Programme for International Student Assessment

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading. It was first performed in 2000 and then repeated every three years. Its aim is to provide comparable data with a view to enabling countries to improve their education policies and outcomes. It measures problem solving and cognition in daily life.

The 2012 version of the test involved 34 OECD countries and 31 partner countries, with a total of 510,000 participating students. The 2015 version of the test was published on 6 December 2016.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement are similar studies.

PISA, and similar international standardised assessments of educational attainment are increasingly used in the process of education policymaking at both national and international levels.

PISA was conceived to set in a wider context the information provided by national monitoring of education system performance through regular assessments within a common, internationally agreed framework; by investigating relationships between student learning and other factors they can “offer insights into sources of variation in performances within and between countries”.

Until the 1990s, few European countries used national tests. In the 1990s, ten countries / regions introduced standardised assessment, and since the early 2000s, ten more followed suit. By 2009, only five education systems had no national student assessments.

The impact of these international standardised assessments in the field of educational policy has been significant, in terms of the creation of new knowledge, changes in assessment policy, and external influence over national educational policy more broadly.

Data from international standardised assessments can be useful in research on causal factors within or across education systems. Mons notes that the databases generated by large-scale international assessments have made possible the carrying out, on an unprecedented scale, of inventories and comparisons of education systems in more than 40 countries and on themes ranging from the conditions for learning in mathematics and reading, to institutional autonomy and admissions policies. They allow typologies to be developed that can be used for comparative statistical analyses of education performance indicators, thereby identifying the consequences of different policy choices. They have generated new knowledge about education: PISA findings have challenged deeply embedded educational practices, such as the early tracking of students into vocational or academic pathways.