Saturday, November 23, 2013

Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)


A final paper I am working on for one of my classes has to do with how the U.S. performs in the PISA exam in comparison to other countries. PISA is the Program for International Student Assessment designed by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and is taken every three years in 70 countries, since the year 2000. This exam is taken by 15-year-old students and the subjects tested are science, mathematics and reading. I think that this exam is well designed and it actually measures the so-called “21st century learning skills” needed like critical thinking and problem solving for instance.
Overall, the U.S. ranks on average in reading (ranking 14 in OECD) and science (ranking 17) but then drops to below the OECD average in mathematics (ranking 25).
The top PISA performers are: Shanghai, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.
Here is a very interesting video on how the exam works and its main features:






No comments:

Post a Comment