Investigating the Learning Expectations related to Grade 1-8 Geometry in Some Asian Countries and U.S. States

This study analyzes learning goals in grade 1-8 geometry across several U.S. states and high performing TIMSS Asian countries, including Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. In order to shorten this paper, only one topic-angle within the geometry strand was carefully analyzed. Based on the official curriculum documents, results of this study indicate that the content, grade placement and cognitive level of learning expectations related to selected geometry topics vary markedly across documents. To be precise, some documents such as the California and Achieve documents include more advanced topics within their 1-8 curriculum framework and introduce them earlier than the other documents. In addition, the Singapore document places comparably more emphasis on the topic of “angle” and less on “coordinate geometry” and “parallelism/perpendicularity.” Furthermore, the Missouri document emphasizes on “coordinate geometry” and “similarity” topics and de-emphasizes on the topics of “angle” and “parallelism/perpendicularity” than the other documents reviewed. In the meantime, considerable differences emerge across each topic. In sum, analyses from this study have provided a clear picture about the “angle” topic from each document.