TIMSS 2023 adding to the STEM gender story

Gender-unequal participation is not because girls are less capable than boys: recent STEM performance of England’s young people in both national examinations such as GCSE and A Level and large-scale international assessments such as TIMSS and PISA reveal near gender-equal performance on average. We know that whether young people choose to participate once they have a choice, depends on a range of factors including relative performance (on average, girls are more likely to have all-around curriculum strengths than boys), the value learners place on STEM subjects, and their confidence and self-efficacy in related subjects. Importantly,  the social norms, stereotypes and received expectations they experience together with interactions with peers, teachers, family, and others all influence participation. However, sourcing and understanding information about such experiences and the related affective characteristics is less straightforward than analysing performance data.

Our previous blog showed learners’ average performance in mathematics and science in TIMSS 2023 at years 5 and 9 was very pleasing, including relative to all but the highest-performing countries: our National Report for England provides more detail. In mathematics, performance recovered to roughly pre-pandemic levels in both year groups, and in science learners performed significantly higher than in the last TIMSS cycle in 2019, with year 5 learners showing their strongest performance ever. These findings are particularly pleasing since they represent the first large scale evidence of recovery from the pandemic.

But analysis exposed a large opening-up of the gender gap in mathematics in both age groups, with year 9 boys in England scoring an average of 538 on the TIMSS scale score − significantly higher than year 9 girls’ average score of 512. While learners in a number of participating countries showed boys’ mathematics performance on average exceeding girls’ (and a few showed girls on average out-performing boys),  England’s was the biggest gap of boys’ over girls’ performance across all participating countries. At year 5 in England, also, boys on average significantly outperformed girls. Our analysis shows that was true across all TIMSS mathematics ‘content’ (e.g. number, algebra, measurement and geometry, data) as well as ‘cognitive’ (knowing/applying/reasoning) domains in both year groups, and at almost all TIMSS ‘benchmark’ levels. 

The figure below shows England year 9 mathematics performance by gender 1995-2023:

In science the gaps were not quite so alarming: year 5 science scores did not differ significantly by gender, continuing a long-term trend. However, in year 9 boys’ average score was 538, significantly in excess of girls’ 524 – which disrupted a trend of recent convergence and also compared unfavourably with most other countries’ gaps, where those existed. In England, year 9 boys also on average significantly outperformed girls in each of knowing and applying among the science cognitive domains, and in each of biology, physics and Earth science within the content domains. 

England year 9 science performance by gender 1995-2023:

Opening up of gendered gaps in performance is obviously ‘bad news’, and is likely to exacerbate persistent gendered gaps in participation. But why does that matter? We all benefit from a rich mixture of skills and interests across society, but a considerable body of evidence underlines the social, economic and institutional injustices that result from women’s unequal participation in STEM. Globally, a nation’s economic health relies on increasing the proportion of the population with STEM skills, and that within those, confident mathematical fluency at an appropriate level is a linchpin. The Royal Society’s recent Mathematical Futures report argues that enhanced mathematical, data and computational participation and literacies are critical to national and individual thriving for the 21st century, in part since so many areas of human activity are now so dependent on such skills and understanding. However, participation depends on curriculum structure and policy – and also on learner attitudes and aspirations once they can make participation choices.

At school level, those characteristics are less frequently, and easily, assessed than performance. However, TIMSS participation also involves questionnaires in which pupils, their teachers and their headteachers report on school and home environments, on approaches and limitations to teaching, and on pupils’ attitudes to, and experiences of, learning those subjects, together with (in England’s case) their mathematics- and science-linked aspirations.

Analysis of questionnaire responses in previous cycles of TIMSS has uncovered significant, and persistent, gender gaps that are unfavourable to girls in both mathematics and science, but particularly in mathematics. Unfortunately, responses in TIMSS 2023 showed boy-favouring patterns of mathematics-related attitudes and aspirations that have strengthened further since TIMSS 2019. Pupils reported on the instructional clarity of their learning, confidence in their ability in mathematics, their valuing of mathematics and enjoying mathematics – all factors known to be associated with both performance and inclination to participate further. In each case, girls responded significantly more negatively than boys. Further, particularly at year 9, both average positivity of responses and the gender gap have worsened since 2019. For example, the percentage of pupils in England who either ‘very much liked’ or ‘somewhat liked’ learning mathematics has decreased – 53% in 2015, 50% in 2019 and 41% in 2023 – with a wider gender gap. The percentage of England’s pupils who ‘very much like learning mathematics’ (11%) was also much lower than the corresponding group internationally (21%), and a large percentage of pupils in England did not like learning mathematics.

Pupils in England also responded to two questions that were country-specific – asking them if they  aspire to study mathematics/science after age 16? And to what extent do they aspire to do work that involves mathematics/science after school? Positive responses have on average deteriorated since 2019, and most importantly, were heavily gendered. 

Gendered attitudes and aspirations in England appear to be embedded by year 5, so any approaches to address the raft of related issues need to start before that. International comparisons show that none of these gaps is inevitable − though they are widespread globally, and are often related to comparatively self-efficacy or attitudes, or unhelpful stereotypes. Previous research at UCL gives an overview of known productive approaches, including: 

• Ambitious, connection-making teaching: teaching for meaning-making and for internal and external connections, including to realistic uses of STEM across a wide range of contexts.
• Offer opportunity for working in a range of both collaborative and independent, discursive ways.
• Challenge, encourage, support and specifically affirm the STEM identity and capabilities of all students.
• Support STEM interactions with a range of others (peers and near-peers, teachers, influential others)

In England, we have a situation where gendered gaps in participation, performance, attitudes and aspirations in mathematics, and also sometimes in science, appear to be both persistent and often widening. In principle, the national Maths Hub-supported ‘teaching mathematics with mastery’ initiative and initiatives such as the Primary Science Teaching Trust and the Primary Science Quality Mark support a number of the above approaches to teaching and learning. However, such teaching is complex − and approaches can be undermined if assessments, and cultural and organisational norms, are aligned with them. The recent TIMSS analysis by gender reminds us that we need to be vigilant in continuing to pursue a coherent curriculum, teaching and assessment system. That should be done in ways that fully employ the best evidence around equitable access to an empowering STEM education in which all learners have the opportunity to thrive.