Individual, Family, and Contextual Factors Influencing Math Achievement in Morocco: Insights from TIMSS 2023 Using a Robust Multilevel Instrumental Variables Approach

Improving education quality remains a major challenge for Morocco, particularly at the primary level, where persistent disparities in student achievement undermine equity and social cohesion. TIMSS data on fourth-grade students reveal significant gaps in mathematics performance, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which intensified pre-existing inequalities and disrupted traditional learning processes. Understanding the determinants of academic performance is therefore crucial to designing evidence-based educational policies. However, such analyses often face methodological limitations, notably the issue of endogeneity, which biases causal effect estimates when unobserved factors correlate with explanatory variables. This study addresses these challenges by employing an instrumental variables model inspired by Yang & Schmidt (2020), an advanced econometric approach that corrects for endogeneity while exploiting the hierarchical structure of TIMSS data. Using a representative sample of Moroccan fourth-grade students, we analyze the combined influence of individual, family, and school characteristics on mathematics performance in a post-pandemic context. The results indicate that student-related and family environment factors are the most significant determinants of success, whereas classic school-related variables have a limited impact. These findings call into question the effectiveness of policies focused primarily on material inputs and highlight the need for strategies centered on pedagogical practices, parental involvement, and equitable integration of digital tools. This work contributes to the literature by providing robust evidence on the determinants of school performance in developing countries, addressing a key methodological gap. It also offers practical insights for improving educational policy in Morocco, in line with the Strategic Vision 2015–2030 and the 2022–2026 roadmap.