A study released on Tuesday pointed out that American 4^th and 8^th graders significantly improved their skills in math and sciences, with students in Massachusetts and Minnesota showing impressive gains compared to all the other states. Yet, it seems that there is still a big gap between the U.S. and Asian students, as countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea achieved higher scores in the survey.

This year’s study confirmed the trend of Asian domination in sciences and math, which was first proved in the last decade. More than that, students from Korea, Singapore or Taiwan further improved their scores. The American students’ results triggered mixed reactions, as acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics at the Education Department, Stuart Kerachsky, stated that they were “pleased to see improvements in math, and wished [they]’d seen more in science.”

Other than the scores of the students in Massachusetts and Minnesota, coming third, after Taiwan and Singapore, the average American student’s score was comparable with the ones in Germany, Lithuania, Denmark and Holland.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss) – i.e. the name of the survey – is coordinated by Boston College. The research gathered data from several representative samples of students in each participant country in 2007. The TIMSS recorded math and science in 36 countries for the 4^th grade students and in 48 countries for the 8^th grade ones. The research consisted of a test which required knowledge in geometry, algebra, physics and chemistry, containing subjects that were assimilated in all countries that took part in the survey. The study has been done yearly since 2003.