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A Study of Three Cultures:
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By Harold W. Stevenson Case studies were included in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study in the hope that they would provide in-depth information that would complement and amplify the results obtained through questionnaires. Mr. Stevenson shares some illustrative findings from this approach. Illustration © 1998 by Brenda Grannan |
ACCORDING TO the author of one of its reports, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is "the largest, most comprehensive, and most rigorous international comparison of education ever undertaken."1 TIMSS surpasses earlier comparative studies of mathematics and science in scope as well as in size. Its multiple components include hands-on tests of science, analyses of textbooks, videotaping of classrooms, and the Case Study Project, the aspect of TIMSS with which I am concerned here.
A primary goal of international comparative studies of achievement in mathematics and science is to evaluate the levels of achievement of students in various countries. An equally important goal is to attempt to understand and explain the bases of whatever differences emerge. Knowledge of mathematics was measured in the First and Second IEA International Studies by paper-and-pencil tests, and efforts to understand cross-national differences in achievement relied on questionnaires given to teachers, principals, and students. These methods also constituted the primary means for gathering data in the 41 countries involved in TIMSS. Questionnaires were given to teachers and students, and additional information was gathered through questionnaires filled out by school authorities and experts in mathematics and science education.
As is the case with all methods used for the collection of behavioral and attitudinal data, questionnaires have both strengths and weaknesses. Their major strength is that they make it possible quite cheaply to gather large amounts of data on a wide variety of topics from many individuals. On the other hand, one of their weaknesses is that respondents may provide answers that are difficult to interpret. Deprived of the opportunity to question the respondent about the meaning of certain replies, to probe for more complete answers, or to ascertain the respondent's understanding of the questions, the investigator can only conjecture about what an answer might have meant.
Personal contacts offer opportunities to obtain more complete, comprehensible, and interpretable answers. Case studies, which allow for one-on-one interactions between investigator and respondent, can help us to understand the contexts and relationships that lie behind more traditional quantitative surveys of beliefs, attitudes, and practices. They can be carefully planned so that a complementary relation exists between the results derived from the qualitative, descriptive data and the quantitative data obtained from surveys. Through the use of relaxed conversations, interviews, and observations in everyday settings, case studies offer the possibility of gaining a depth of understanding that is difficult to accomplish with the more impersonal questionnaires, especially in studies involving different cultures and different languages.
The rich descriptive information collected by experienced interviewers and observers in case studies can help to isolate and clarify many of the factors underlying cross-national differences in academic achievement in mathematics and science. Case studies were thus included in TIMSS in the hope that they would provide in-depth information that would complement and amplify the results obtained through the questionnaires used in the main TIMSS study.
The TIMSS case studies were focused on the United States, Germany, and Japan, three of the world's leading economies and major economic competitors. They employed a quasi-ethnographic methodology that relied on the interaction of experienced researchers with families and teachers in each of the three countries and on information obtained from school authorities and government policy experts. We use the term "quasi-ethnographic" for several reasons. Although researchers spent several months in their designated countries, were fluent in the languages, and had participated in ethnographic research in those countries, their goal was not to conduct a full-scale ethnographic study covering broad aspects of the lives of persons in each country, but to focus their attention on the following four predetermined topics:
The topics were chosen on the basis of their interest to U.S. policy makers who deal with elementary and secondary schooling. In addition to covering these four topics, we sought out policy makers and educational administrators who could provide us with accurate descriptions of the structure and operations of educational institutions in each country, including the types of schools, student characteristics, school governance and funding, and characteristics of the school day and school year. In preparing for our study we completed an exhaustive review of the relevant contemporary literature in Japanese, German, and English.
Research Methodology
Before discussing some illustrative results, it is useful to describe more thoroughly the methodology we employed. As far as we know, this is the largest, most complex cross-cultural project using the case study method that has ever been conducted in the social sciences or education. In planning the study we faced three major tasks: selecting research sites, hiring researchers, and devising research procedures.
Regional differences within each country made it necessary to obtain information in more than a single site. Three research sites were visited in each country -- a primary site, where interactions and observations were conducted over a period of several months, and two secondary sites that were visited for several weeks. We attempted to select primary sites within each country that were as comparable to one another as possible in size, economic and cultural status, industries, and location. The primary site chosen in each country was a metropolitan area in the central region of the country. Secondary sites in the U.S. were located in the east and west; in Germany, in the east and southwest; and in Japan, in the north and south.
A full range of primary and secondary schools was sampled, including successful, average, and less successful schools. The selection of schools at each site was made in consultation with local education authorities and with reference to data about such characteristics of a school as size, level of student achievement, socioeconomic status of the families, and minority representation. School authorities also advised us about which families to approach in order to obtain representative samples for inclusion in the study. Because we could not study all grade levels and because the TIMSS study involved students at grades 3-4, 7-8, and the end of schooling, we limited our case studies to grades 4, 8, and 12.
In order to be confident that we were obtaining reliable, firsthand information, we selected researchers who not only had strong research skills and experience in ethnographic methods but also possessed a high degree of facility with the language and a broad understanding of the culture they were to study. We were fortunate in locating researchers, nearly all Americans, who met these demanding criteria and had the time available to participate in the study.
Because of the magnitude of the study and the limited amount of time available to conduct it, it was necessary to compile the list of four specific topics, mentioned above, on which the researchers should focus. The next step was to describe the kinds of issues that should be investigated within each topic. They included the following:
1. Setting national standards is but the final step in a long process that involves other important issues, such as opportunities to learn, linguistic and cultural differences within a country, differences among children in their rate of learning, accommodating students who prove to be unable to attain the standards, and other equity issues that involve some of the most fundamental tenets of democratic societies. In responding to these issues, we believed it was necessary to obtain a clear understanding of the standards set for students at all levels of education, of the curriculum that reflects the standards, and of the examinations that are used to evaluate the degree to which students meet these standards.
2. An unfortunate reaction to some of the international comparative studies is that teachers are often blamed when students fail to perform effectively. While the skill and knowledge of teachers are of obvious importance to students' academic achievement, blaming teachers fails to reveal the reasons why teaching practices are sometimes less than optimal. Many factors influence success in teaching, but two of the most important are the social and financial support teachers receive from society. In order to understand the effectiveness of teachers, it is necessary to understand the role of schools in society and the willingness of society to create conditions that will result in the most effective use of teachers' time and in optimal methods of instruction.
3. Regardless of a society's philosophy about the relative contributions of ability and effort to students' academic achievement, every teacher must cope with the problem of accommodating students who represent a wide range of knowledge and skills. Each of the three countries with which we were concerned has responded to this problem in a different manner. The United States introduces learning groups, tracks, and special programs from the time students enter elementary school. Japan prohibits any type of grouping of elementary school students by ability and separates students into learning groups only after entrance into high school. After fifth grade in Germany, students branch out into different tracks that have different career goals. These approaches to individual differences among students require an exploration of the influence of tracking, the usefulness of remedial programs and programs for gifted students, and teachers' responses to the differences that exist in every classroom in students' abilities, motivation, interests, and backgrounds.
4. Perhaps the most revealing way of addressing questions about the role of secondary school in adolescents' lives is to ask adolescents to estimate the time they are occupied with academic-related endeavors, to describe in detail how they spend this time, and to compare it with the time they spend in nonacademic activities. Other concerns deal with the attitudes and values regarding education held by adolescents and their parents, the nature of parents' involvement in their children's education, and the extent to which the peer group in each society supports academic excellence.
We spent several months compiling lists of topics. To be sure that our coverage would be comprehensive, appropriate, and up-to-date, we did not rely solely on our own ideas but reviewed the background information we had collected from previously published reports and organized meetings with specialists in education from each country. Separate lists of topics were designed for the interviews and conversations that would be held with each type of respondent (teacher, student, parent).
Researchers were not instructed to follow any particular order in gaining information but were asked to let the interactions flow naturally. The only requirement was that in the course of their interactions they obtain information about each of the topics that were to be discussed.
The sampling procedure we adopted resulted in a minimum of 960 researcher/respondent encounters conducted over the equivalent of at least three full years of fieldwork. The encounters included nearly 500 hours of interviews in Japan, more than 500 hours in the U.S., and more than 350 hours in Germany. Transcriptions of these interactions fill thousands of pages. Supplementing the interviews and conversations were more than 250 hours of observations of science and mathematics classes at grades 4, 8, and 12 in each of the three countries.
The data were not dependent on the recollections of the researchers, for whenever possible the interactions were tape-recorded. In the United States, the content of these tapes was entered directly into computer files. All the material in German and Japanese was translated into English, entered into a computer program, and coded for relevant topics. Large amounts of information can be retrieved efficiently only through the use of computers and computer software developed for specific purposes, such as the analysis of ethnographic records. Otherwise, it would be nearly impossible to organize the data. Computers not only permit ready access to information but also make it possible to establish trends with much greater confidence than if every statement required a new review of piles of field notes. Moreover, illustrating particular points by reference to especially vivid or characteristic examples can be accomplished much more readily through searches of computer files than by rereading many pages of original field notes.
We did not rely on the single occurrence of an event as the basis for making inferences but on the degree of repetition across individual students, teachers, parents, school authorities, cities, and even countries. By having this degree of replication and potential for verification, we were able to describe variables and their interrelations with increased confidence.
Illustrative Findings
It is impossible to present here the wide array of findings described in the five volumes resulting from our study.2 Rather, examples can be given of the kinds of information we obtained about factors that differentiate the education systems and about the practices, attitudes, and beliefs of those involved in the education of primary and secondary school students in the three countries. To illustrate the findings, I have chosen brief examples from each of the four areas on which we focused our attention.
Education standards. The German Conference of Ministers of Education is composed of representatives from each state and is charged with overseeing the policies of all states within a framework of cultural sovereignty guaranteed by the German constitution. Through the Conference the individual states coordinate the structures, institutions, and school-leaving certificates of the education systems. The result is that Germany has developed a set of de facto national standards that form the basis for a degree of comparability across the states in the structure of schools, in the school-leaving examination, and in the credentials for certifying completion of school.
Control by the Japanese Ministry of Education over education standards is exerted in several ways. The ministry develops national curricular guidelines that define the education standards. In writing the curricular guidelines, no effort is made to define exactly what should be taught at each grade. (The only exception is indicating the Chinese characters -- an essential component of written Japanese -- that must be learned at each grade level.) Rather, the guidelines consist of general descriptions of what students are expected to accomplish during each year of schooling. The time and manner in which the material is presented in each classroom are decided by the school administration or by the individual teacher. The Ministry of Education allows schools and local boards of education to modify national curricular guidelines in ways that are considered to be more appropriate at the local level.
The U.S. government has created no mechanism at the federal level for developing and enforcing uniform standards of education throughout the country. State education standards include content standards in core subjects, performance standards for students, and standards related to students' opportunities to learn. Even as state guidelines and voluntary national standards have influenced school curricula, there has been a concurrent emphasis on the return of decision-making powers from the district to the school level.
The major influence on the implementation of standards in Germany is textbooks, which must conform to the state guidelines and be approved by a state committee before they can be adopted by a state's schools. Grade-level committees often select the textbooks. Textbooks typically establish the content and organization of courses, but if a German teacher decides that the textbooks are unsatisfactory, they are used only for reference, and the teacher develops his or her own course material.
The Japanese Ministry of Education also exerts its influence by controlling the content of textbooks. The ministry reviews all commercially produced textbooks in terms of their adherence to the curriculum guidelines and quality of presentation and must approve the books before they can be used. Committees of teachers are then responsible for selecting textbooks from the list of those approved by the ministry.
Textbooks in the United States are published for the national market. Because there are no national guidelines, publishers have a wide degree of latitude to develop and market books that they believe will have the greatest sales. Even when a state does not make textbook recommendations, the textbooks selected by schools are often ones that incorporate topics covered in state assessment tests.
Teacher training. Each of the 16 German states handles its own program of teacher training, but the Conference of Ministers of Education from all German states establishes the fundamental requirements for becoming a teacher. After completing four or five years of university study, including several weeks of observation in a school, teachers in training must take the First State Examination. Those who pass the exam must complete a 24-month assignment as a student teacher. After completing this period of practical training, teachers in training must pass the Second State Examination before they are qualified to seek a regular teaching appointment.
In Japan, those who want to be teachers must take education courses and choose an academic area in which to specialize. During a four-year undergraduate program, teachers in training visit schools, write lesson plans, and eventually spend from two to four weeks in closely supervised student teaching. Those who find a teaching position are assigned a mentor, a master teacher who is given a reduced teaching load for taking on these additional responsibilities. The mentor visits the new teacher's classroom frequently and then discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the practices observed. The new teacher is also expected to visit a teachers' resource center a certain number of days each week.
The training of teachers in the United States occurs primarily in university classrooms. Individuals aspiring to become elementary school teachers typically enroll in a liberal arts program for the first two years of their college training and then transfer to a department or college of education to complete their undergraduate program. Some complete a major or minor in the subjects they propose to teach. Others, especially those planning to become elementary school teachers, must complete only a minimal number of courses in the subjects for which they will be responsible. This is the most common path, but, as is the case in most aspects of the U.S. education system, other paths are also available.
Response to individual differences. While there is acknowledgment of differences in ability among individuals, the tendency among the Japanese is to ignore this factor and to emphasize that accomplishment can always be increased through the application of greater effort. This view was expressed clearly by one teacher: "As far as inborn ability goes, I can't say it isn't there, but I say that it doesn't matter. Regardless of whether you have ability, if you persevere, you can get a good outcome." A parent put it even more succinctly: "Motivation. That's all that counts. Unless you are a genius, success depends on how hard you are willing to work."
German respondents said that the primary factors contributing to differences in academic ability were natural disposition (often referred to as innate intelligence and talent), the home environment, and parental support. Teachers in the Gymnasium added motivation to learn and students' interest in the material being presented as other factors to be considered.
When Americans were asked to explain the basis of individual differences in academic achievement, they cited family stability and family support as the major factors. In poor communities, broken families were most frequently blamed for low achievement, while in more affluent areas, family support for schooling was cited as the main factor. Explanations focusing on innate ability were also more common in affluent communities.
One index of the ways a country responds to individual differences in academic ability is the attitude toward tracking. Japanese educators and policy makers firmly opposed the idea of any form of tracking during the elementary and middle school years. Indeed, they suggested that any effort to separate students into tracks on the basis of ability is unfair. One teacher summed up this view in the following manner: "If a school separates students according to ability differences, what the school is doing is discriminating among students. This goes against the school's basic goal of having students learn as members of a group."
Throughout their first four years of schooling, German students are educated in an egalitarian atmosphere that strives to provide all students with the same educational and social foundation. In line with this goal, there is no tracking between classes or grouping within classes during the elementary school years.
Teachers in Germany said that they regard it as their duty to try to reduce the differences in ability within each class by making sure that the "weak" children are "brought along" with the rest of the class. To do so, they frequently supplement whole-class instruction with mixed-ability groups and peer tutoring in order to promote socialization and to facilitate learning.
In America, attention is paid to individual differences among children even before they enter school. In fact, prior to entering kindergarten, American children in many school districts are given physical and psychological tests to assess their readiness for school. On the basis of these tests, the child's parents and future teacher are sometimes alerted to give special kinds of attention and treatment to the child.
Another practice that differentiates American from German and Japanese elementary schools is the introduction of grouping based on level of academic ability. During the early years of elementary school, American children may be divided into reading and mathematics groups on the basis of their competence in these subjects. Beginning around the fifth or sixth grade, many schools also divide students into general and advanced courses in mathematics and language arts. By the seventh and eighth grades, nearly all students are tracked into different levels of courses in these two subjects, and many are also tracked into different levels of science courses.
Role of school in adolescents' lives. The age at which adolescents enter and are permitted to leave secondary school differs greatly among the three countries. In the United States, enrollment in school is mandatory in most states until the age of 16. The remaining states require students to attend school until they are 17 or 18. There is no uniform configuration throughout the country in the organization of primary and secondary education. High school typically begins at grade 9 or 10, but in some places a single school may enroll students from kindergarten through grade 12.
Secondary schooling in Germany begins with grades 5 and 6; a final decision about a student's placement in one of the particular types of secondary school must be made by the end of the sixth school year. Both the timing of and the procedure for making the decision about placement vary across the German states.
Two types of high schools are available in Japan: vocational and academic high schools. At the end of the ninth grade, students take an entrance examination that determines the high schools they are qualified to enter. Although attendance at high school is not compulsory, more than 97% of the students continue their education through the high school years.
Attention to academic matters is not necessarily limited to the time students spend in school. Adolescents in the three countries are faced with the problem of preparing for examinations related to college entrance. Despite the importance of these exams for admission to any form of higher education, high school students in the United States appear to pay less attention to studying for them than do students in Japan or Germany.
Although increasingly large numbers of students in the U.S. enroll in review courses conducted by private companies, the courses are expensive, and attendance is limited to families that can afford the fee. Schools seldom organize review sessions for students, and, for the most part, students are left on their own to study commercially published books containing cues about how to take the examination, summaries of important concepts, and examples of examination questions.
Although private preparatory courses for the Abitur (school-leaving examination) and other formal examinations exist in Germany, student attendance at academic classes outside of school is uncommon. Preparation for the Abitur consists of individual studying and, among Gymnasium students, after-school instruction for grades 11 through 13. Students attending these after-school classes remain at school as late as 5 p.m. several days a week. In addition, teachers in the 13th grade (grade 12 in some states) may offer students in their advanced courses opportunities for study and review outside of school. Teachers in some of the Gymnasien host weekend excursions during which they conduct intensive review sessions in preparation for the Abitur. Peer-tutoring groups are also organized at most schools.
The primary form of after-school instruction in Japan is offered by juku. Exact data concerning the percentage of Japanese adolescents who attend the classes taught at juku are hard to obtain. Juku are privately owned, and competition for students makes it undesirable for all but the most successful juku to reveal yearly statistics about their enrollments. What is clear is that attendance depends on the region of the country in which the student lives, the size of the city, and the student's grade level. Attendance is greatest in large cities, especially those on the corridor extending from Tokyo to Nagoya, and during the last year of junior high school. Junior high school students enroll in courses that review or enrich their school work or that prepare them for the high school entrance examinations. High school students are more likely to study for the college entrance examinations by themselves, but some do enroll in courses that are focused on the college entrance examinations or that are more advanced than the courses available in most high schools. In addition to juku, junior high school and high school students attend hoshu, extra classes organized by teachers as a seventh period in the school's daily schedule to help students do well on their high school and college entrance examinations.
Another after-school activity that occupies the time of adolescents is homework. Great emphasis is placed on homework as the basis of the excellent performance of Japanese adolescents in mathematics and science. In a typical survey, therefore, one might ask high school students how many hours they spend doing homework each day. The answer often given by Japanese students is unexpected: none. Only by pursuing the topic further does the actual state of affairs become clear. Additional discussion and questioning reveals that homework is often not assigned, but high school students are expected to spend several hours a night reviewing the day's lessons and anticipating the lessons for the following day. Thus, although students would be correct in reporting that they do not do homework every night, this does not mean that they do not study. Further complicating an understanding of the role of homework in Japan is the use of two other terms to describe after-school academic activity. Depending on the Japanese word that is used in posing a question about homework, respondents may be talking about time spent studying, time spent working on specific assignments made by the teacher, time spent preparing for lessons and reviewing class materials, or time spent responding to practice questions.
The role of homework in Germany depends on the type of school the student attends. Three types of secondary schools are available: Hauptschule (for low-achieving students), Realschule (for average students), and Gymnasium (for high-achieving students). The most rigorous and demanding of the homework assignments are those given to the college-bound Gymnasium students. Realschule students have homework nearly every day, and it usually takes them from 15 to 30 minutes per subject -- a total of one or two hours each night -- to complete their assignments. According to parents, the purpose of homework is to enable teachers to determine whether students have learned what has been taught in the classrooms. Homework is not so important at the Hauptschulen, and it is generally not graded but merely checked to be sure the work has been completed. Hauptschule students generally spend less time on homework than their peers at the other types of schools. The Hauptschule students we spoke with spent between half an hour and an hour each day on homework, most of which is assigned in German, math, and English.
It is increasingly common in both middle schools and high schools in the U.S. that homework is done in school and simply represents work that teachers expect to be done before the next class meeting. Teachers may provide class time for this activity, and students may make use of study halls, lunch time, and other free time to complete their assignments. Accordingly, statistics describing the amount of time spent on homework need not indicate time spent after school or at home on this activity.
The apparent lack of homework assignments was lamented by American parents and teachers. Parents questioned how their children could complete their homework during school hours, a practice very different from what they remember of their own school days. Teachers were concerned about the tendency of students to equate homework with studying; if there was no homework assignment, there was no studying. Even more important in many teachers' views was their impression that many students seem uncertain about what studying entails, demonstrate a limited repertoire of strategies for studying, and are not prepared to do academic work other than short assignments outside of class.
THE PRECEDING illustrations offer examples of the types of information we obtained. It is evident from these examples that the education systems of different countries are embedded within the culture of each country. As a result of this close relationship, one cannot hope to learn how education systems can be improved or academic achievement increased without understanding the actions, beliefs, and attitudes related to education that exist within the culture. We tried to explore these questions in the Case Study Project.
We sought to provide, through intensive study of four major topics within three cultures, a better idea of why students in some countries should fare better or worse in international comparisons of achievement in mathematics and science. We approached this goal by obtaining information about the daily lives of students, parents, teachers, and policy makers and by ascertaining their beliefs and attitudes about learning and development. We hope that some of the findings are sufficiently convincing to serve as explanations; others may be considered primarily as fruitful sources of hypotheses and suggestions for future exploration.
1. Lois Peak, Pursuing Excellence: A Study of U.S. Eighth-Grade Mathematics and Science Teaching, Learning, Curriculum, and Achievement in International Context (Washington, D.C.: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, 1996), p. 9.
2. The five volumes describing the detailed results of the study are available from the National Center for Education Statistics (inquire by e-mail: timss@ed.gov). Three volumes deal with the results for Japan, Germany, and the United States; a fourth volume contains our review of contemporary research related to the issues discussed in the study; and a fifth volume is an integration and comparison of the major findings for the three countries.
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