Finnish PISA vs TIMSS and PIRLS: What the Different Rankings Show

Finland's global education reputation was built largely on one test. Its results on two other major international assessments, TIMSS and PIRLS, tell a somewhat different and more mixed story.

Three tests, three different things

PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, tests 15 year olds on applied reading, maths and science literacy in real world contexts, regardless of what grade they are in or what curriculum they have followed. TIMSS, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, instead tests students at specific grades, four and eight, on content much more closely tied to what an agreed international curriculum expects them to have learned by that point. PIRLS, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, is TIMSS's companion for reading, tested only at grade four, since TIMSS itself does not cover reading. TIMSS also collects detailed questionnaire data on curriculum and teaching practice that PISA does not.

Finland's TIMSS results have been more mixed than its PISA fame suggests

In TIMSS 2019, Finland ranked a strong 5th in science, behind Singapore, Japan, Korea and Russia, but only 14th in grade four maths and 10th in grade eight maths, a noticeably weaker position than its broader international reputation implies. This is not a new pattern: in TIMSS 1999, Finland's grade eight maths score of around 535 trailed well behind East Asian systems such as Singapore (604), Korea (587), Chinese Taipei (585), Hong Kong (582) and Japan (579). Finnish researchers have also noted that 2019 results were roughly level with 2015 but clearly lower than 2011, a decline that runs independently of Finland's separate, more widely discussed PISA slide.

PIRLS shows a similar pattern in reading

Finland scored 549 in PIRLS 2021, comfortably ahead of the international average of 520 and the European average of 524. But this was a drop of 17 points and several ranking places compared with 2016, described as a statistically significant decline that occurred across regions and socioeconomic groups within Finland, not just at the top or bottom.

What this means for how Finland is often described

Finland's most recent PISA 2022 results, reading 490, science 511 and maths 484, all remained above the OECD average, but each had fallen since 2018, part of a longer downward trend also seen in many other countries. Taken together, some education commentators have suggested that Finland's global reputation was built more on the kind of applied, general literacy skills PISA measures at age 15 than on the curriculum linked content knowledge TIMSS tracks at earlier grades, particularly in mathematics against East Asian systems. This is a widely repeated observation in education commentary rather than a single settled research finding, so it is worth reading as an informed interpretation rather than a proven cause and effect claim.

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