The Philippines joined the TIMSS Advanced 2008 in Advanced Mathematics.  The findings of the study would be of value in developing policies and interventions for improving mathematics education that will better prepare Filipino students for college work and careers in science and engineering.

The TIMSS Advanced 2008 provides an ideal assessment framework by which our country can benchmark our mathematics education with other countries.  It investigates the students’ achievement in Advanced Mathematics and in Physics and is designed to measure and interpret differences in national education systems in order to help improve the teaching and learning of advanced mathematics and physics worldwide. The Philippines joined the Advanced Mathematics Study only.

One hundred eighteen (118) science and science and technology oriented public and private high schools from sixteen (16) regions participated in the study.  In each participating school, one class/section of fourth year high school students took the test.  They likewise completed a questionnaire about their home and school experiences in advanced mathematics.  Principals and mathematics teachers were asked to complete the school and teacher questionnaires, respectively. Encoding of the data is on-going.  All encoded data will be sent to the IEA Data Processing Center in Hamburg by July 2008.

The National Research Coordinators of TIMSS Advanced 2008 are Dr. Ester B. Ogena, Director of the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute and Dr. Merle C. Tan, Director of UP NISMED.

Fourth year students from one of the selected science high schools take the Advanced Mathematics Test.