Gender Differences in Achievement

This chapter examined trends in gender differences regarding students’ academic achievement in TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA. In TIMSS mathematics in 2011 and 2019, fourth and eighth-grade girls outperformed boys in most countries, with statistically significant gender differences in only a few countries. Similar results were obtained in TIMSS science, where fourth and eighth-grade girls scored higher than boys in the majority of the participating countries, but these differences were statistically significant in only a few countries. At the fourth-grade level, Dubai maintained the same gender difference in the TIMSS science in 2011 and 2019. As for the eighth-grade level, boys outperformed girls in Lebanon in 2011 and in Israel in 2019. Concerning the PIRLS results, fourth-grade girls scored significantly higher than boys in all the countries except for Israel in 2011 where the scores of girls and boys were very similar. Similarly, in PISA reading, girls scored significantly higher than boys in all countries in 2015 and 2018. However, in the PISA mathematics, the results did not exhibit an obvious pattern in the differences between boys and girls. As for the PISA science, girls scored significantly higher than boys in three countries in 2015 but in all countries in 2018.