PISA

Amber Medina

What is PISA?
Programme for International Students (PISA) is a
high stakes survey that takes place every three
years focussing primarily on 15 year olds. The tests
is overseen by the OECD but funded by its
contributing countries which Australia is apart of.
PISA is designed to test students on their ability to
apply reading, mathematics and science skills to
answer everyday life problems.

What does it look like?

The test goes for two hours, and asks for the
students to answer multiple choice questions and
open-ended questions that are organised into
groups based on a passage setting out a real-life
situation (OECD, 2015)
The students and their principals are also required
to fill out a survey to gauge more information about
the circumstances and situation of the students
background, school experiences, the wider school
system and learning environments. (OECD, 2015)

What is it used for?

ACER states that PISA provides data from
internationally standardised tests that enables
Australia to compare and monitor its performance
with that of other countries (ACER, 2015)
For the countries participating in PISA, successive
surveys can compare their students performances
over time and assess the impact of education policy
decisions (OECD, 2015)

What are the positives?

The PISA test focuses on application rather than
the retrieval of information, focussing again on
real-life skills rather than curriculum standards.
PISA provides Australia with information on
performance over time, whether what we are doing
is working/not working, and how we can improve
our standards on a global level.

What are the negatives?

It can be said that the PISA data is non-comparable
as the students form all over the world are living in
totally different circumstances and have different
experiences and lives.
Therefore concentrating on a world ranking could
be less beneficial than looking into and critically
analysing and improving an already existing
education system and the causes behind the gaps.

References
ACER, Australian Council for Educational Research 2015, PISA Australia retrieved
March 29 2016, http://www.acer.edu.au/ozpisa/pisa-Australia
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,
2015,PISA,retrieved March 29 2016 <http://www.oecd.org/pisa/>