¿ENSEÑANZA

Abstract

The Third International in Sciences and Mathematics Study (TIMSS) is a cross-national comparative evaluation of the school performance in science and mathematics implemented in Spain to 13 years oíd students (7 S and 8 S ) of EGB during the year 1995. The context questionnaires responded by the science teachers of the students tested display a picture of the science teaching practices in the classrooms, related to the distribution of time, the methodological issues, the learning activities, the learning assessment, the use of didactic resources and the instructional strategies. These context characteristics have been related to the performance obtained by the students, to identify those characteristics that influence a students' better performance using the criteria of a monotonous variation and the statistical meaning of differences among groups. The variables identified are scarce and some of them contradict commonsense ideas about the issue, such as the rate of students in the classroom and the importance given by the teachers to the comprehension of concepts and principies in the classroom. Finally, the implications of these results for science teaching are discussed.