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. It is done with view to improving education policies and outcomes. The data has increasingly been used both to assess the impact of education quality on incomes and growth and for understanding what causes differences in achievement across nations.

470,000 15-year-old students representing 65 nations and territories participated in PISA 2009. An additional 50,000 students representing nine nations were tested in 2010.

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.

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.

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."

Development and implementation

Developed from 1997, the first PISA assessment was carried out in 2000. The results of each period of assessment take about one year and a half to be analysed. First results were published in November 2001. The release of raw data and the publication of technical report and data handbook only took place in spring 2002. The triennial repeats follow a similar schedule; the process of seeing through a single PISA cycle, start-to-finish, always takes over four years.

Every period of assessment focuses on one of the three competence fields of reading, math, science; but the two others are tested as well. After nine years, a full cycle is completed: after 2000, reading was again the main domain in 2009.

Period	Main focus	# OECD countries	# other countries	# students	Notes
2000	Reading	28	4	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
2009	Reading	34	33?		Results made available on 7 December 2010.

PISA is sponsored, governed, and coordinated by the OECD. The test design, implementation, and data analysis is delegated to an international consortium of research and educational institutions led by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). ACER leads in developing and implementing sampling procedures and assisting with monitoring sampling outcomes across these countries. The assessment instruments fundamental to PISA's reading, mathematics, science, problem-solving, computer-based testing, background and contextual questionnaires are similarly constructed and refined by ACER. ACER also develops purpose-built software to assist in sampling and data capture, and analyses all data. The source code of the data analysis software is not made public.

Method of testing

Sampling

The students tested by PISA are ages 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 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. This scaling is done using the Rasch model of item response theory (IRT). According to IRT, it is not possible to assess the competence of students who solved none or all of the test items. This problem is circumvented by imposing a Gaussian prior probability distribution of competences.

One and the same scale is used to express item difficulties and student competences. The scaling procedure is tuned such that the a posteriori distribution of student competences, with equal weight given to all OECD countries, has mean 500 and standard deviation 100.

Results

The official reports only contain domain-specific scores and do not combine the different domains into an overall score. The final scoring is adjusted so that the OECD average in each domain is 500 and the standard deviation is 100.

Historical tables

All PISA results are broken down by countries. Public attention concentrates on just one outcome: achievement mean values by countries. These data are regularly published in form of "league tables".

The following table gives the mean achievements of OECD member countries in the principal testing domain of each period:

In the official reports, country rankings are communicated in a more elaborate form: not as lists, 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.

In some popular media, test results from all three literacy domains have been consolidated in an overall country ranking. Such meta-analysis is not endorsed by the OECD. The official reports only contain domain-specific country scores. In part of the official reports, however, scores from a period's principal testing domain are used as proxy for overall student ability.

2000–2006

Top results for the main areas of investigation of PISA, in 2000, 2003 and 2006.

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

The 11 partner countries tested in 2002 after the main group of 32 are italicized.

Mathematics	Science	Reading
1 Hong Kong, China 560 2 Japan 557 3 Korea 547 4 New Zealand 537 5 Finland 536 6 Australia 533 7 Canada 533 8 Switzerland 529 9 United Kingdom 529 10 Belgium 520 11 France 517 12 Austria 515 13 Denmark 514 14 Iceland 514 15 Liechtenstein 514 16 Sweden 510 17 Ireland 503 18 Norway 499 19 Czech Republic 498 20 United States 493 21 Germany 490 22 Hungary 488 23 Russia 478 24 Spain 476 25 Poland 470 26 Latvia 463 27 Italy 457 28 Portugal 454 29 Greece 447 30 Luxembourg 446 31 Israel 433 32 Thailand 432 33 Bulgaria 430 34 Argentina 388 35 Mexico 387 36 Chile 384 37 Albania 381 38 Macedonia 381 39 Indonesia 367 40 Brazil 334 41 Peru 292	1 Korea 552 2 Japan 550 3 Hong Kong, China 541 4 Finland 538 5 United Kingdom 532 6 Canada 529 7 New Zealand 528 8 Australia 528 9 Austria 519 10 Ireland 513 11 Sweden 512 12 Czech Republic 511 13 France 500 14 Norway 500 15 United States 499 16 Hungary 496 17 Iceland 496 18 Belgium 496 19 Switzerland 496 20 Spain 491 21 Germany 487 22 Poland 483 23 Denmark 481 24 Italy 478 25 Liechtenstein 476 26 Greece 461 27 Russia 460 28 Latvia 460 29 Portugal 459 30 Bulgaria 448 31 Luxembourg 443 32 Thailand 436 33 Israel 434 34 Mexico 422 35 Chile 415 36 Macedonia 401 37 Argentina 396 38 Indonesia 393 39 Albania 376 40 Brazil 375 41 Peru 333	1 Finland 546 2 Canada 534 3 New Zealand 529 4 Australia 528 5 Ireland 527 6 Hong Kong, China 525 7 Korea 525 8 United Kingdom 523 9 Japan 522 10 Sweden 516 11 Austria 507 12 Belgium 507 13 Iceland 507 14 Norway 505 15 France 505 16 United States 504 17 Denmark 497 18 Switzerland 494 19 Spain 493 20 Czech Republic 492 21 Italy 487 22 Germany 484 23 Liechtenstein 483 24 Hungary 480 25 Poland 479 26 Greece 474 27 Portugal 470 28 Russia 462 29 Latvia 458 30 Israel 452 31 Luxembourg 441 32 Thailand 431 33 Bulgaria 430 34 Mexico 422 35 Argentina 418 36 Chile 410 37 Brazil 396 38 Macedonia 373 39 Indonesia 371 40 Albania 349 41 Peru 327

2006

Top 10 countries for Pisa 2006 results in Mathematics, Sciences and Reading.

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

Reading scores for the United States were disqualified.

Mathematics	Science	Reading
1 Taiwan 549 2 Finland 548 3 South Korea 547 4 Hong Kong, China 547 5 Netherlands 531 6 Switzerland 530 7 Canada 527 8 Macau, China 525 9 Liechtenstein 525 10 Japan 523 11 New Zealand 522 12 Belgium 520 13 Australia 520 14 Estonia 515 15 Denmark 513 16 Czech Republic 510 17 Iceland 506 18 Austria 505 19 Slovenia 504 20 Germany 504 21 Sweden 502 22 Ireland 501 23 France 496 24 United Kingdom 495 25 Poland 495 26 Slovakia 492 27 Hungary 491 28 Norway 490 29 Luxembourg 490 30 Lithuania 486 31 Latvia 486 32 Spain 480 33 Russia 476 34 Azerbaijan 476 35 United States 474 36 Croatia 467 37 Portugal 466 38 Italy 462 39 Greece 459 40 Israel 442 41 Serbia 435 42 Uruguay 427 43 Turkey 424 44 Thailand 417 45 Romania 415 46 Bulgaria 413 47 Chile 411 48 Mexico 406 49 Montenegro 399 50 Indonesia 391 51 Jordan 384 52 Argentina 381 53 Colombia 370 54 Brazil 370 55 Tunisia 365 56 Qatar 318 57 Kyrgyzstan 311	1 Finland 563 2 Hong Kong, China 542 3 Canada 534 4 Taiwan 532 5 Japan 531 6 Estonia 531 7 New Zealand 530 8 Australia 527 9 Netherlands 525 10 Liechtenstein 522 11 South Korea 522 12 Slovenia 519 13 Germany 516 14 United Kingdom 515 15 Czech Republic 513 16 Switzerland 512 17 Austria 511 18 Macau, China 511 19 Belgium 510 20 Ireland 508 21 Hungary 504 22 Sweden 503 23 Poland 498 24 Denmark 496 25 France 495 26 Croatia 493 27 Iceland 491 28 Latvia 490 29 United States 489 30 Slovakia 488 31 Spain 488 32 Lithuania 488 33 Norway 487 34 Luxembourg 486 35 Russia 479 36 Italy 475 37 Portugal 474 38 Greece 473 39 Israel 454 40 Chile 438 41 Serbia 436 42 Bulgaria 434 43 Uruguay 428 44 Turkey 424 45 Jordan 422 46 Thailand 421 47 Romania 418 48 Montenegro 412 49 Mexico 410 50 Indonesia 393 51 Argentina 391 52 Brazil 390 53 Colombia 388 54 Tunisia 386 55 Azerbaijan 382 56 Qatar 349 57 Kyrgyzstan 322	1 South Korea 556 2 Finland 547 3 Hong Kong, China 536 4 Canada 527 5 New Zealand 521 6 Ireland 517 7 Australia 513 8 Liechtenstein 510 9 Poland 508 10 Sweden 507 11 Netherlands 507 12 Belgium 501 13 Estonia 501 14 Switzerland 499 15 Japan 498 16 Taiwan 496 17 United Kingdom 495 18 Germany 495 19 Denmark 494 20 Slovenia 494 21 Macau, China 492 22 Austria 490 23 France 488 24 Iceland 484 25 Norway 484 26 Czech Republic 483 27 Hungary 482 28 Latvia 479 29 Luxembourg 479 30 Croatia 477 31 Portugal 472 32 Lithuania 470 33 Italy 469 34 Slovakia 466 35 Spain 461 36 Greece 460 37 Turkey 447 38 Chile 442 39 Russia 440 40 Israel 439 41 Thailand 417 42 Uruguay 413 43 Mexico 410 44 Bulgaria 402 45 Serbia 401 46 Jordan 401 47 Romania 396 48 Indonesia 393 49 Brazil 393 50 Montenegro 392 51 Colombia 385 52 Tunisia 380 53 Argentina 374 54 Azerbaijan 353 55 Qatar 312 56 Kyrgyzstan 285

2009

The PISA 2009 results in Maths, Sciences and Reading for all 34 OECD members and 37 partner countries. Of the partner countries, only selected areas of three countries—India, Venezuela and China—were assessed. Due to scheduling constraints, 10 of those partners actually carried out their tests in 2010, not 2009.

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

Participants in PISA 2009+, which were tested in 2010 after the main group of 65, are italicized.

Mathematics	Science	Reading
1 Shanghai, China 600 2 Singapore 562 3 Hong Kong, China 555 4 South Korea 546 5 Taiwan 543 6 Finland 541 7 Liechtenstein 536 8 Switzerland 534 9 Japan 529 10 Canada 527 11 Netherlands 526 12 Macau, China 525 13 New Zealand 519 14 Belgium 515 15 Australia 514 16 Germany 513 17 Estonia 512 18 Iceland 507 19 Denmark 503 20 Slovenia 501 21 Norway 498 22 France 497 23 Slovakia 497 24 Austria 496 25 Poland 495 26 Sweden 494 27 Czech Republic 493 28 United Kingdom 492 29 Hungary 490 30 Luxembourg 489 31 United States 487 32 Portugal 487 33 Ireland 487 34 Spain 483 35 Italy 483 36 Latvia 482 37 Lithuania 477 38 Russia 468 39 Greece 466 40 Malta 463 41 Croatia 460 42 Israel 447 43 Turkey 445 44 Serbia 442 45 Azerbaijan 431 46 Bulgaria 428 47 Uruguay 427 48 Romania 427 49 United Arab Emirates 421 50 Chile 421 51 Mauritius 420 52 Thailand 419 53 Mexico 419 54 Trinidad and Tobago 414 55 Costa Rica 409 56 Kazakhstan 405 57 Malaysia 404 58 Montenegro 403 59 Moldova 397 60 Miranda, Venezuela 397 61 Argentina 388 62 Jordan 387 63 Brazil 386 64 Colombia 381 65 Georgia 379 66 Albania 377 67 Tunisia 371 68 Indonesia 371 69 Qatar 368 70 Peru 365 71 Panama 360 72 Tamil Nadu, India 351 73 Himachal Pradesh, India 338 74 Kyrgyzstan 331	1 Shanghai, China 575 2 Finland 554 3 Hong Kong, China 549 4 Singapore 542 5 Japan 539 6 South Korea 538 7 New Zealand 532 8 Canada 529 9 Estonia 528 10 Australia 527 11 Netherlands 522 12 Liechtenstein 520 13 Germany 520 14 Taiwan 520 15 Switzerland 517 16 United Kingdom 514 17 Slovenia 512 18 Macau, China 511 19 Poland 508 20 Ireland 508 21 Belgium 507 22 Hungary 503 23 United States 502 24 Norway 500 25 Czech Republic 500 26 Denmark 499 27 France 498 28 Iceland 496 29 Sweden 495 30 Latvia 494 31 Austria 494 32 Portugal 493 33 Lithuania 491 34 Slovakia 490 35 Italy 489 36 Spain 488 37 Croatia 486 38 Luxembourg 484 39 Russia 478 40 Greece 470 41 Malta 461 42 Israel 455 43 Turkey 454 44 Chile 447 45 Serbia 443 46 Bulgaria 439 47 United Arab Emirates 438 48 Costa Rica 430 49 Romania 428 50 Uruguay 427 51 Thailand 425 52 Miranda, Venezuela 422 53 Malaysia 422 54 Mauritius 417 55 Mexico 416 56 Jordan 415 57 Moldova 413 58 Trinidad and Tobago 410 59 Brazil 405 60 Colombia 402 61 Tunisia 401 62 Montenegro 401 63 Argentina 401 64 Kazakhstan 400 65 Albania 391 66 Indonesia 383 67 Qatar 379 68 Panama 376 69 Georgia 373 70 Azerbaijan 373 71 Peru 369 72 Tamil Nadu, India 348 73 Kyrgyzstan 330 74 Himachal Pradesh, India 325	1 Shanghai, China 556 2 South Korea 539 3 Finland 536 4 Hong Kong, China 533 5 Singapore 526 6 Canada 524 7 New Zealand 521 8 Japan 520 9 Australia 515 10 Netherlands 508 11 Belgium 506 12 Norway 503 13 Estonia 501 14 Switzerland 501 15 Poland 500 16 Iceland 500 17 United States 500 18 Liechtenstein 499 19 Sweden 497 20 Germany 497 21 Ireland 496 22 France 496 23 Taiwan 495 24 Denmark 495 25 United Kingdom 494 26 Hungary 494 27 Portugal 489 28 Macau, China 487 29 Italy 486 30 Latvia 484 31 Greece 483 32 Slovenia 483 33 Spain 481 34 Czech Republic 478 35 Slovakia 477 36 Croatia 476 37 Israel 474 38 Luxembourg 472 39 Austria 470 40 Lithuania 468 41 Turkey 464 42 Russia 459 43 Chile 449 44 Costa Rica 443 45 Malta 442 46 Serbia 442 47 United Arab Emirates 431 48 Bulgaria 429 49 Uruguay 426 50 Mexico 425 51 Romania 424 52 Miranda, Venezuela 422 53 Thailand 421 54 Trinidad and Tobago 416 55 Malaysia 414 56 Colombia 413 57 Brazil 412 58 Montenegro 408 59 Mauritius 407 60 Jordan 405 61 Tunisia 404 62 Indonesia 402 63 Argentina 398 64 Kazakhstan 390 65 Moldova 388 66 Albania 385 67 Georgia 374 68 Qatar 372 69 Panama 371 70 Peru 370 71 Azerbaijan 362 72 Tamil Nadu, India 337 73 Himachal Pradesh, India 317 74 Kyrgyzstan 314

Comparison with other studies

The correlation between PISA 2003 and TIMSS 2003 grade 8 country means is 0.84 in mathematics, 0.95 in science. The values go down to 0.66 and 0.79 if the two worst performing developing countries are excluded. Correlations between different scales and studies are around 0.80. The high correlations between different scales and studies indicate common causes of country differences (e.g. educational quality, culture, wealth or genes) or a homogenous underlying factor of cognitive competence. Western countries perform slightly better in PISA; Eastern European and Asian countries in TIMSS. Content balance and years of schooling explain most of the variation.

Reception

For many countries, the results from PISA 2000 were surprising. In Germany and the United States, for example, the comparatively low scores brought on heated debate about how the school system should be changed. Some headlines in national newspapers, for example, were:

• "La France, élève moyen de la classe OCDE" (France, average student of the OECD class) Le Monde, December 5, 2001
• "Miserable Noten für deutsche Schüler" (Abysmal marks for German students) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 4, 2001
• "Are we not such dunces after all?" The Times, United Kingdom, December 6, 2001
• "Economic Time Bomb: U.S. Teens Are Among Worst at Math" The Wall Street Journal December 7, 2004
• "Preocupe-se. Seu filho é mal educado." (Be worried. Your child is badly educated.) Brazil. Veja, November 7, 2007
• "La educación española retrocede" (Spanish education moving backwards) El País December 5, 2007
• "Finnish teens score high marks in latest PISA study" Helsingin Sanomat November 30, 2007

The results from PISA 2003 and PISA 2006 were featured in the 2010 documentary Waiting for "Superman".

China

Education professor Yong Zhao has noted the PISA 2009 did not receive much attention in the Chinese media, and that the high scores in China are due to excessive workload and testing, adding that it's "no news that the Chinese education system is excellent in preparing outstanding test takers, just like other education systems within the Confucian cultural circle: Singapore, Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong."

India

Of the 74 countries tested in the PISA 2009 cycle including the "+" nations, the two Indian states came up 72nd and 73rd out of 74 in both reading and maths, and 73rd and 74th in science. India's poor performance may not be linguistic as some suggested. 12.87% of US students, for example, indicated that the language of the test differed from the language spoken at home. while 30.77% of Himachal Pradesh students indicated that the language of the test differed from the language spoken at home, a significantly higher percent However, unlike American students, those Indian students with a different language at home did better on the PISA test than those with the same language. India's poor performance on the PISA test is consistent with India's poor performance in the only other instance when India's government allowed an international organization to test its students and consistent with India's own testing of its elite students in a study titled Student Learning in the Metro 2006. These studies were conducted using TIMSS questions. The poor result in PISA was greeted with dismay in the Indian media. The BBC reported that as of 2008, only 15% of India's students reach high school.

India pulled out of the 2012 round of 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.

UK

On 26 July, 2013 the TES (Times Educational Supplement) published academic criticisms of the conceptual foundations and methods of PISA.

It quotes University of Bristol Professor Harvey Goldstein, who explains 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 warns. “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.”

The article cites University of Copenhagen Professor Svend Kreiner, who looked at the reading results for 2006 in detail. He says that only about 10 per cent of the students who took part in PISA were tested on all 28 reading questions. “This in itself is ridiculous,” Kreiner told the TES. “Most people don’t know that half of the students taking part in PISA (2006) do not respond to any reading item at all. Despite that, PISA assigns reading scores to these children.”

Queen's University Belfast mathematician Dr. Hugh Morrison argues that the statistical model underlying PISA has a fundamental, insoluble mathematical error that renders Pisa rankings “valueless”. Goldstein told the TES that Morrison highlights “an important technical issue” rather than the “profound conceptual error”. PISA “has been used inappropriately and some of the blame for that 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.”

Research on causes of country differences

Large international student assessment programs such as PISA and TIMSS have provided essential data for many recent analyses of how student achievement affects society at large, such as economic development, democratization and health.

Although PISA and TIMSS officials and researchers themselves generally refrain from hypothesizing about the large and stable differences in student achievement between countries, other researchers have investigated single educational factors like central exams private schools or streaming between schools at later age. An extensive literature related to cross-countries difference in scores has also developed since 2000.

Finland

The stable, high marks of Finnish students have attracted a lot of attention. According to Hannu Simola the results are due to a paradoxical mix of progressive policies implemented through a rather conservative pedagogic setting, where the high levels of teachers' academic preparation, social status, professionalism and motivation for the job are concomitant with the adherence to traditional roles and methods by both teachers and pupils in Finland's changing, but still rather authoritarian culture. Others have suggested that Finland's low poverty rate is a reason for its success.

Finnish education reformer Pasi Sahlberg suggests that the reason for Finland's high educational achievements is because of the country's focus on access to quality education for all, as opposed to a focus on competition among teachers and schools. Lynn and Meisenberg (2010) found very high correlations (r>0.90) between mean student assessment results from PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS and others and IQ measurements at the country data level.

An evaluation of the 2003 results showed that countries that spent more on education did not necessarily do better. Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and the Netherlands spent less but did relatively well, whereas the United States spent much more but was below the OECD average. The Czech Republic, in the top ten, spent only one third as much per student as the United States did, for example, but the USA came 24th out of 29 countries compared.

Another point made in the evaluation was that students with higher-earning parents are better-educated and tend to achieve higher results. This was true in all the countries tested, although more obvious in certain countries, such as Germany.

China

In 2010, the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results revealed that Shanghai students scored the highest in the world in every category (Mathematics, Reading and Science). The OECD described Shanghai as a pioneer of educational reform, noting that "there has been a sea change in pedagogy". OECD point out that they "abandoned their focus on educating a small elite, and instead worked to construct a more inclusive system. They also significantly increased teacher pay and training, reducing the emphasis on rote learning and focusing classroom activities on problem solving."

OECD has also noted that even in rural China results approached average levels for the OECD countries: "Citing further, as-yet unpublished OECD research, Mr Schleicher said, 'We have actually done Pisa in 12 of the provinces in China. Even in some of the very poor areas you get performance close to the OECD average.'" For a developing country, China’s 99.4% enrolment in primary education is already, as the OECD puts it, “the envy of many countries” while junior secondary school participation rates in China are now 99%. But in Shanghai not only has senior secondary school enrolment attained 98% but admissions into higher education have achieved 80% of the relevant age group. That this growth reflects quality, not just quantity, is confirmed clearly by the OECD’s ranking of Shanghai’s secondary education as world number one. According to the OECD, China has also expanded school access, and moved away from learning by rote. "'The last point is key: Russia performs well in rote-based assessments, but not in Pisa,' says Schleicher, head of the indicators and analysis division at the OECD’s directorate for education. 'China does well in both rote-based and broader assessments.'"

United States

Two studies have compared high achievers in mathematics on the PISA and the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Comparisons were made between those scoring at the "advanced" and "proficient" levels in mathematics on the NAEP with the corresponding performance on the PISA. Overall, 30 nations had higher percentages than the U.S. of students at the "advanced" level of mathematics. The only OECD countries with worse results were Portugal, Greece, Turkey, and Mexico. Six percent of U.S. students were "advanced" in mathematics compared to 28 percent in Taiwan. The highest ranked state in the U.S. (Massachusetts) was just 15th in the world if it was compared with the nations participating in the PISA. 31 nations had higher percentages of "proficient" students than the U.S. Massachusetts was again the best U.S. state, but it ranked just ninth in the world if compared with the nations participating in the PISA.

Comparisons with results for the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) appear to give different results—suggesting that the U.S. states actually do better in world rankings. The difference in apparent rankings is, however, almost entirely accounted for by the sampling of countries. PISA includes all of the OECD countries, while TIMSS is much more weighted in its sampling toward developing countries.

Poverty

University of Southern California professor Stephen Krashen and Mel Riddile of the NASSP say that low performance in the United States is closely related to American poverty, but the same reasoning applies to other countries.

Reduced school lunch participation is the only available intra-poverty indicator for US schoolchildren; areas with less than 10% of the students having free or reduced price lunch averaged 551 (higher than any other OECD country). In comparison with the rest other OECD countries (which have tabled figures on children living in relative poverty):

Country	Percent of reduced school lunches (US) Percent of relative child poverty (Other OECD countries)	PISA score
United States	< 10%	551
Finland	3.4%	536
Netherlands	9.0%	508
Belgium	6.7%	506
United States	10%–24.9%	527
Canada	13.6%	524
New Zealand	16.3%	521
Japan	14.3%	520
Australia	11.6%	515
United States	25–49.9%	502
Estonia	40.1%	501
United States	50–74.9%	471
Russian Federation	58.3%	459
United States	> 75%	446

Portugal

According to OECD's PISA, the average Portuguese 15-year-old student was for many years underrated and underachieving in reading literacy, mathematics and science knowledge in the OECD, nearly tied with the Italian and just above those from countries like Greece, Turkey and Mexico. However, since 2010, PISA results for Portuguese students improved dramatically. The Portuguese Ministry of Education announced a 2010 report published by its office for education evaluation GAVE (Gabinete de Avaliação do Ministério da Educação) which criticized the results of PISA 2009 report and claimed that the average Portuguese teenage student had profund handicaps in terms of expression, communication and logic, as well as a low performance when asked to solve problems. They also claimed that those fallacies are not exclusive of Portugal but occur in other countries due to the way PISA was designed.

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 [3]
  • OECD (2001): Knowledge and Skills for Life. First Results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000.
  • OECD (2003a): The PISA 2003 Assessment Framework. Mathematics, Reading, Science and Problem Solving Knowledge and Skills. Paris: OECD, ISBN 978-92-64-10172-2 [4]
  • OECD (2004a): Learning for Tomorrow's World. First Results from PISA 2003. Paris: OECD, ISBN 978-92-64-00724-6 [5]
  • OECD (2004b): Problem Solving for Tomorrow's World. First Measures of Cross-Curricular Competencies from PISA 2003. Paris: OECD, ISBN 978-92-64-00642-3
  • OECD (2005): PISA 2003 Technical Report. Paris: OECD, ISBN 978-92-64-01053-6
  • OECD (2007): Science Competencies for Tomorrow's World: Results from PISA 2006 [6]

Reception and political consequences

• A. P. Jakobi, K. Martens: Diffusion durch internationale Organisationen: Die Bildungspolitik der OECD. In: K. Holzinger, H. Jörgens, C. Knill: Transfer, Diffusion und Konvergenz von Politiken. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007.

France

• N. Mons, X. Pons: The reception and use of Pisa in France.

Germany

• E. Bulmahn [then federal secretary of education]: PISA: the consequences for Germany. OECD observer, no. 231/232, May 2002. pp. 33–34.
• H. Ertl: Educational Standards and the Changing Discourse on Education: The Reception and Consequences of the PISA Study in Germany. Oxford Review of Education, v 32 n 5 pp 619–634 Nov 2006.

United Kingdom

• S. Grek, M. Lawn, J. Ozga: Study on the Use and Circulation of PISA in Scotland. [7]

Criticism

Books

• S. Hopmann, G. Brinek, M. Retzl (eds.): PISA zufolge PISA. PISA According to PISA. LIT-Verlag, Wien 2007, ISBN 3-8258-0946-3 (partly in German, partly in English)
• T. Jahnke, W. Meyerhöfer (eds.): PISA & Co – Kritik eines Programms. Franzbecker, Hildesheim 2007 (2nd edn.), ISBN 978-3-88120-464-4 (in German)
• R. Münch: Globale Eliten, lokale Autoritäten: Bildung und Wissenschaft unter dem Regime von PISA, McKinsey & Co. Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp, 2009. ISBN 978-3-518-12560-1 (in German)

Websites

• J . Wuttke: Critical online bibliography
• Correlation of 2009-PISA Scores with National GDP PISA versus GDP

External links

• PISA
• Interactive world map of PISA results

Video clips

• PISA: Measuring student success around the world