PISA 2015 Results

              This post is a summary of a book with the incomplete title above and published in 2016 at http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/education/pisa-2015-results-volume-i_9789264266490.  And a report published at http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-Brazil.pdf

               The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched the triennial survey of 15 year old students around the world known as the Programme for International Students Assessment, or PISA. The assessment focuses on the core school subjects of science, reading and mathematics. PISA is an ongoing programme that offers insight for education policy and practice, and that helps monitor trends in students' acquisition of knowledge across countries. Approximately 540 000 students completed the assessment in 2015 in the schools of the 72 participating countries. Every PISA test, one of those subjects is the main domain. Science was the major domain in 2006 and again in 2015. On average across OECD countries with comparable data in PISA 2006 and 2015 has not changed significantly. Still 13 countries show a significant improvement in science performance. Argentina, Georgia and Qatar students improved by more than 20 score points. Among OECD countries, Portugal improved by more than 7 points and Israel by 5 points. By contrast, in Finland, Slovak Republic and U.A.E., student performance in science deteriorated by more than 10 points. Performance in Australia, Czech Republic, Greece, China, Hungary and New Zealand deteriorated betweeen 5 and 10 points. Student's current and future engagement with science is primarily shaped by two forces: how students think about themselves and their atitudes towards science and towards science-related activities, that is, whether they perceive these activities as important, enjoyable and useful. On average across OECD countries, almost one in four students expect to work in an occupation that require further science training beyond compulsory education. Boys and girls seem to be interested in different areas of science. Boys are more interested in physics and chemistry, while girls tend to be more interested in biology. In all 57 countries that included questions work-related, more boys than girls  reported being interested on the topics of energy and its transformation. Meanwhile, girls were more likely to report being interested in how science can prevent disease. In PISA, reading. Canada, China, Singapore and Finland score well above the OECD average. In mathematics. Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and Japan were the highest-performing countries. On average, boys outperform girls in math, the difference is largest in Austria, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain. In nine countries, including top performancers Finland and China; as well as Albania, Jordan, Malaysia, and Trinidad, girls score higher than boys in math. PISA consistently shows that poverty is not destiny. On average, in PISA 2015, 29% of disadvantage students are "resilient", meaning that they score in the 25% highest-performing part, despite the odds against them. In China, Estonia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam more than 4 in 10 disadvantage students are "resilient". In Brazil, 9% of disadvantage students are 'resilient'. In recent decades. educationalists and policy makers have become more attentive to the dimensions of learning science. Concerns have grown that the proportions of students who choose careers in science are insufficient. While educating and encouraging the next generation of scientists, engineers and health professionals is one of the goals of science education, experts in many countries, including Australia, E.U. and the U.S. have recently expressed concern about declines in enrollment and graduation rates for science-related fields. The countries that have improved the most in PISA over the past decade have often shown the capacity to find solutions to the challenges they face. Such improvements could indicate that countries are harvesting some of early fruits of their efforts to improve their education systems. Colombia and Portugal are among the few education systems whose reforms have been succesful in improving student performance.

               The average performance of student in Brazil is significantly below the OECD average on science (401, compared to the average of 493), reading (407, compared to the 493) and math (377 to the average of 490). Brazil's average performance in science has remained stable since 2006. The fact that Brazil has managed to integrate newly enrolled students without a decline in its overall performance over time is a positive development. In fact, while results have remained stable in science and reading since 2006, the country's performance in math has improved by 21 points since 2003. However this trend is driven, in particular, by widening inequalities in achievement: while the best-performing 10% of students score close to the OECD average, the low-performing 10% fell further behind over the most recent period. The widening gap may underline the significant challenges faced by Brazil in integrating the weakest students in a fast-changing society, where opportunities are increasingly shaped by knowledge, skills and tech. In Brazil, 70% of students fail to achieve the most basic level of proficiency in math. Only three other Latin America countries come closer or surpass Brazil's staggering percentages of low performers: Colombia and Peru (both near 66%) and Dominican Republic 90%. PISA asked students what occupations they expect to be working in when they are 30 years old. This revealed a interest in science as a career among students in Brazil. In fact, nearly 40% of students reported that they expect to work in a science-related career, above the OECD countries average of 25%. In almost all countries, the expectation of pursuing a career in science is related to proficiency in science. However, in Brazil, strong interest in science as a career stand in contrast with students' proficiency. Unlike in the majority of OECD countries, girls in Brazil are more likely than boys to enjoy acquiring knowledge in science. On average across OECD countries, 20% of students reported that they had skipped a day of school or more in the two weeks prior to the PISA test; in Brazil, 48% of students so reported.  In Brazil, 44% of students say that their teacher adapt lesson to the class' needs and knowledge, and these students score 25 points higher in science than students who say that their teachers never adapt lessons.