Improving Education Achievement and Attainment in Luxembourg (original) (raw)
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Pisa: Issues in Implementation and Interpretation
2010
Issues with the conceptualization, implementation and interpretation of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are examined. The values that underpin the project are discussed. What PISA is intended to measure (preparation for life, key competencies, real-life challenges, curriculum independence) is contrasted with what it probably measures. Issues are identified relating to cultural fairness (quality and equivalence of translations, Anglophone origins, response styles, importance accorded to the test) and the representativeness of participating populations (samples, response rates, adjustment for nonresponse). PISA is a project of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), set up to provide member states with 'international comparisons of the performance of education systems' in key subject areas (OECD, 2001, p. 27), more specifically, the reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy skills of 15-year-olds. First conducted in 2000, it runs in three-year cycles. It is one of a number of large international surveys, such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and PIRLS (Progress in Reading Literacy Study), both organized by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). PISA differs from its competitors in its frequency and cyclical nature, and in its focus on the 'knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in society' (OECD, 2007, p. 16) rather than on the outcomes of a curriculum. Perhaps due to the reasonable performance of Irish students, PISA has not come under the same media and academic scrutiny in Ireland as in some other countries. For example, the unexpectedly low ranks in PISA 2000 of Germany and Denmark resulted in major political, educational and academic responses, and in changes in their education systems (e.g., Dolin, 2007; Rubner, 2006). It has meant that an unusually large proportion of academic criticism of PISA has come from Germany (e.g., Hopmann, Brinek, & Retzl's 2007). This can be contrasted with the largely uncritical response to PISA in Ireland.
Schooling Matters : Opportunity to learn in PISA 2012
2014
This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies drawing on the work of the OECD Directorate for Education. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language (English or French) with a short summary available in the other. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. The opinions expressed in these papers are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries. You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgement of
Equidad en Los Sistemas Educativos De La Unión Europea: Un Estudio Basado en Pisa 2015
Journal of Supranational Policies of Education (JoSPoE), 2019
Equity in education has recently become a hot topic for international debate and it has gained much interest in the Netherlands as well the last years. In this study, we evaluate and compare equity across the educational systems of European Union member states with a focus on the Dutch context by using PISA 2015 data. PISA 2015 considers inclusive education and fairness as important aspects of equity. Inclusive education is reflected in the segment of students that are 15 years of age and are still in school as well as those students who obtain a basic level to function well in society. Fairness relates to how well countries manage to achieve education outcomes independent of the background characteristics of students. EU countries are compared with one another on these categories using effect sizes derived from differences in PISA scores in science, reading and mathematics. Particular attention is paid to equity results in the Netherlands. Although there is still room for improvement, for many aspects of equity, the Dutch education system scores well when compared to other EU countries.
The Programme for International Student Assessment-PISAis the most ambitious endeavour of large-scale education systems evaluation ever implemented. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-OECDlaunched this exercise for the first time in 2000, and in the 2012 edition 65 education systems were assessed. According to OECD, the programme "[…] is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students." And, "[…] tests are designed to assess to what extent students at the end of compulsory education, can apply their knowledge to real-life situations and be equipped for full participation in society." Albeit being a prestigious programme, entrenched in sound theoretical grounds, and notwithstanding all the efforts made by PISA experts to mitigate shortcomings, the PISA is not exempt from criticisms of various kinds. When analysing the quotes mentioned above, and taking into consideration the applied methodologies, several questions can be raised and some concerns should be pointed out. The first question arising in the process of evaluation is that any measurement always affects, direct or indirectly, the system itself, disturbing its inner workings. This fact is particularly relevant when social systems are at stake. A second difficulty results when students from very different countries in what regards culture, tradition, and beliefs are subjected to the same test. Although all items are always carefully analysed by panels of experts in order to detect cultural bias or offending interpretations, there is no complete guarantee that the final set of items is adequate to evaluate all students. Another question regarding the fairness of PISA results is the fact that a paper-and-pencil (or computer) test, limited to three disciplinary domains, cannot encompass the possibly rich, diverse, and unsuspected knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students. There are also technical criticisms regarding the adopted approaches and methodologies, from the utilization of the Rasch model to negative remarks about the way data are collected and questions are coded. Some of what could be considered advantages of PISAthe literacy based instead of a curriculum based approach, the assessment of 15-year-old students instead of a particular school year pupils, and the definition of a large set of indicators, as is the case of ESCShave been also severely criticised. Finally, some of the criticisms reside, not in the PISA methods and characteristics themselves but on an excessive focus on country rankings, primarily promoted by media, and consequently followed by political leaders. The main objective of this research is to reframe difficulties and artefacts together with virtuous results of PISA, putting in perspective praises and criticisms to foster a better understanding of this important programme.
Improving a Country's Education: PISA 2018 Results in 10 Countries
Improving a Country's Education: PISA 2018 Results in 10 Countries, 2021
This open access book compares and contrasts the results of international student assessments in ten countries. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released the results of its 2018 assessment in December 2019. This book reflects the debates that typically follow the release of these results and focuses on the causes of differences between countries. Such causes include continuous decline in one country, improvement combined with increasing internal inequalities in another country, or rapid improvement in spite of an outdated curriculum in yet another. In addition, the book discusses a number of general questions: Is knowledge outdated? Are computers taking over and replacing teachers? Are schools killing creativity? Are we adequately preparing the next generation? Are schools failing to educate our kids? The book starts out with a summary of PISA’s evolution and PISA results, and an explanation of the major factors that play a role in changes in countries’ results. The next ten chapters are devoted to ten specific countries, offering a summary of data and an explanation of the major drives for changes in education results for each one. Each chapter includes a short description of the country’s educational system as well as the impact of PISA and other ILSA studies on the country’s educational policies. The chapters also include a timeline of policy measures and main hallmarks of the country’s educational evolution, discussing the impact of these measures on its PISA results. A final reference chapter explains what PISA is, what it measures and how. While highlighting the 2018 results, the book also takes into consideration previous results, as well as long-term initiatives. This book gathers the contribution of well-known and respected experts in the field. Specialists such as Eric Hanushek, for the US, Tim Oates, for England, Montse Gomendio, for Spain, Gunda Tire, for Estonia, and all other contributors draw on their vast experience and statistical analysis expertise to draw a set of rich country lessons and recommendations that are invaluable for all of those who care about improving a country’s education system.
Sociologie et Economie de l’Education
2016
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to propose a new database allowing a comparative evaluation of the relative performance of schooling systems around the world. We measure this performance through pupils achievement in standardized tests. We merge all existing regional and international student achievement tests by using a specific methodology. Compared to other existing databases, our approach innovates in several ways, especially by including regional student achievement tests and intertemporal comparable indicators. We provide a dataset of indicators of quality of student achievement (IQSA) for 103 countries/areas in primary education and 111 countries/areas in secondary education between
The power of PISA – limitations and possibilities for educational research
Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 2016
On 6 December 2016, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) releases its report on the achievements of 15-year-olds from 72 countries and economies around the world. This triennial international survey aims to evaluate education systems across 72 contexts by testing skills in Mathematics, Science and Reading Literacy. This is the sixth cycle of PISA and the OECD suggests countries and economies now have the capability to compare the results over time to 'assess the impact of education policy decisions' 1. Compared to other education studies, the media coverage of PISA must be described as massive (Baird et al., 2016; Meyer & Benavot, 2013) and, as with previous years, it is expected that PISA will attract considerable discussion among policy-makers, educators and researchers (Wiseman, 2014). It is therefore timely to present a thematic issue of Assessment in Education, where we publish four articles that have analysed previous data-sets from the PISA studies each commenting upon the challenges, limitations and potential future assessment research on the PISA data. The articles touch upon issues regarding sampling, language, item difficulty and demands, as well as the secondary analyses of students' reported experiences of formative assessment in the classroom. One important message from the authors in this thematic Special Issue is the need for a more complex discussion around the use and misuse of PISA data, and the importance of pointing to the limitations of how the results are presented to policy-makers and the public. In an area where the media produces narratives on schools and education systems based upon rankings in PISA, researchers in the field of large-scale assessment studies have a particularly important role in stepping up and advising on how to interpret and understand these studies, while warning against potential misuse. In 2014, Yasmine El Masri gave a keynote at the Association for Educational Assessment-Europe conference in Tallinn, Estonia, following her Kathleen Tattersall New Researcher Award. We are pleased to publish the paper based upon her DPhil research: Language effects in international testing: the case of PISA 2006 science items. Together with Jo-Anne Baird and Art Graesser, El Masri investigates the extent to which language versions of the PISA test in Arabic, English and French are comparable in terms of item difficulty and demand (El Masri et al., 2016). As there is an ongoing discussion on whether it is possible to assess in a fair manner and compare science, mathematics and reading performances across countries and cultures, this present study offers important findings for future research. Using released PISA items, El Masri et al. show how language demands vary when comparing Arabic, English and French versions of the same item, and hence could impose different cognitive demands on the students participating in the PISA test in different countries. With the expansion of PISA to other countries through PISA for Development and the need for fair comparisons across countries, El Masri et al. suggest that subsequent research could explore the possibility of investigating computational linguistics approaches in test transadaptation as an alternative to the use of expert judgement which is the current practice in international test development. The next article in this issue by Freitas, Nunes, Reis, Seabra, and Ferro (2016), Correcting for sample problems in PISA and the improvement in Portugese students' performance, reports a
Thinking Beyond League Tables: a review of key PISA research questions
PISA, Power, and Policy the emergence of global educational governance, 2013
Since 2000, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data set has provided a resource of comprehensive information relating to cross-national educational achievement, describing socio-economic, cultural, programmatic and technology characteristics supplied through questionnaires to students, parents, and schools in over 60 countries worldwide. PISA offers social science researchers and policymakers an opportunity to explore perennial issues in education through these cross-national data. This chapter examines 74 peer-reviewed, published secondary analyses that look to uncover empirical links between student-, school-and system-level factors and educational success. Taken together, these articles provide a thorough examination of educational policy at the turn of the decade, spanning fifteen thematic categories. From gender gaps, socio-economic inequalities and immigration to classroom assessment practices, retention and large-scale system efficiencies, researchers have mined PISA data to address long-standing questions, moving beyond the league table to illuminate the contemporary understanding of the global state of education.