Snapshot of PISA Test Results

????

On Tuesday, December 5, 2023, the 2022 PISA test results were shared live from Paris. Keep in mind the test was originally scheduled to be administered in 2021, but postponed until 2022 because of the pandemic. The report not only analyzed test data across participating nations, but included factors affecting performance, such as student well-being, teacher and digital accessibility, inclusion, equity, and safety. These factors provide insight for leaders to consider as important focus areas for improvement. As stated in the report, “The 2022 OECD PISA test represents the first-large scale study to collect data on student performance…” since the pandemic.

The articles previously written on Singapore and Finland stressed the importance of teacher training and teacher quality to their success. These same themes were echoed in the PISA report and magnified in importance. The gaps in test performance were attributable in part to students not having access to highly trained and effective teachers, as well as teachers not being completely tuned in to students’ needs. The degree of parental engagement was also noted as a contributing factor in student learning.

During the pandemic, students who had access to digital devices and proficient in their use, were less impacted by the disruption. The type of devices they used also influenced learning. Despite little surprise from the educational community, students reported that cell phone use was distracting and created high levels of anxiety for them in the classroom. The findings went as far as suggest that the only solution to the cell phone problem is a ban on them entirely, since policies that seek to reduce, or limit, their use are not effective.

Mental health also played a critical role in student performance, especially in the subject of mathematics. Naturally, students who are anxious will likely perform less well than students who are confident in their abilities. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect a focus on instructional strategies that reduce anxiety and increase confidence. Experts encourage the use of the growth mindset as a concept to reduce anxiety, and shared Carol Dweck’s book, entitled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, as an instructional resource. Carol Dweck is an American psychologist and best known for her work on motivation and mindset.

When socio-economic disparities are absent, or negligible, from school-to-school within a state, province, or geographic location, students perform better. The PISA report refers to this as “equity" in terms of "opportunity to succeed in school and life” and noted that “poverty need not be a destiny.” The report also introduced the term “inclusion" to mean in this instance, "students having equal access to high quality education”, and although money is a factor in achieving this destination, it is not the total solution. Simply allocating more money as a solution to a problem is not a guarantee. They capped the threshold dollar amount to $75,000 per student over a five-year span. Money spent beyond that limit produces little, if any, additional benefit.

The discussion on gender-gap and immigration status of students was no more dramatic than the threshold dollar amount spent on students. In general, boys out-performed girls in mathematics; girls out-performed boys in reading; and there is no gender difference in science. With respect to immigration status, non-immigrant students perform better than immigrant students. Finland, if you recall from the last newsletter, speculated that their drop in ranking from the top ten was due to rising immigration. The 2022 PISA test results confirmed this suspicion. Differences in educational attainment, language barriers, and difficulties with cultural assimilation, are some reasons immigrants experience initial difficulties in learning, and helps explain the drop in their performance.

The report confirms the impact the pandemic had on learning around the world. It is estimated that students lost as much as three quarters of a year of growth. Countries with shorter periods of school closures, such as Singapore, Japan, Korea, Estonia, and Canada, performed better than schools with longer ones. Both Volume I and Volume II of the report should be used as a resource to help school systems plan strategically as they grapple with strategies to narrow the achievement gap (See references below).

Thus far, the previous newsletters covered the educational systems of three nations: Brazil, Singapore, and Finland. Brazil is more of an outlier, since they have not performed well on PISA tests, but showing signs of improvement by making notable gains in 2022. Singapore, however, continues to outperform other nations; Canada is fifth in the world; and mentioned earlier is Finland, who dropped to seventeenth (See Figure 1 below). Canada is similar to the United States in structure with provinces instead of states and will be covered in greater detail in the next newsletter. The United States is at status quo in performance, but many states, including New York, are making significant progress when it comes to equity, inclusion, mental health, school safety, and digital access. It will be interesting to see in three years how nations compare after the next administration of the test, and what adjustments are made based on the information in the report.

In closing, the following is a direct quote from the report: “The COVID-19 pandemic was a stress test for education systems. It revealed whether schools and students around the globe were able to adapt to sudden and profound changes in how instruction is provided and how students learn. Now that the crisis phase has passed, policy makers and schools need to know where students stand in their learning and well-being to be able to provide remedial measures for those students who fell behind in their learning or suffered emotionally or physically from the pandemic. Updated information on the resources available and the general climate in schools after the pandemic can also help education systems prepare for the future.”

?

References

1.???? OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris

2.???? OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume II): Learning During – and From – Disruption, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris