maths performers has grown from 12 per cent almost three decades ago.
In year 4 maths, Australia placed 20th behind countries including Romania and Latvia and came 12th in year 8 maths. For science, year 4 students were eighth in the world behind Poland and Turkey.
Wernert said year 4 students achieved their best results in maths and science, with 18 per cent of students now top-achievers in that year.
“Australia is doing well overall even if we haven’t improved since 2019 in year 8 results. But we have areas where things aren’t as good as they could be. Boys have leapt in their performance, and are doing better than girls in maths and science across the board. It is not a gap we would normally see in a country like Australia,” she said.
Nationally, 13 per cent of Australia’s year 8 students were marked as low performers in maths, that proportion growing from one in 10 students almost 30 years ago.
Year 4 students in NSW – whose first years at school occurred during the pandemic – recorded their best result in mathematics since testing started, climbing 20 points in their mean achievement score since 2019.
In year 4 maths, 72 per cent of students nationally met the proficiency benchmark, compared with just 64 per cent of year 8 students. More than 70 per cent of students met the science benchmarks across both years.
More than half of First Nations students failed to meet proficiency standards in maths.
Wernert said Australia’s strength in maths was in data probability. “Unfortunately, we are weaker in the number domain in both year levels.”
“If you don’t grasp numbers then you aren’t getting the fundamentals. It worries me that we have weakness in numbers and that is contributing to our tail in maths,” she said.
Fahey said Australia needs to lift the early foundations in maths, “especially the core knowledge of numbers, which Australian students have long underperformed with”.
“It’s strong foundations that are the key to a generation of talented professionals in STEM industries, yet there hasn’t always been enough attention in setting up all children for maths success,” he said.
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