Comparison of achievement, output-input (efficiency), and output-process ratios in some provinces based on TIMSS

Estimating provinces' achievement based on TIMSS and PIRLS is one of the demands of educational policy-makers, which is not possible due to some technical issues such as non-representative samples and small size of samples in most provinces. However, this has become feasible by changing the sampling design from TIMSS 2015 and assigning separate stratum to each large province; i.e. Tehran city, Tehran province, Razavi Khorasan, Khuzestan, Isfahan, and Fars. In the present study, the mathematics and science achievements of students in these provinces were compared in fourth and eighth grades as well as trends of achievements from 2015 to 2019. Furthermore, the provinces were compared in two series of variables that related to input and process. On the basis of these variables, two ratios were calculated: output-input (efficiency) and output-process ratios. The results showed that Tehran city, Isfahan, and Fars, respectively, had the highest mathematics and science achievements in both grades, afterwards, Tehran province, Razavi Khorasan, and other provinces were located in the next ranks and after all, Khuzestan was in the last rank. Similar ranks were observed in output-input (efficiency) and output-process ratios, except Tehran province that revealed better ranks in these ratios. Furthermore, Fars showed lower ranks in output-process ratio. In general, results indicated that learning quality has varied among the provinces, in addition, although there are variations in resources and inputs, these conditions can not totally account for poor performance in some provinces.