Category Archives: DQ #6

DQ#6: PISA and TIMSS

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If researchers have concluded that PISA is one indicator of whether school systems are preparing students for the global economy and a high ranking on PISA correlates to economic success, in what other ways are school systems using this data?

Statistics reveal that American students do not perform well on PISA compared to students in most other OECD countries, why is this? How and when does culture become a factor?

I enjoyed this question in an article I read from Education Next: “Can PISA really inform a state’s policymakers about how to improve their school system?”

Also, how do international assessments provide concrete evidence on what makes school systems succeed? Is there sufficient findings in these exams?

Article: http://educationnext.org/the-international-pisa-test/

Defending PISA: http://educationnext.org/defending-pisa/

DQ#6 PISA and TIMSS

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How does PISA affect and influence educational policy around the world in order to reach the goal of quality education that helps all students reach their potentials? What factors do policymakers compare in different educational systems when evaluating effectiveness?

Shanghai, Korea, Hong Kong, Finland and Singapore are among the top scoring countries in the 2009 PISA examinations. Why are 4 of these countries in the Asia-Pacific region? Does the home background (books at home, exposure to words) play a role in influencing student success in these countries? Are there other factors?

According to the PISA exam girls do better in reading than boys in every country that took PISA assessments and boys do better in math than girls….and science is equal. How do you think gender influences subject mastery and how can the learning from these findings improve educational best practices?

DQ #6 PISA and TIMSS mathematical/science exams

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1) Should test administrators take variation of questioning into consideration. One of the defining differences of PISA and TIMSS is that PISA asks students to solve problems through real world contexts. Does this make a difference in outcomes and should all subject tests be related to practical situations?

2) Is it fair that exams like PISA and TIMSS exclude the measurement of other faculties? Should test administrators (of all standardized tests) consider adding sections that evaluate things like language proficiency and writing ability?

How some of us read math problems:

funny-math-problem-confusing-quote.jpg

DQ #6 PISA and TIMSS

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Do you think that it is important to measure both what students have learned from the school curricula and their ability to use the knowledge in real life situations?  Do you feel more strongly about one or the other?  Why?

How could the culture and curriculum of a country’s education system affect the outcomes of the PISA and TIMMS tests?

DQ #6: TIMSS & PISA

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  1. Why are these international assessment comparison and findings important? How does this affect the education system and policies of any given country?
  2. After looking at these assessment rankings and findings, how would this affect the implementation of international education around the world? For countries who are below average, how might their ranking affect international education policies of the country? How are the students affected by these assessments in terms of global learning?

DQ #6, TIMSS and PISA

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What does comparing educational achievement in various countries using TIMSS and PISA accomplish? How does this information help improve education? Is anything done with it?

Should other subjects, besides mathematics, science and reading, be tested? Which subjects might also be important to assess?

PISA and TIMSS

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Why do you think that students from Western countries tend to do better on the PISA test and students from Asian and Eastern European countries tend to do better on the TIMSS test?

Do you think that it is more beneficial to measure classroom performance (TIMSS), or the application of learned concepts like the PISA?