What is PISA?

Prepared by:- Mahmoud Abdul-Monem Abdul-Aziz

Academic and Educational Supervisor
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international
assessment of the skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds.  PISA is a project of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  In all
counties, the project is managed by the Educational Research Centres on the behalf
of the Ministries of Education.

The subject areas or ‘domains’ assessed by PISA are reading literacy,

mathematics and science.

In more recent cycles of PISA, additional innovative domains have been developed
and made available to countries to administer to students. For example, Creative
Problem Solving .

PISA has transitioned to a computer-based assessment; since 2015, almost all

participating countries, including Ireland, have administered PISA entirely by
computer. In previous cycles of PISA, as well as completing paper-based
assessments of reading literacy, mathematics and science, additional optional
assessments of digital literacy, computer-based mathematics and problem solving
were administered.

Adaptive testing is possible on a computer-based platform and can improve

accuracy and fairness in testing. Using a multi-stage approach, the test is adaptive
to each student’s ability level – students start on a common set of items, and then,
at intervals, progress onto items of a lower or higher difficulty, based on their
previous performance.

Along with assessing the achievements of students, PISA collects detailed

contextual information from students, parents, teachers, and principals through
the context questionnaires.