The role of contextual,conceptual and procedural knowledge in activating mathematical competencies (PISA)

This paper analyses the difficulties which Spanish student teachers have in solving the PISA 2003 released items. It studies the role played by the type and organisation of mathematical knowledge in the activation of competencies identified by PISA with particular attention to the function of contextual knowledge. The results of the research lead us to conclude that the assessment of the participant’s mathematical competencies must include an assessment of the extent to which they have school mathematical knowledge (contextual, conceptual and procedural) that can be productively applied to problem situations. In this way, the school knowledge variable becomes a variable associated with the PISA competence variable. This paper is based on a research project funded by a grant awarded in 2003 by the General Directorate for Research of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (BSO-2003-7133).     

Factors affecting Turkish students＇ achievement in mathematics

Following past researches, student background, learning strategies, self-related cognitions in mathematics and school climate variables were important for achievement. The purpose of this study was to identify a number of factors that represent the relationship among sets of interrelated variables using principal component factor analysis and examine the contribution of each factor to the explanation of the variance in the students＇ mathematics score using multiple regression analysis. The sample was prepared from students who participated in Programme for International Student Assessment （PISA） in Turkey. These data consisted of 3765 15 year-old Turkish students in 158 schools. The results showed that four factors under study totally accounted for approximately 34 percent of the variance in mathematics achievement. All of the factors had statistically significant effects on the achievement. The findings are very important for Turkish education system because the fact that changing school climate and improving the learning strategies are much easier to achieve than changing background factors affecting students＇ performance.     

2015年中国高等教育热点回眸

回眸中国高等教育2015 年的热点话题,有利于我们客观记录鲜活的高等教育历史,及时发现、反思、总结高等教育经验教训,积淀高等教育持续发展与改革的动力。为此,本文对浙江师范大学教育评论研究所网站“每日教育评论”栏目上传的热点话题,通过影响范围以及“百度”搜索量进行筛选,每月确定一个话题。并参照社会各界的议论,以教育评论的视角进行理性的归纳与反思。     

Education quality,and teaching and learning in the post-2015 education agenda

At present, there is an intense and wide-ranging debate on the future of global development. This debate occurs in a context of increasing global inequality, global economic recession, conflict, and climate change. Discussions about the post-2015 education and development agenda in this context ambitiously seek to eradicate poverty, promote social and economic inclusion, tackle climate change, promote equity, and access to quality education. While the exact goals are not yet agreed and the shape of the final post-2015 development is still to be settled, there is a widespread consensus that education is priority and that equitable and quality education is core to the agenda. In this context, this paper discusses the continuities and discontinuities in the proposed post-2015 quality agenda through a textual analysis of UNESCO consultations on Education for All (EFA). In particular, this article focuses on the UNESCO post-2015 position paper and the Muscat Global Education meeting agreement in April 2015. They are significant policy texts as they evidence the current global education discourse on education and the development agenda and reflect the broad consultations and thinking reflected in the thematic consultations. They also are important as they seek to clarify and secure the focus on the Education for All goals within a future post-2015 development agenda. The analysis of these texts pays particular attention to how quality is conceptualised in these texts, how it is translated into targets and how teachers are located in the global education quality discourse. The paper argues that while potentially broad conceptualisations of quality emerge from these texts, quality is still being defined as literacy and numeracy and still being constrained by what can be measured. While teachers are identified as crucial to the quality agenda, there is still a failure to engage more broadly with teaching and learning as well as the diverse contexts of teaching and learning. The article argues that what is needed is a continued foregrounding of quality as a dynamic, process oriented social justice endeavour to give effect to a holistic and comprehensive approach to the broad quality agenda.     

Chinese responses to Shanghai’s performance in PISA

This article analyses the public responses in China to Shanghai’s performance in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Based on data obtained from media accounts and other materials published between 2013 and 2016, the research findings show that the responses in China are generally reflective, measured and self-critical. Drawing upon Gadamer’s notions of ‘tradition’, ‘horizon’ and ‘prejudice’, this paper contends that the responses reflect the prevailing worldviews in China that perceive Shanghai’s education system to be academically rigorous but too exam-oriented and burdensome. It is further argued that Confucian knowledge traditions and structures in China shape the Chinese interpretations of the PISA assessment format, leading them to downplay Shanghai’s success. This study introduces the metaphor of ‘triadic eyes’ and highlights the mediating effects of the ‘local eyes’ of policy actors in an era of global educational governance.     

‘Better policies for better lives’?: constructive critique of the OECD’s (mis)measure of student well-being

ABSTRACT

Facing increasing critique that PISA focuses too narrowly on cognitive achievement and human/knowledge capital, the OECD has recently shifted some of its focus to student happiness. The 2017 Students’ Well-Being report distinguishes between ‘happy schools’ and ‘unhappy schools’, showing that among students who combined high performance and life satisfaction, northern European countries topped the charts. Meanwhile, students in East Asian countries including Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea registered the lowest ‘life satisfaction’ scores among all participating countries. This piece points out some of the problems inherent in the OECD’s recent turn to happiness, problematizing the OECD yardstick of life satisfaction. Attempting to keep the critique constructive, we suggest that the OECD may want to consider using alternative metrics, then briefly highlight one developed in East Asia from different first assumptions: the Interdependent Happiness Scale. In conclusion we flag, but cannot answer, some related educational questions concerning policy, pedagogy, and priorities for the future.     

‘There is Still a Long Way to Go to be Solidly Marvellous’: Professional Identities,Performativity and Responsibilisation Arising From the Send Code of Practice 2015

Special educational needs and disability (SEND) professionalism can be seen as a microcosm of the wider policy arena where traditional policy frameworks of professionalism and bureaucracy are challenged by frameworks of managerialism, consumerism and individual rights and where the neoliberal policy technologies of performativity and responsibilisation challenge and change collaborative working practices and professional identities. The recent introduction of the statutory SEND Code of Practice 2015 in England brings this transformation into relief. An exploratory qualitative interview study highlights how individual professionals respond to, are changed by and sometimes resist these demands.     

PISA ‘Yet To Come’: governing schooling through time,difference and potential

This article examines emerging techniques of educational governance – based on time, difference and potential – enabled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s PISA-based Test for Schools (‘PISA for Schools’). I show how PISA for Schools facilitates the production of difference through comparative test data, allowing educators to imagine, and bring about, different potential futures. Drawing on Deleuze’s thinking around forms of difference, and the governance function of potentiality, and informed by interviews with key PISA for Schools policy actors, I illustrate how the visualisation of difference produces a local desire amongst schools and educators to become other than they currently are across multiple temporalities, and how this ‘impetus to action’ makes new actions and futures possible. This constitutes what I theorise as ‘governing through difference and potential’, where the underlying logic is for teachers to work on themselves in the present to continually improve the future.     

What did PISA and TIMSS ever do for us?: the potential of large scale datasets for understanding and improving educational practice

ABSTRACT

There appears to be something of an intellectual and philosophical gulf between education researchers who seek insights from statistical analyses of complex data-sets such as those provided by the OECD (PISA), and others who seek to develop rich, contextualised socio-historical understandings that can shed light upon why particular classroom practices operate and are sustained within a given milieu. This paper outlines these different perspectives, with particular reference to non-cognitive factors. Detailed analysis of the roots of high academic achievement, and associated challenges to student wellbeing, in many East Asian countries, is provided. The important influence of broad political and societal factors is highlighted by reference to cross-cultural differences across a large number of countries. The paper concludes by stating that while data from large datasets can assist in gaining greater understanding of cross-cultural differences, to be meaningful, such analyses should be incorporated within complex ecosystemic accounts.     

Standards-based external exams and students’ science-related career expectations: an international perspective

Students’ science-related career expectations are important for predicting their future science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related educational and occupational attainments. This study examines the degree to which standards-based external examinations are associated with a student’s propensity for pursuing science-related professional occupations. The science-related fields included in the analysis are mathematics, physical and life science, and engineering/computing. Three-level hierarchical generalized linear models are employed to analyse international survey and student achievement data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The analyses show that students in national education systems that require standards-based external examinations have lower expectations for science-related professional careers than students in the systems that do not use such examinations. This negative association remained constant by gender as well as across levels of science performance. From an educational policy point of view, the results suggest the negative consequence of standards-based external exams in fostering students’ interests in pursuing science-related careers.