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A meta-analysis of comparative studies on Chinese and US students’ mathematics performance: Implications for mathematics education reform and research
ARTICLE

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Educational Research Review Volume 4, Number 3, ISSN 1747-938X Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

Abstract

US and China are reforming mathematics teaching by shifting from students’ attainment of facts and procedures toward development of competencies in reasoning, communication, connections, and problem solving, and application of these in real life contexts. Differences in students’ overall performance, curricula, and teachers’ knowledge and instruction between US and Eastern Asian countries are often used to support US reform with two obvious limitations. First, their performance has not been delineated into specific areas which raise questions about whether overall higher Asian mathematics performance over US is also evident in the specific US reform competencies. Second, Asians are often used as an indiscriminate group with inattention to different schooling and non-schooling factors between countries that might contribute differently to performances. This meta-analysis examines US and Chinese student mathematics performance studies and identifies the strengths and weaknesses in overall and specific competencies. It raises questions about theoretical assumptions, discusses limitations of research designs, and proposes research that may lead to a critical understanding of the quality of mathematics learning.

Citation

Wang, J. & Lin, E. (2009). A meta-analysis of comparative studies on Chinese and US students’ mathematics performance: Implications for mathematics education reform and research. Educational Research Review, 4(3), 177-195. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from .

This record was imported from Educational Research Review on January 29, 2019. Educational Research Review is a publication of Elsevier.

Full text is availabe on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2009.06.003

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