A slide set used to share recent PISA results around colleagues here in the Middle East.

1. PISA 2009
latest world results
in 12 slides
See: OECD (2010), PISA 2009 Results: Executive Summary
Saturday, 11 December 2010

2. PISA
run by OECD
tests regularly every three years
testing in 3 domains: mathematics, science and reading
test focus is on young people’s ability to use their knowledge and
skills to meet real-life challenges
75 countries took part in 2009 - 65 scored in the December report
all countries get scores (helpful) and rankings (be cautious)
average score is 500
differences in scores of about 8-12 points are not necessarily
significant
Saturday, 11 December 2010

3. PISA headlines 2009
Asia comes out top - five out of the top ten
countries
China in for the first time but not as whole
country - Shanghai has best scores in all 3
domains
Finland and Korea again doing well
Saturday, 11 December 2010

4. Summary of findings: Reading
• Korea and Finland are the highest performing OECD countries, with mean
scores of 539 and 536 points
• However, Shanghai outperforms them by a significant margin, with 556
• Top-performers in reading literacy include Hong Kong (533), Singapore (526),
Canada (524), New Zealand (521), Japan (520) and Australia (515)
• The Netherlands (508), Belgium (506), Norway (503), Estonia (501),
Switzerland (501), Poland (500), Iceland (500) and Liechtenstein (499) also
perform above the OECD mean score of 494
• While the United States, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, france, Denmark, the
United Kingdom, Hungary, Portugal, and Taipei have scores close to the OECD
mean
• The lowest performing OECD country, Mexico has an average score of 425
Saturday, 11 December 2010

5. Global range: Reading
• This means that the gap between the highest and lowest performing
OECD countries is 114 points – the equivalent of more than two school
years
• And the gap between the highest and lowest performing partner
country or economy is even larger, with 242 score points – or more
than six years of formal schooling – separating the mean performance
of Shanghai and Kyrgyzstan (314).
• Differences between countries represent, however, only a fraction of
overall variation in student performance.
Saturday, 11 December 2010

6. Summary of findings:
mathematics
Korea, with a country mean of 546 score points, performed highest
among OECD countries in the PISA 2009 mathematics assessment.
The partner countries and economies Shanghai-China, Singapore and
Hong Kong-China rank first, second and third, respectively.
In the PISA 2009 mathematics assessment, the OECD countries Finland,
Switzerland, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium,
Australia, Germany, Estonia, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia and the partner
countries and economies Taipei, Liechtenstein and Macao also perform
significantly above the OECD average in mathematics.
Saturday, 11 December 2010

7. Summary of findings:
science
Shanghai, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore are the four highest
performers in the PISA 2009 science assessment.
In science, New Zealand, Canada, Estonia, Australia, the Netherlands,
Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Poland, Ireland and
Belgium as well as the partner country and economies Taipei, Liechtenstein
and Macao also perform significantly above the OECD average.
Saturday, 11 December 2010

8. Gender: Girls outperform boys in reading skills in every participating
country. Throughout much of the 20th century, concern about gender
differences in education focused on girls’ underachievement. More
recently, however, the scrutiny has shifted to boys’ underachievement in
reading. In the PISA 2009 reading assessment, girls outperform boys in
every participating country by an average, among OECD countries, of 39
PISA score points – equivalent to more than half a proficiency level or
one year of schooling.
On average across OECD countries, boys outperform girls in mathematics
by 12 score points while gender differences in science performance tend
to be small.
The ranks of top-performing students are filled nearly equally with girls
and boys. On average across OECD countries, 4.4 per cent of girls and
3.8 per cent of boys are top performers in all three subjects, and 15.6
per cent of girls and 17.0 per cent of boys are top performers in at least
one subject area.
While the gender gap among top-performing students is small in science
(1% of girls and 1.5% of boys), it is significant in reading (2.8% of girls
and 0.5% of boys) and in mathematics (3.4% of girls and 6.6% of boys).
Saturday, 11 December 2010

9. Example rankings
reading mathematics science
Shanghai 556 600 575
Korea 539 546 538
Finland 536 541 554
Australia 515 514 527
USA 500 487 502
UK 494 492 514
Dubai 459 453 466
Mexico 425 419 416
Qatar 372 368 379
OECD average 493 496 501
Saturday, 11 December 2010

10. Comparing on gender
% of boys under % of girls under
reading level 2 level 2
Shanghai 556 7 2
Korea 539 9 2
Finland 536 13 3
Australia 515 20 9
USA 500 21 14
UK 494 23 14
Dubai 459 41 21
Mexico 425 46 34
Qatar 372 72 54
OECD average 493 25 13
Saturday, 11 December 2010

11. Some detail
Girls read better than boys in every country, by an average of 39 points, the equivalent to one year of
schooling. The gender gap has not improved in any country since 2000, and widened in France, Israel, Korea,
Portugal and Sweden. This is mirrored in a decline of boy’s enjoyment of reading and their engagement with
reading in their leisure time.
The best school systems were the most equitable - students do well regardless of their socio-economic
background. But schools that select students based on ability, early, show the greatest differences in
performance by socio-economic background.
High performing school systems tend to prioritise teacher pay over smaller class sizes.
Countries where students repeat grades more often tend to have worse results overall, with the widest gaps
between children from poor and better-off families. Making students repeat years is most common in Belgium,
France, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain.
Schools with good discipline and better student-teacher relations achieve better reading results.
High performing systems allow schools to design curricula and establish assessment policies but don’t
necessarily allow competition for students.
Public and private schools achieve similar results, after taking account of their home backgrounds.
Combining local autonomy and effective accountability seems to produce the best results.
The percentage of students who said they read for pleasure dropped from 69% in 2000 to 64% in 2009.
Saturday, 11 December 2010

12. Comparisons over time
PISA 2000 and PISA 2009 both focused on reading, so it is possible to track how student performance
in reading changed over that period.
Among the 26 OECD countries where comparisons are possible, Chile, Israel, Poland, Portugal,
Korea, Hungary and Germany (plus partner countries Peru, Albania, Indonesia, Latvia, Liechtenstein
and Brazil) improved their reading performance between 2000 and 2009, while performance declined
in Ireland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Australia.
In many countries, improvements in results were largely driven by improvements at the bottom end of
the performance distribution, signalling progress towards greater equity in learning outcomes.
On average, OECD countries narrowed the gap in scores between their highest- and lowest-
performing students between 2000 and 2009; some also improved overall performance. In Chile,
Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and the partner countries Indonesia, Latvia and Liechtenstein,
overall performance improved while the variation in performance decreased. In many cases, this was
the result of improvements among low-achieving students.
The gender gap in reading performance did not narrow in any country between 2000 and 2009.
Across OECD countries, overall performance in mathematics remained unchanged between 2003 and
2009, as did performance in science between 2006 and 2009.
On average across OECD countries, the percentage of students who report reading for enjoyment
daily dropped by five percentage points. Enjoyment of reading tends to have deteriorated, especially
among boys, signalling the challenge for schools to engage students in reading activities that 15-year-
olds find relevant and interesting.
Saturday, 11 December 2010