The mathematics skills of school children: how does England compare to the high-performing East Asian jurisdictions?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Study are two highly respected studies of school pupils’ academic achievement. English policy-makers have been disappointed with school children’s performance on these tests, particularly in comparison to the strong results of young people from East Asia. In this paper, we provide new insight into the England–East Asia gap in school children’s mathematics skills. We do so by considering how cross-national differences in math test scores change between ages 10 and 16. Our results suggest that, although average math test scores are higher in East Asian countries, this achievement gap does not increase between ages 10 and 16. We thus conclude that reforming the secondary school system may not be the most effective way for England to ‘catch up’ with the East Asian nations in the PISA math rankings. Rather, earlier intervention, during pre-school and primary school, may be needed instead.     

Counting and comparing school performance: an analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014

This paper empirically documents media portrayals of Australia’s performance on the Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000–2014. We analyse newspaper articles from two national and eight metropolitan newspapers. This analysis demonstrates increased media coverage of PISA over the period in question. Our research data were analysed using ‘framing theory’, documenting how the media frames stories about Australia’s performance on PISA. Three frames were identified: counts and comparisons; criticisms; and contexts. Most of the media coverage (41%) was concerned with the first frame, counts and comparisons, which analysed PISA data to provide ‘evidence’ that was then used to comparatively position Australia against other countries, reference societies, which do better, with particular emphasis on Finland and also Shanghai after the 2009 PISA. The other two frames dealt with criticisms and contextual issues. This paper only focuses on the first frame. The analysis demonstrates the ways in which media coverage of Australia’s PISA performance has had policy impact.     

基于PISA测试结果的教育政策调整分析

PISA测试结果是影响参加国或地区调整教育政策的重要因素之一。这些影响主要包括公众对教育质量的关注及其形成的舆论压力,表现优异的参加国或地区可借鉴的成功经验等。研究发现,基于PISA测试结果的教育政策调整类型主要有四种:政策深化型、政策变革型、政策调适型和政策效仿型。     

PISA“官方立场”及政策意蕴——基于扎根理论的文本探究

PISA的官方报告渗透着其"官方立场",体现了PISA的政策目的。以"PISA官方报告到底要告诉我们什么"为研究问题,以OECD发布的PISA研究报告为资料来源,用建构扎根理论的方式对105篇专题简报进行文本探究。在此基础上揭示出PISA"官方立场"的公平导向、竞争导向和学习中心导向,进一步发现PISA的政策意蕴:OECD通过大规模测评来建立全球教育的标准,用卓越教育系统的特征来树立全球教育体系的标杆,基于研究报告的数据解释力来影响全球教育治理。     

PISA在教育政策趋同中的作用：来自瑞士的经验

本文通过阐述教育政策趋同发生的维度与因果机制,提出国际组织在教育政策趋同过程中的特殊作用。在实证上,本文研究了经合组织通过PISA在瑞士中等教育政策制定过程中的作用,透视了跨国交流、规制竞争以及独立问题解决等机制在其中的作用。此外,教育政策趋同可能会冲击发展中国家的教育政策主权和价值,需要辩证看待。     

Reading literacy in Compulsory Secondary Education: an exploration of the difficulties in the use of information to answer questions / La competencia lectora en la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria: descripción y dificultades del uso de información para responder preguntas

Abstract

This paper is a review of studies about processes and secondary school students’ difficulties with these processes when they use information to answer questions. The PISA program uses this kind of task-oriented reading situation to evaluate reading literacy, which is also a common reading situation in educational settings. Four key strategies are identified to successfully perform this kind of task: decide how to read the information, comprehend the task, decide when to search for information in order to solve the task, and self-regulate that search process. Moreover, this paper provides accurate information about the students’ difficulties in becoming skilled readers when they use information to answer questions. This information might help teachers and educational counselors in the design of interventions to improve reading literacy in schools.     

Government,media, and citizens: understanding engagement with PISA in China (2009–2015)

This study explores the multidimensionality of engagements with international large-scale standardised assessments (ILSAs). The objective is to understand how different policy actors—government, media, and citizens—rationalise, report, and perceive China’s PISA participation. First, government archive analysis traces a decade of documents (2005–2015), and the findings show that Shanghai’s initial participation in PISA was rationalised as a policy experiment for learning Western ideas of education governance. Second, media content analysis of two major news outlets indicates that media framing of PISA participation was strategic on timing, intensity, and tone. Third, a public opinion survey yields results which show that low public knowledge of Shanghai’s PISA participation in 2012 is prevalent. Drawing on these findings, this study investigates how the ILSA movement, exemplified by PISA, engages different levels of stakeholders in China.     

论影响政策借鉴的地方化因素——基于澳大利亚与韩国媒体对PISA的报道

在教育全球化时代,地方化因素对于一个国家是否成为教育改革的参考标准依然重要。澳大利亚和韩国两国媒体对亚洲国家和地区PISA成功的描述与话语讨论因国情不同而表现出各自的特点,进而影响着政策借鉴是否可以以及如何发生。基于对澳大利亚与韩国媒体对PISA结果报道的比较后发现,对亚洲教育的刻板印象、国家间的经济关系、潜在参考国家和地区在PISA排名表中相对排名的变化等三大因素影响着一个国家对这些国家或地区"最优教育系统"的政策借鉴。     

The OECD PISA Study as a Soft Power in Education? Lessons from Switzerland and the US

Although originally created for economic purposes, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has increasingly gained weight in education policy in recent years and is now regarded as an international authority in the field, particularly through its ‘Programme for International Student Assessment’ (PISA), which was highly esteemed in many countries and enabled diverse domestic education reforms. OECD derived a variety of policy recommendations from the PISA results. However, which of these were implemented at the national level and how OECD was able to achieve an impact on its member states have not yet been analysed in sufficient depth. To answer these questions, we analyse which OECD recommendations were reflected in Switzerland and the US. As their reception differs across countries, we assess under which conditions policy convergence towards the OECD ‘model’ took place. Then we elaborate on the governance mechanisms that caused policy convergence. We show that in Switzerland PISA's platform for transnational communication enabled policy learning at the expert level, thus leading to a rather high degree of policy convergence. This was not the case in the US, where PISA was regarded only as one of many studies assessing the performance of education systems.     

Leaning too far? PISA,policy and Australia's ‘top five’ ambitions

Australia has declared its ambition to be within the ‘top five’ in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) by 2025. So serious is it about this ambition, that the Australian Government has incorporated it into the Australian Education Act, 2013. Given this focus on PISA results and rankings, we go beyond average scores to take a close look at Australia's performance in PISA, examining rankings by different geographical units, by item content and by test completion. Based on this analysis and using data from interviews with measurement and policy experts, we show how uninformative and even misleading the ‘average performance scores’, on which the rankings are based, can be. We explore how a more nuanced understanding would point to quite different policy actions. After considering the PISA data and Australia's ‘top five’ ambition closely, we argue that neither the rankings nor such ambitions should be given much credence.