Comparisons of Factors Contributing to Mathematics Achievement of Eight Graders in Iran and Korea Based on TIMSS Data

The purpose of this reaserch is to compare Iran and Korea in  matemathics achievement based on contributing factors at two levels: students (Gender, Social-Economic Statue, Self-efficacy, Attitude, Utility, Time and opportunity) and teachers (Experiance, Education, Time and opportunity and teaching). The research is fundamental in terms of its purpose and based on correlation analysis. The statistical population of the present study consists of students who are enrolled in the eighth grade in the academic year of 2010-2011 and have participated in the TIMSS 2011 (1153363 Iranian students and 672415 Korean students). Of these, 6029 students from 238 schools in Iran and 5166 students from 150 schools in Korea were surveyed as part of the sample. In this research, we used a multilevel method approach (two level) with HLM software to run models of one way Anova with random effects model, one way Ancova with random effects, means as outcomes regression model, random coefficient regression model. The results provided empirical evidence that factors related to mathematics achievement  are different in  Iran and Korea. In Iran, the variance of student level and teacher level was not significantly different, but in Korea the highest variance of mathematical performance was explained by student level factors. Attending to these differences is crucial, and each country should plan and make policies to improve its performance with the model that best suits its situation.