Curriculum: Topics, Instructional Time, and Use of Technology

Curriculum is one of the factors influencing students’ achievement on international assessments of mathematics and science. This chapter examines four curriculum components: (1) “instructional time”, (2) “student taught the TIMSS topics”, (3) “teacher emphasis on science investigation”, and (4) “access to computers”. The amount of instructional time dedicated to mathematics and science in fourth and eighth grades in TIMSS 2011 varied by country and subject and so did the percentage of students taught the mathematics and science topics in TIMSS 2011 and 2019. Moreover, in TIMSS 2019, the number of countries that taught longer than the international average in fourth and eighth grades in TIMSS mathematics and science increased. As for PIRLS 2011 and 2016, the quantity of instruction devoted to language and reading varied by country and was almost four times greater than the time dedicated to mathematics and science in many countries. In TIMSS 2011 and 2019, there was no statistically significant relationship between students’ achievement in science and the extent to which teachers emphasized the investigative approach in their instruction in fourth and eighth grades. Similarly, there was no consistent pattern in the relationship between students’ achievement in TIMSS mathematics and science and the availability of computers in fourth and eighth grades. However, the only significant relationships between the availability of computers and students’ achievement were obtained in PIRLS and TIMSS mathematics in the fourth grade.