Programme for International Student Assessment 2015
Argentina, Argentina, Australia...and 72 more, 2015
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WLD_2015_PISA_v01_M
Programme for International Student Assessment 2015
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Argentina | ARG |
| Argentina | ARG |
| Australia | AUS |
| Austria | AUT |
| Belgium | BEL |
| Bulgaria | BGR |
| Brazil | BRA |
| Canada | CAN |
| Switzerland | CHE |
| Chile | CHL |
| China | CHN |
| China | CHN |
| Colombia | COL |
| Costa Rica | CRI |
| Cyprus | CYP |
| Czech Republic | CZE |
| Germany | DEU |
| Denmark | DNK |
| Dominican Republic | DOM |
| Algeria | DZA |
| Spain | ESP |
| Spain | ESP |
| Estonia | EST |
| Finland | FIN |
| France | FRA |
| United Kingdom | GBR |
| United Kingdom | GBR |
| United Kingdom | GBR |
| Georgia | GEO |
| Greece | GRC |
| Hong Kong SAR, China | HKG |
| Croatia | HRV |
| Hungary | HUN |
| Indonesia | IDN |
| Ireland | IRL |
| Iceland | ISL |
| Israel | ISR |
| Italy | ITA |
| Jordan | JOR |
| Japan | JPN |
| Kazakhstan | KAZ |
| Kosovo | KSV |
| Lebanon | LBN |
| Lithuania | LTU |
| Luxembourg | LUX |
| Latvia | LVA |
| Macao SAR, China | MAC |
| Moldova | MDA |
| Mexico | MEX |
| North Macedonia | MKD |
| Malta | MLT |
| Montenegro | MNE |
| Malaysia | MYS |
| Netherlands | NLD |
| Norway | NOR |
| New Zealand | NZL |
| Peru | PER |
| Poland | POL |
| Portugal | PRT |
| Qatar | QAT |
| Romania | ROU |
| Russian Federation | RUS |
| Singapore | SGP |
| Slovak Republic | SVK |
| Slovenia | SVN |
| Sweden | SWE |
| Thailand | THA |
| Trinidad and Tobago | TTO |
| Tunisia | TUN |
| Turkiye | TUR |
| Taiwan, China | TWN |
| Uruguay | URY |
| United States | USA |
| United States | USA |
| Vietnam | VNM |
The 2015 survey is the sixth round of assessments since PISA began in 2000, and the third, after the 2003 survey, that focuses on mathematics. As such, PISA 2015 provides an opportunity to evaluate changes in student performance in mathematics since 2003, and to view those changes in the context of policies and other factors. The next survey round is 2018.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students.
As in previous cycles, the 2015 assessment covers science, reading and mathematics, with the major focus in this cycle on scientific literacy. Financial literacy is an optional assessment, as it was in 2012. A questionnaire about students' background is distributed to all participating students. Students may also choose to complete additional questionnaires: one about their future studies/career, a second about their familiarity with information and communication technologies. School principals complete a questionnaire about the learning environment in their schools, and parents of students who sit the PISA test can choose to complete a questionnaire about the home environment. Seventy-two countries and economies, including all 35 OECD countries, participated in the PISA 2015 assessment.
Sample survey data [ssd]
To better compare student performance internationally, PISA targets a specific age of students. PISA students are aged between 15 years 3 months and 16 years 2 months at the time of the assessment, and have completed at least 6 years of formal schooling. They can be enrolled in any type of institution, participate in full-time or part-time education, in academic or vocational programmes, and attend public or private schools or foreign schools within the country. Using this age across countries and over time allows PISA to compare consistently the knowledge and skills of individuals born in the same year who are still in school at age 15, despite the diversity of their education histories in and outside of school.
Scope
The scope of the PISA 2015 study includes the following:
- Students' family background, science, mathematics, reading, collaborative problem solving and financial literacy
Science covers: - Bird Migration
- Running in Hot Weather
- Slope-Face Investigation
- Meteoroids and Craters
- Sustainable Fish Farming
Scientific Question Categories:
Scientific Competencies
- Explain phenomena scientifically to recognise, offer and evaluate explanations for a range of natural and technological phenomena.
- Evaluate and design scientific enquiry to describe and appraise scientific investigations and propose ways of addressing questions scientifically.
- Interpret data and evidence scientifically to analyse and evaluate data, claims and arguments in a variety of representations and draw appropriate scientific conclusions.
Knowledge Categories
- Content knowledge refers to the knowledge of theories, explanatory ideas, information and facts
- Procedural knowledge refers to an understanding of how such knowledge has been derived, the knowledge about the concepts and procedures that are essential for scientific enquiry, and that underpin the collection, analysis and interpretation of scientific data.
- Epistemic knowledge refers to the nature of that knowledge, an understanding of the nature and origin of knowledge in science, and reflects students’ capacity to think and engage in reasoned discourse as scientists do. Epistemic knowledge is required to understand the distinction between observations, facts, hypotheses, models and theories, but also to understand why certain procedures, such as experiments, are central to establishing knowledge in science.
Content Areas
- Knowledge can also be classified according to the major scientific fields to which it pertains: physical systems, living systems, and earth and space systems.
Context of Assessment Items
- Three context categories identify the broad areas of life in which the test problems may arise: “personal”, which are contexts related to students’ and families’ daily lives; “local/national”, which are contexts related to the community in which students live; and “global”, which are contexts defined by life across the world.
Coverage
PISA 2015 covered 72 counteies (35 OECD countries and 37 partner countries and economies. All countries attempted to maximise the coverage of 15-year-olds enrolled in education in their national samples, including students enrolled in special educational institutions.
To provide valid estimates of student achievement, the sample of students had to be selected using established and professionally recognised principles of scientific sampling in a way that ensured representation of the full target population of 15-year-old students in the participating countries.
Furthermore, quality standards had to be maintained with respect to (i) the coverage of the PISA international target population, (ii) accuracy and precision, and (iii) the school and student response rates.
National Project Managers (NPMs) might have found it necessary to reduce their coverage of the target population by excluding, for instance, a small, remote geographical region due to inaccessibility, or a language group, possibly due to political, organisational or operational reasons, or special education needs students. Areas deemed to be part of a country (for the purpose of PISA), but which were not included for sampling, although this occurred infrequently, were designated as non-covered areas. Care was taken in this regard because, when such situations did occur, the national desired target population differed from the international desired target population. In an international survey in education, the types of exclusion must be defined consistently for all participating countries and the exclusion rates have to be limited. Indeed, if a significant proportion of students were excluded, this would mean that survey results would not be representative of the entire national school system. Thus, efforts were made to ensure that exclusions, if they were necessary, were minimised according to the PISA 2015 Technical Standards (see Appendix F of the Technical Report).
Producers and sponsors
| Name |
|---|
| Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |
| Name |
|---|
| Australian Council for Educational Research |
| Netherlands National Institute for Educational Measurement |
| Service de Pédagogie Expérimentale at Université de Liège |
| Westat (USA) |
| Educational Testing Service (USA) |
| National Institute for Educational Research (Japan) |
| Name |
|---|
| Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |
Sampling
In all but one country, the Russian Federation, the sampling design used for the PISA assessment was a two-stage stratified sample design. The first-stage sampling units consisted of individual schools having 15-year-old students, or the possibility of having such students at the time of assessment. Schools were sampled systematically from a comprehensive national list of all PISA-eligible schools, known as the school sampling frame, with probabilities that were proportional to a measure of size. The measure of size was a function of the estimated number of PISA-eligible 15-year-old students enrolled in the school. This is referred to as systematic probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling. Prior to sampling, schools in the sampling frame were assigned to mutually exclusive groups based on school characteristics called explicit strata, formed to improve the precision of sample-based estimates.
The second-stage sampling units in countries using the two-stage design were students within sampled schools. Once schools were selected to be in the sample, a complete list of each sampled school's 15-year-old students was prepared. Each country had to set a target cluster size (TCS) of 42 students for computer-based countries and 35 for paper-based countries, although with agreement countries could use alternative values. The sample size within schools is prescribed, within limits, in the PISA Technical Standards (see Annex F of the Technical Report). From each list of students that contained more than the target cluster size, a sample of around 42 students were selected with equal probability and for lists with fewer than the target number, all students on the list were selected.
A response rate of 85% was required for initially-selected schools. If the initial school response rate fell between 65% and 85%, an acceptable school response rate could still be reached through the use of replacement schools.
An overall response rate of 80% of selected students in participating schools was required. A student who had participated in the original or follow-up cognitive sessions was considered to be a participant. A minimum student response rate of 50% within each school was required for a school to be regarded as participating: the overall student response rate was computed using only students from schools with at least a 50% student response rate. Again, weighted student response rates were used for assessing this standard.
Each student was weighted by the reciprocal of his/her sample selection probability.
Survey instrument
Paper-based tests were used, with assessments lasting two hours. In a range of countries and economies, an additional 40 minutes were devoted to the computer-based assessment of mathematics, reading and problem solving.
Test items were a mixture of questions requiring students to construct their own responses and multiple-choice items. The items were organised in groups based on a passage setting out a real-life situation. A total of about 390 minutes of test items were covered, with different students taking different combinations of test items.
Students answered a background questionnaire, which took 30 minutes to complete, that sought information about themselves, their homes and their school and learning experiences. School principals were given a questionnaire, to complete in 30 minutes, that covered the school system and the learning environment. In some countries and economies, optional questionnaires were distributed to parents, who were asked to provide information on their perceptions of and involvement in their child’s school, their support for learning in the home, and their child’s career expectations, particularly in mathematics. Countries could choose two other optional questionnaires for students: one asked students about their familiarity with and use of information and communication technologies, and the second sought information about their education to date, including any interruptions in their schooling and whether and how they are preparing for a future career.
The PISA 2015 Science Test Questions are available in 90 other languages.
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2015-03 | 2015-08 |
- Additional data files include all data for Argentina, Kazakhstan and Malaysia, and student questionnaire data for Albania. Due to issues identified during data adjudication, caution is required when analysing these data. For further information, see Annex A4 of PISA 2015 Results (Volume I): Excellence and Equity in Education (OECD, 2016).
Note: Data for student questionnaire items ST016 and ST038 will be available when the PISA 2015 Results Volume III is published in April 2017. Financial Literacy datasets will be available when the PISA 2015 Results Volume IV is published in May 2017. Collaborative Problem Solving datasets will be available when the PISA 2015 Results Volume V is published in October/November 2017.
For queries about the PISA 2015 database and associated files, contact edu.pisa@oecd.org.
Data processing
Software specially designed for PISA facilitated data entry, detected common errors during data entry, and facilitated the process of data cleaning. Training sessions familiarised National Project Managers with these procedures.
Data Access
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download
Example:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. World Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015. Ref. WLD_2015_PISA_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from [URL] on [date].
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Contacts
| Name | URL | |
|---|---|---|
| OECD PISA | edu.pisa@oecd.org | http://www.oecd.org/pisa/home/ |
Metadata production
DDI_WLD_2015_PISA_v02_WB
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Development Economics Data Group | The World Bank | Documentation of the DDI |
2018-09-19
Metadata version
DDI Document - Version 02 - (04/21/21)
This version is identical to DDI_WLD_2015_PISA_v01_M_WB but country field has been updated to capture all the countries covered by survey.
Version 01 (September 2018)