Programme for International Student Assessment

"PISA" redirects here. For other uses, see Pisa (disambiguation).

Programme for International Student Assessment

Abbreviation	PISA
Formation	1997
Purpose	Comparison of education attainment across the world
Headquarters	OECD Headquarters
Location	2 rue André Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16
Region served	World
Membership	59 government education departments
Head of the Early Childhood and Schools Division	Michael Davidson
Main organ	PISA Governing Body (Chair – Lorna Bertrand, England)
Parent organization	OECD
Website	PISA

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading. It was first performed in 2000 and then repeated every three years. Its aim is to provide comparable data with a view to enabling countries to improve their education policies and outcomes. It measures problem solving and cognition in daily life.

The 2012 version of the test involved 34 OECD countries and 31 partner countries, with a total of 510,000 participating students. The 2015 version of the test was published on 6 December 2016.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement are similar studies.

Influence and impact

PISA, and similar international standardised assessments of educational attainment are increasingly used in the process of education policymaking at both national and international levels.

PISA was conceived to set in a wider context the information provided by national monitoring of education system performance through regular assessments within a common, internationally agreed framework; by investigating relationships between student learning and other factors they can “offer insights into sources of variation in performances within and between countries”.

Until the 1990s, few European countries used national tests. In the 1990s, ten countries / regions introduced standardised assessment, and since the early 2000s, ten more followed suit. By 2009, only five education systems had no national student assessments.

The impact of these international standardised assessments in the field of educational policy has been significant, in terms of the creation of new knowledge, changes in assessment policy, and external influence over national educational policy more broadly.

Creation of new knowledge

Data from international standardised assessments can be useful in research on causal factors within or across education systems. Mons notes that the databases generated by large-scale international assessments have made possible the carrying out, on an unprecedented scale, of inventories and comparisons of education systems in more than 40 countries and on themes ranging from the conditions for learning in mathematics and reading, to institutional autonomy and admissions policies. They allow typologies to be developed that can be used for comparative statistical analyses of education performance indicators, thereby identifying the consequences of different policy choices. They have generated new knowledge about education: PISA findings have challenged deeply embedded educational practices, such as the early tracking of students into vocational or academic pathways.

Barroso and de Carvalho find that PISA provides a common reference connecting academic research in education and the political realm of public policy, operating as a mediator between different strands of knowledge from the realm of education and public policy. However, although the key findings from comparative assessments are widely shared in the research community the knowledge they create does not necessarily fit with government reform agendas; this leads to some inappropriate uses of assessment data.

Changes in national assessment policy

Emerging research suggests that international standardised assessments are impacting upon national assessment policy and practice. PISA is being integrated in national policies and practices on assessment, evaluation, curriculum standards and performance targets; its assessment frameworks and instruments are being used as best-practice models for improving national assessments; many countries have explicitly incorporated and emphasise PISA-like competencies in revised national standards and curricula; others use PISA data to complement national data and validate national results against an international benchmark.

External influence over national educational policy

More important than its influence on countries' policy of student assessment, is the range of ways in which PISA is influencing countries education policy choices.

Policy-makers in most participating countries see PISA as an important indicator of system performance; PISA reports can define policy problems and set the agenda for national policy debate; policymakers seem to accept PISA as a valid and reliable instrument for internationally benchmarking system performance and changes over time; most countries - irrespective of whether they performed above, at, or below the average PISA score - have begun policy reforms in response to PISA reports.

Against this, it should be noted that impact on national education systems varies markedly. For example, in Germany, the results of the first PISA assessment caused the so-called ‘PISA shock’: a questioning of previously accepted educational policies; in a state marked by jealously guarded regional policy differences, it led ultimately to an agreement by all Länder to introduce common national standards and even an institutionalised structure to ensure that they were observed. In Hungary, by comparison, which shared similar conditions to Germany, PISA results have not led to significant changes in educational policy.

Because many countries have set national performance targets based on their relative rank or absolute PISA score, PISA assessments have increased the influence of their (non-elected) commissioning body, the OECD, as an international education monitor and policy actor, which implies an important degree of ‘policy transfer’ from the international to the national level; PISA in particular is having “an influential normative effect on the direction of national education policies”. Thus, it is argued that the use of international standardised assessments has led to a shift towards international, external accountability for national system performance; Rey contends that PISA surveys, portrayed as objective, third-party diagnoses of education systems, actually serve to promote specific orientations on educational issues.

National policy actors refer to high-performing PISA countries to “help legitimise and justify their intended reform agenda within contested national policy debates”. PISA data can be are “used to fuel long-standing debates around pre-existing conflicts or rivalries between different policy options, such as in the French Community of Belgium”. In such instances, PISA assessment data are used selectively: in public discourse governments often only use superficial features of PISA surveys such as country rankings and not the more detailed analyses. Rey (2010:145, citing Greger, 2008) notes that often the real results of PISA assessments are ignored as policymakers selectively refer to data in order to legitimise policies introduced for other reasons.

In addition, PISA's international comparisons can be used to justify reforms with which the data themselves have no connection; in Portugal, for example, PISA data were used to justify new arrangements for teacher assessment (based on inferences that were not justified by the assessments and data themselves); they also fed the government’s discourse about the issue of pupils repeating a year, (which, according to research, fails to improve student results). In Finland, the country's PISA results (that are in other countries deemed to be excellent) were used by Ministers to promote new policies for ‘gifted’ students. Such uses and interpretations often assume causal relationships that cannot legitimately be based upon PISA data which would normally require fuller investigation through qualitative in-depth studies and longitudinal surveys based on mixed quantitative and qualitative methods, which politicians are often reluctant to fund.

Recent decades have witnessed an expansion in the uses to which PISA and similar assessments are put, from assessing students’ learning, to connecting “the educational realm (their traditional remit) with the political realm”. This raises the question whether PISA data are sufficiently robust to bear the weight of the major policy decisions that are being based upon them, for, according to Breakspear, PISA data have “come to increasingly shape, define and evaluate the key goals of the national / federal education system”. This implies that those who set the PISA tests – e.g. in choosing the content to be assessed and not assessed – are in a position of considerable power to set the terms of the education debate, and to orient educational reform in many countries around the globe.

Framework

PISA stands in a tradition of international school studies, undertaken since the late 1950s by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Much of PISA's methodology follows the example of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS, started in 1995), which in turn was much influenced by the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The reading component of PISA is inspired by the IEA's Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

PISA aims at testing literacy in three competence fields: reading, mathematics, science on a 1000-point scale.

The PISA mathematics literacy test asks students to apply their mathematical knowledge to solve problems set in real-world contexts. To solve the problems students must activate a number of mathematical competencies as well as a broad range of mathematical content knowledge. TIMSS, on the other hand, measures more traditional classroom content such as an understanding of fractions and decimals and the relationship between them (curriculum attainment). PISA claims to measure education's application to real-life problems and lifelong learning (workforce knowledge).

In the reading test, "OECD/PISA does not measure the extent to which 15-year-old students are fluent readers or how competent they are at word recognition tasks or spelling." Instead, they should be able to "construct, extend and reflect on the meaning of what they have read across a wide range of continuous and non-continuous texts."

Implementation

PISA is sponsored, governed, and coordinated by the OECD, but paid for by participating countries.

Method of testing

Sampling

The students tested by PISA are aged between 15 years and 3 months and 16 years and 2 months at the beginning of the assessment period. The school year pupils are in is not taken into consideration. Only students at school are tested, not home-schoolers. In PISA 2006, however, several countries also used a grade-based sample of students. This made it possible to study how age and school year interact.

To fulfill OECD requirements, each country must draw a sample of at least 5,000 students. In small countries like Iceland and Luxembourg, where there are fewer than 5,000 students per year, an entire age cohort is tested. Some countries used much larger samples than required to allow comparisons between regions.

Test

PISA test documents on a school table (Neues Gymnasium, Oldenburg, Germany, 2006)

Each student takes a two-hour handwritten test. Part of the test is multiple-choice and part involves fuller answers. There are six and a half hours of assessment material, but each student is not tested on all the parts. Following the cognitive test, participating students spend nearly one more hour answering a questionnaire on their background including learning habits, motivation, and family. School directors fill in a questionnaire describing school demographics, funding, etc. In 2012 the participants were, for the first time in the history of large-scale testing and assessments, offered a new type of problem, i.e. interactive (complex) problems requiring exploration of a novel virtual device.

In selected countries, PISA started experimentation with computer adaptive testing.

National add-ons

Countries are allowed to combine PISA with complementary national tests.

Germany does this in a very extensive way: On the day following the international test, students take a national test called PISA-E (E=Ergänzung=complement). Test items of PISA-E are closer to TIMSS than to PISA. While only about 5,000 German students participate in the international and the national test, another 45,000 take only the latter. This large sample is needed to allow an analysis by federal states. Following a clash about the interpretation of 2006 results, the OECD warned Germany that it might withdraw the right to use the "PISA" label for national tests.

Data scaling

From the beginning, PISA has been designed with one particular method of data analysis in mind. Since students work on different test booklets, raw scores must be 'scaled' to allow meaningful comparisons. Scores are thus scaled so that the OECD average in each domain (mathematics, reading and science) is 500 and the standard deviation is 100. This is true only for the initial PISA cycle when the scale was first introduced, though, subsequent cycles are linked to the previous cycles through IRT scale linking methods.

This generation of proficiency estimates is done using a latent regression extension of the Rasch model, a model of item response theory (IRT), also known as conditioning model or population model. The proficiency estimates are provided in the form of so-called plausible values, which allow unbiased estimates of differences between groups. The latent regression, together with the use of a Gaussian prior probability distribution of student competencies allows estimation of the proficiency distributions of groups of participating students. The scaling and conditioning procedures are described in nearly identical terms in the Technical Reports of PISA 2000, 2003, 2006. NAEP and TIMSS use similar scaling methods.

Results

All PISA results are tabulated by country; recent PISA cycles have separate provincial or regional results for some countries. Most public attention concentrates on just one outcome: the mean scores of countries and their rankings of countries against one another. In the official reports, however, country-by-country rankings are given not as simple league tables but as cross tables indicating for each pair of countries whether or not mean score differences are statistically significant (unlikely to be due to random fluctuations in student sampling or in item functioning). In favorable cases, a difference of 9 points is sufficient to be considered significant.

PISA never combines mathematics, science and reading domain scores into an overall score. However, commentators have sometimes combined test results from all three domains into an overall country ranking. Such meta-analysis is not endorsed by the OECD, although official summaries sometimes use scores from a testing cycle's principal domain as a proxy for overall student ability.

PISA 2012

The results for the 2012 "Maths" section on a world map.

The results for the 2012 "Science" section on a world map.

The results for the 2012 "Reading" section on a world map.

OECD members as of the time of the study are in boldface.

Mathematics	Science	Reading
1 Shanghai, China 613 2 Singapore 573 3 Hong Kong, China 561 4 Taiwan 560 5 South Korea 554 6 Macau, China 538 7 Japan 536 8 Liechtenstein 535 9 Switzerland 531 10 Netherlands 523 11 Estonia 521 12 Finland 519 13= Canada 518 13= Poland 518 15 Belgium 515 16 Germany 514 17 Vietnam 511 18 Austria 506 19 Australia 504 20= Ireland 501 20= Slovenia 501 22= Denmark 500 22= New Zealand 500 24 Czech Republic 499 25 France 495 26 United Kingdom 494 27 Iceland 493 28 Latvia 491 29 Luxembourg 490 30 Norway 489 31 Portugal 487 32 Italy 485 33 Spain 484 34= Russia 482 34= Slovakia 482 36 United States 481 37 Lithuania 479 38 Sweden 478 39 Hungary 477 40 Croatia 471 41 Israel 466 42 Greece 453 43 Serbia 449 44 Turkey 448 45 Romania 445 46 Cyprus 440 47 Bulgaria 439 48 United Arab Emirates 434 49 Kazakhstan 432 50 Thailand 427 51 Chile 423 52 Malaysia 421 53 Mexico 413 54 Montenegro 410 55 Uruguay 409 56 Costa Rica 407 57 Albania 394 58 Brazil 391 59= Argentina 388 59= Tunisia 388 61 Jordan 386 62= Colombia 376 62= Qatar 376 64 Indonesia 375 65 Peru 368	1 Shanghai, China 580 2 Hong Kong, China 555 3 Singapore 551 4 Japan 547 5 Finland 545 6 Estonia 541 7 South Korea 538 8 Vietnam 528 9 Poland 526 10= Liechtenstein 525 10= Canada 525 12 Germany 524 13 Taiwan 523 14= Netherlands 522 14= Ireland 522 16= Macau, China 521 16= Australia 521 18 New Zealand 516 19 Switzerland 515 20= Slovenia 514 20= United Kingdom 514 22 Czech Republic 508 23 Austria 506 24 Belgium 505 25 Latvia 502 26 France 499 27 Denmark 498 28 United States 497 29= Spain 496 29= Lithuania 496 31 Norway 495 32= Italy 494 32= Hungary 494 34= Luxembourg 491 34= Croatia 491 36 Portugal 489 37 Russia 486 38 Sweden 485 39 Iceland 478 40 Slovakia 471 41 Israel 470 42 Greece 467 43 Turkey 463 44 United Arab Emirates 448 45 Bulgaria 446 46= Serbia 445 46= Chile 445 48 Thailand 444 49 Romania 439 50 Cyprus 438 51 Costa Rica 429 52 Kazakhstan 425 53 Malaysia 420 54 Uruguay 416 55 Mexico 415 56 Montenegro 410 57 Jordan 409 58 Argentina 406 59 Brazil 405 60 Colombia 399 61 Tunisia 398 62 Albania 397 63 Qatar 384 64 Indonesia 382 65 Peru 373	1 Shanghai, China 570 2 Hong Kong, China 545 3 Singapore 542 4 Japan 538 5 South Korea 536 6 Finland 524 7= Taiwan 523 7= Canada 523 7= Ireland 523 10 Poland 518 11= Liechtenstein 516 11= Estonia 516 13= Australia 512 13= New Zealand 512 15 Netherlands 511 16= Macau, China 509 16= Switzerland 509 16= Belgium 509 19= Germany 508 19= Vietnam 508 21 France 505 22 Norway 504 23 United Kingdom 499 24 United States 498 25 Denmark 496 26 Czech Republic 493 27= Austria 490 27= Italy 490 29 Latvia 489 30= Luxembourg 488 30= Portugal 488 30= Spain 488 30= Hungary 488 34 Israel 486 35 Croatia 485 36= Iceland 483 36= Sweden 483 38 Slovenia 481 39= Lithuania 477 39= Greece 477 41= Russia 475 41= Turkey 475 43 Slovakia 463 44 Cyprus 449 45 Serbia 446 46 United Arab Emirates 442 47= Thailand 441 47= Chile 441 47= Costa Rica 441 50 Romania 438 51 Bulgaria 436 52 Mexico 424 53 Montenegro 422 54 Uruguay 411 55 Brazil 410 56 Tunisia 404 57 Colombia 403 58 Jordan 399 59 Malaysia 398 60= Argentina 396 60= Indonesia 396 62 Albania 394 63 Kazakhstan 393 64 Qatar 388 65 Peru 384

PISA 2012 was presented on 3 December 2013, with results for around 510,000 participating students in all 34 OECD member countries and 31 partner countries. This testing cycle had a particular focus on mathematics, where the mean score was 494. A sample of 1,688 students from Puerto Rico took the assessment, scoring 379 in math, 404 in reading and 401 in science. A subgroup of 44 countries and economies with about 85 000 students also took part in an optional computer-based assessment of problem solving.

Shanghai had the highest score in all three subjects. It was followed by Singapore, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei and Korea in mathematics; Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Korea in reading and Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Finland in science.

They were a sample of about 28 million in the same age group in 65 countries and economies, including the OECD countries, several Chinese cities, Vietnam, Indonesia and several countries in South America.

The test lasted two hours, was paper-based and included both open-ended and multiple-choice questions.

The students and school staff also answered a questionnaire to provide background information about the students and the schools.

PISA 2012 was presented on 3 December 2013, with results for around 510,000 participating students in all 34 OECD member countries and 31 partner countries. This testing cycle had a particular focus on mathematics, where the mean score was 494. The mean score in reading was 496 and in science 501.

The results show distinct groups of high-performers in mathematics: the East Asian countries, with Shanghai, scoring the best result of 613, followed closely by Hong Kong, Japan, Chinese Taipei and South Korea. Among the Europeans, Liechtenstein and Switzerland performed best, with Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Belgium, Germany, Austria all posting mathematics scores "not significantly statistically different from" one another. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand were similarly clustered around the OECD average of 494, with the USA trailing this group at 481.

Qatar, Kazakhstan and Malaysia were the countries which showed the greatest improvement in mathematics. The USA and the United Kingdom showed no significant change. Sweden had the greatest fall in mathematics performance over the last ten years, with a similar falling trend also in the two other subjects, and leading politicians in Sweden expressed great worry over the results.

On average boys scored better than girls in mathematics, girls scored better than boys in reading and the two sexes had quite similar scores in science.

Indonesia, Albania, Peru, Thailand and Colombia were the countries where most students reported being happy at school, while students in Korea, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Estonia and Finland reported least happiness.

PISA 2015

PISA 2015 was presented on 6 December 2016, with results for around 540,000 participating students in 72 countries, with Singapore emerging as the top performer.

Maths	Science	Reading
1 Singapore 564 2 Hong Kong 548 3 Macau 544 4 Taiwan 542 5 Japan 532 6 China 531 7 South Korea 524 8 Switzerland 521 9 Estonia 520 10 Canada 516 11 Netherlands 512 12 Denmark 511 13 Finland 511 14 Slovenia 510 15 Belgium 507 16 Germany 506 17 Poland 504 18 Ireland 504 19 Norway 502 20 Austria 497 21 New Zealand 495 22 Vietnam 495 23 Russia 494 24 Sweden 494 25 Australia 494 26 France 493 27 United Kingdom 492 28 Czech Republic 492 29 Portugal 492 30 Italy 490 31 Iceland 488 32 Spain 486 33 Luxembourg 486 34 Latvia 482 35 Malta 479 36 Lithuania 478 37 Hungary 477 38 Slovakia 475 39 Israel 470 40 United States 470 41 Croatia 464 42 Kazakhstan 460 43 Greece 454 44 Malaysia 446 45 Romania 444 46 Bulgaria 441 47 Cyprus 437 48 United Arab Emirates 427 49 Chile 423 50 Turkey 420 51 Moldova 420 52 Uruguay 418 53 Montenegro 418 54 Trinidad and Tobago 417 55 Thailand 415 56 Albania 413 57 Argentina 409 58 Mexico 408 59 Georgia 404 60 Qatar 402 61 Costa Rica 400 62 Lebanon 396 63 Colombia 390 64 Peru 387 65 Indonesia 386 66 Jordan 380 67 Brazil 377 68 Macedonia 371 69 Tunisia 367 70 Kosovo 362 71 Algeria 360 72 Dominican Republic 328	1 Singapore 556 2 Japan 538 3 Estonia 534 4 Taiwan 532 5 Finland 531 5 Macau 529 6 Canada 528 7 Vietnam 525 8 Hong Kong 523 9 China 518 10 South Korea 516 11 New Zealand 513 12 Slovenia 513 13 Australia 510 14 United Kingdom 509 15 Germany 509 16 Netherlands 509 17 Switzerland 506 18 Ireland 503 19 Belgium 502 20 Denmark 502 21 Poland 501 22 Portugal 501 23 Norway 498 24 United States 496 25 Austria 495 26 France 495 27 Sweden 493 28 Czech Republic 493 29 Spain 493 30 Latvia 490 31 Russia 487 32 Luxembourg 483 33 Italy 481 34 Hungary 477 35 Lithuania 475 36 Croatia 475 37 Iceland 473 38 Israel 467 39 Malta 465 40 Slovakia 461 41 Kazakhstan 456 42 Greece 455 43 Chile 447 44 Bulgaria 446 45 Malaysia 443 46 United Arab Emirates 437 47 Uruguay 435 48 Romania 435 49 Cyprus 433 50 Argentina 432 51 Moldova 428 52 Albania 427 53 Turkey 425 54 Trinidad and Tobago 425 55 Thailand 421 56 Costa Rica 420 57 Qatar 418 58 Colombia 416 59 Mexico 404 60 Montenegro 411 61 Georgia 411 62 Jordan 409 63 Indonesia 403 64 Brazil 401 65 Peru 397 66 Lebanon 386 67 Tunisia 386 68 Macedonia 384 69 Kosovo 378 70 Algeria 376 71 Dominican Republic 332	1 Singapore 535 2 Hong Kong 527 3 Canada 527 4 Finland 526 5 Ireland 521 6 Estonia 519 7 South Korea 517 8 Japan 516 9 Norway 513 10 New Zealand 509 11 Germany 509 12 Macau 509 13 Poland 506 14 Slovenia 505 15 Netherlands 503 16 Australia 503 17 Sweden 500 18 Denmark 500 19 France 499 20 Belgium 499 21 Portugal 498 22 United Kingdom 498 23 Taiwan 497 24 United States 497 25 Spain 496 26 Russia 495 27 China 494 28 Switzerland 492 29 Latvia 488 30 Czech Republic 487 31 Croatia 487 32 Vietnam 487 33 Austria 485 34 Italy 485 35 Iceland 482 36 Luxembourg 481 37 Israel 479 38 Lithuania 472 39 Hungary 470 40 Greece 467 41 Chile 459 42 Slovakia 453 43 Malta 447 44 Cyprus 443 45 Uruguay 437 46 Romania 434 47 United Arab Emirates 434 48 Bulgaria 432 49 Malaysia 431 50 Turkey 428 51 Costa Rica 427 52 Trinidad and Tobago 427 53 Kazakhstan 427 54 Montenegro 427 55 Argentina 425 56 Colombia 425 57 Mexico 423 58 Moldova 416 59 Thailand 409 60 Jordan 408 61 Brazil 407 62 Albania 405 63 Qatar 402 64 Georgia 401 65 Peru 398 66 Indonesia 397 67 Tunisia 361 68 Dominican Republic 358 69 Macedonia 352 70 Algeria 350 71 Kosovo 347 72 Lebanon 347

Previous years

Main article: Programme for International Student Assessment (2009 and earlier)

Period	Focus	OECD countries	Partner countries	Participating students	Notes
2000	Reading	28	4 + 11	265,000	The Netherlands disqualified from data analysis. 11 additional non-OECD countries took the test in 2002.
2003	Mathematics	30	11	275,000	UK disqualified from data analysis. Also included test in problem solving.
2006	Science	30	27	400,000	Reading scores for US disqualified from analysis due to misprint in testing materials.
2009	Reading	34	41 + 10	470,000	10 additional non-OECD countries took the test in 2010.
2012	Mathematics	34	31	510,000

Reception

Further information: Programme for International Student Assessment (2009 and earlier)

China

China's participation in the 2012 test was limited to Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Macao as separate entities. In 2012, Shanghai participated for the second time, again topping the rankings in all three subjects, as well as improving scores in the subjects compared to the 2009 tests. Shanghai's score of 613 in mathematics was 113 points above the average score, putting the performance of Shanghai pupils about 3 school years ahead of pupils in average countries. Educational experts debated to which degree the result reflected the quality of the general educational system in China, pointing out that Shanghai has greater wealth and better-paid teachers than the rest of China. Hong Kong placed second in reading and science and third in maths.

Entire China is expected to participate in 2018. In 2015, four provinces Jiangsu, Guangdong, Beijing, and Shanghai, with a total population of over 230 million, participated as a single entity. The 2015 Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong cohort scored a median 518 in science in 2015, while the 2012 Shanghai cohort scored a median 580.

Critics of PISA counter that in Shanghai and other Chinese cities, most children of migrant workers can only attend city schools up to the ninth grade, and must return to their parents' hometowns for high school due to hukou restrictions, thus skewing the composition of the city's high school students in favor of wealthier local families. A population chart of Shanghai reproduced in The New York Times shows a steep drop off in the number of 15-year-olds residing there. According to Schleicher, 27% of Shanghai's 15-year-olds are excluded from its school system (and hence from testing). As a result, the percentage of Shanghai's 15-year-olds tested by PISA was 73%, lower than the 89% tested in the US. Following the 2015 testing, OECD published in depth studies on education systems of selected few countries including one on China.

Finland

Finland, which received several top positions in the first tests, fell in all three subjects, but remained the best performing country overall in Europe, achieving their best result in science with 545 points (5th) and worst in mathematics with 519 (12th) in which the country was outperformed by four other European countries. The drop in mathematics was 25 points since 2003, the last time mathematics was the focus of the tests. For the first time Finnish girls outperformed boys in the subject, but only narrowly. It was also the first time pupils in Finnish-speaking schools did not perform better than pupils in Swedish-speaking schools. Minister of Education and Science Krista Kiuru expressed concern for the overall drop, as well as the fact that the number of low-performers had increased from 7% to 12%.

India

India participated in the 2009 round of testing but pulled out of the 2012 PISA testing, in August 2012, with the Indian government attributing its action to the unfairness of PISA testing to Indian students. The Indian Express reported on 9/3/2012 that "The ministry (of education) has concluded that there was a socio-cultural disconnect between the questions and Indian students. The ministry will write to the OECD and drive home the need to factor in India's "socio-cultural milieu". India's participation in the next PISA cycle will hinge on this". The Indian Express also noted that "Considering that over 70 nations participate in PISA, it is uncertain whether an exception would be made for India".

In June 2013, the Indian government, still concerned with the future prospect of fairness of PISA testing relating to Indian students, again pulled India out from the 2015 round of PISA testing.

Sweden

Sweden's result dropped in all three subjects in the 2012 test, which was a continuation of a trend from 2006 and 2009. In mathematics, the nation had the sharpest fall in mathematic performance over 10 years among the countries that have participated in all tests, with a drop in score from 509 in 2003 to 478 in 2012. The score in reading showed a drop from 516 in 2000 to 483 in 2012. The country performed below the OECD average in all three subjects. The leader of the opposition, Social Democrat Stefan Löfven, described the situation as a national crisis. Along with the party's spokesperson on education, Ibrahim Baylan, he pointed to the downward trend in reading as most severe.

UK

In the 2012 test, as in 2009, the result was slightly above average for the United Kingdom, with the science ranking being highest (20). England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland also participated as separated entities, showing the worst result for Wales which in mathematics was 43 of the 65 countries and economies. Minister of Education in Wales Huw Lewis expressed disappointment in the results, said that there was no "quick fixes", but hoped that several educational reforms that have been implemented in the last few years would give better results in the next round of tests. The United Kingdom had a greater gap between high- and low-scoring students than the average. There was little difference between public and private schools when adjusted for socio-economic background of students. The gender difference in favour of girls was less than in most other countries, as was the difference between natives and immigrants.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warned against putting too much emphasis on the UK's international ranking, arguing that an overfocus on scholarly performances in East Asia might have contributed to the area's low birthrate, which he argued could harm the economic performance in the future more than a good PISA score would outweigh.

In 2013, the Times Educational Supplement (TES) published an article, "Is PISA Fundamentally Flawed?" by William Stewart, detailing serious critiques of PISA's conceptual foundations and methods advanced by statisticians at major universities.

In the article, Professor Harvey Goldstein of the University of Bristol was quoted as saying that when the OECD tries to rule out questions suspected of bias, it can have the effect of "smoothing out" key differences between countries. "That is leaving out many of the important things,” he warned. "They simply don't get commented on. What you are looking at is something that happens to be common. But (is it) worth looking at? PISA results are taken at face value as providing some sort of common standard across countries. But as soon as you begin to unpick it, I think that all falls apart."

Queen's University Belfast mathematician Dr. Hugh Morrison stated that he found the statistical model underlying PISA to contain a fundamental, insoluble mathematical error that renders Pisa rankings "valueless". Goldstein remarked that Dr. Morrison's objection highlights “an important technical issue” if not a “profound conceptual error”. However, Goldstein cautioned that PISA has been "used inappropriately", contending that some of the blame for this "lies with PISA itself. I think it tends to say too much for what it can do and it tends not to publicise the negative or the weaker aspects.” Professors Morrison and Goldstein expressed dismay at the OECD's response to criticism. Morrison said that when he first published his criticisms of PISA in 2004 and also personally queried several of the OECS's "senior people" about them, his points were met with “absolute silence” and have yet to be addressed. “I was amazed at how unforthcoming they were,” he told TES. “That makes me suspicious.” “Pisa steadfastly ignored many of these issues,” he says. “I am still concerned.”

Professor Kreiner agreed: “One of the problems that everybody has with PISA is that they don’t want to discuss things with people criticising or asking questions concerning the results. They didn’t want to talk to me at all. I am sure it is because they can’t defend themselves.

US

The American result of 2012 was average in science and reading, but lagged behind in mathematics compared to other developed nations. There was little change from the previous test in 2009. The result was described as “a picture of educational stagnation” by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who said the result was not compatible with the American goal of having the world's best educated workers. Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers stated that an overemphasis on standardised tests contributed to the lack of improvement in education performance. Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education Association said a failure to address poverty among students had hampered progress.

About 9% of the U.S. students scored in the top two mathematics levels compared to 13% in all countries and economies.

For the first time, three U.S. states participated in the tests as separate entities, with Massachusetts scoring well above both the American and international averages, particularly in reading. An approximate corresponding OECD ranking is shown along with the United States average.

Maths	Science	Reading
16= Massachusetts 514 18= Connecticut 506 36 U.S. Average 481 41~ Florida 467	9~ Massachusetts 527 16= Connecticut 521 28 U.S. Average 497 38= Florida 485	6~ Massachusetts 527 10~ Connecticut 521 24 U.S. Average 498 26~ Florida 492

Malaysia

In 2015, the results from Malaysia were found by the OECD to have not met the minimum response rate. Opposition politician Ong Kian Ming said the education ministry tried to oversample high-performing students in rich schools.

Research on possible causes of PISA disparities in different countries

Although PISA and TIMSS officials and researchers themselves generally refrain from hypothesizing about the large and stable differences in student achievement between countries, since 2000, literature on the differences in PISA and TIMSS results and their possible causes has emerged. Data from PISA have furnished several economists, notably Eric Hanushek, Ludger Woessmann, Heiner Rindermann, and Stephen J. Ceci, with material for books and articles about the relationship between student achievement and economic development, democratization, and health; as well as the roles of such single educational factors as high-stakes exams, the presence or absence of private schools, and the effects and timing of ability tracking.

See also

• Teaching And Learning International Survey (TALIS)
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
• Gender gaps in mathematics and reading in PISA 2009

Further reading

Official websites and reports

• OECD/PISA website
  • OECD (1999): Measuring Student Knowledge and Skills. A New Framework for Assessment. Paris: OECD, ISBN 92-64-17053-7 [2]
  • OECD (2014): PISA 2012 results: Creative problem solving: Students’ skills in tackling real-life problems (Volume V) [3]

External links

• PISA
• OECD's Education GPS: Interactive data from PISA 2015
• Interactive world map of PISA results
• Interactive Visualization of 2012 PISA Math Results by Country Profiles