Search Results for: Pisa

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Former head teacher says ‘PISA has very little statistical rigour and offers nothing in the way of improving educational practice’

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By Alasdair Macdonald The issue is with PISA. It has very little statistical rigour and offers nothing in the way of improving educational practice. I was a secondary school head teacher at the time it and other ‘measures’ were introduced in education in Scotland in other places. I and my colleagues argued against it. Educational provision, like everything else, ought to be continuously evaluated, partly to get evidence on whether it is achieving the aims set out for it and partly to get information on areas which require attention. However, there are, literally, hundreds of aspects to be measured and … Continue reading Former head teacher says ‘PISA has very little statistical rigour and offers nothing in the way of improving educational practice’

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Worse than England – Pisa scores fiasco leads to NINTH Welsh Education minister since devolution

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By stewartb I’m not one to consider that an education system should be judged on just the OECD’s PISA scoring but there is something to be said for comparing reactions by politicians to such scores for different parts of the UK. When the last set of PISA results for Scotland were reported on the BBC News website on 5 December 2023, we learned that ‘Performance in Scotland’s high schools has slipped according to new international research on education.’ With countries across the world receiving scores that were better or indeed more often worse than before, there are likely to be … Continue reading Worse than England – Pisa scores fiasco leads to NINTH Welsh Education minister since devolution

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Pisa seems unlikely to be valid basis upon which to compare and rank countries, regions and economies.

johnrobertson834

stewartb Yet another, recently encountered critique of Pisa rankings with those readers of TuS who have developed an interest in this famed OECD initiative in international comparative education (with my emphasis): From Sjøberg, S. & Jenkins, E. (2022) PISA: a political project and a research agenda, Studies in Science Education, 58:1 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057267.2020.1824473 ) ‘Conclusion: As a major international comparative study, PISA differs from much earlier work in the field of comparative education. It is quantitative rather than qualitative and is UNDERPINNED BY A PRIORI ASSUMPTIONS about the relationship between science and mathematics test scores and economic development. As noted above, those … Continue reading Pisa seems unlikely to be valid basis upon which to compare and rank countries, regions and economies.

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Pisa so useless school secretaries have not heard of it!

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Recently retired school secretary and chair of the Scottish School Secretaries Society, kelticgirl (name withheld to protect the innocent) has told us: I worked as a school secretary for over 20 years and I have no idea what Pisa is. Our Education Correspondent, Fion Brews, tells us: Researchers have found that Scottish head teachers hid Pisa results from their secretaries because they feared that this often stroppy group might blackmail them with the evidence that Scottish weans were not frightened enough to do better in them. Continue reading Pisa so useless school secretaries have not heard of it!

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What do an American and an English woman actually know about Scottish education? Pisa all!

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The folk of Kelso look puzzled and well they might. Question Time last night, particularly on Education, when we saw the SNP representative, Angela Constance subjected to quickfire attack and constant interruption from both sides, the English host, Fiona Bruce, and the American right-wing activist, Kate Andrews, was a disgracefully uninformed experience. …compared to England. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001tcjh/question-time-2023-14122023 Disgracefully uninformed? Only politicians and media presenters make use of Pisa data. No credible researcher in education will use them other than to point to their lack of value in developing educational policy. See: OECD and Pisa tests are damaging education worldwide – academics … Continue reading What do an American and an English woman actually know about Scottish education? Pisa all!

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English Lords ignore Pisa test results and call for curriculum more like Scotland’s

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From the Guardian today: Peers [led by former Education Secretary Kenneth Baker, above] call for urgent overhaul of secondary education in England – Lords report says there is too much learning by rote and many key Tory changes should be reversed. The House of Lords report says the education system for 11- to 16-year-olds is too focused on academic learning and written exams, resulting in too much learning by rote and not enough opportunity for pupils to pursue creative and technical subjects. The committee recommends instead that schools and teachers should be allowed to offer a more varied range of … Continue reading English Lords ignore Pisa test results and call for curriculum more like Scotland’s

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No credible academic uses the Pisa scores and proper tests show real progress in Scotland’s schools

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‘Pisa tests fail to recognise what’s important in education and should be ignored’ https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/pisa-tests-fail-recognise-whats-important-education-and-should-be-ignored OECD and Pisa tests are damaging education worldwide – academics https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/06/oecd-pisa-tests-damaging-education-academics Too few students from England took part in the study – meaning the results could be up to eight points too generous, as more higher-performing pupils took part.  https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pisa-2022-rise-in-maths-but-warning-over-inflated-results/#:~:text=But%20the%20country’s%20performance%20is,caution%20on%20interpreting%20the%20findings. I could go on with quotes about Pisa but the above three give a flavour of just how useless they are. Only politicians use them and do so to make cynical and unsubstantiated points. You only have to look a bit deeper to find more credible … Continue reading No credible academic uses the Pisa scores and proper tests show real progress in Scotland’s schools

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Pisa – 33% of Scotland’s schools took part but only 4.7% of England’s schools were confident enough to do so – Scotland did far better

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I’m grateful to AR and Haggis Hunter https://twitter.com/thistlefarmer5 for alerting me to this. The England PISA sample consisted of 201 eligible schools having at least one pupil in this age range. In England, 3,852 pupils from original sample schools and 911 pupils from replacement schools participated. Pupils in participating schools that did not participate are not replaced. 159 agreed to participate, along with a further 32 replacement schools, but 16 schools withdrew before data collection. Data was therefore collected from 143 schools in the original sample and 32 replacement schools. Of this total, nine original sample schools and one replacement … Continue reading Pisa – 33% of Scotland’s schools took part but only 4.7% of England’s schools were confident enough to do so – Scotland did far better

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Oh dear, not PISA again?

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By stewartb Oh dear, not PISA again? This supposed hammer blow to the SNP government and to the credibility of Scotland’s school system is becoming tiresome – and the claims based solely on it are just plain wrong and for lots of reasons. The claims are IMHO often driven by a political agenda. I venture the alarmist claims also run counter to most parents’/carers’ and school students’ direct experience of our schools. Could Scottish education be better? Of course – it would be daft to deny this for any education system as it would to deny it for any area … Continue reading Oh dear, not PISA again?

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School attainment – BBC Scotland taking the PISA again

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BBC Scotland are headlining the Pisa test results again, devoid of course of any intelligent academic scrutiny. It’s been some time but TuS has posted several demolitions of Pisa. You can see them all at: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=Pisa The best was this from stewartb in March 2020. I’ve cut it down a bit for impact: Let’s now build a counter view on PISA step by step. 1) PISA – MANY QUESTIONS This is from the considered writing of Henry Hepburn (4 December, 2019), news editor for the educational weekly newspaper, TES Scotland: Source: https://www.tes.com/news/pisa-results-2018-what-happened-scotland “Every three years, a new round of PISA scores is released … Continue reading School attainment – BBC Scotland taking the PISA again