PISA 2006

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

SCIENCE PERFORMANCE

• Finland, with an average of 563 score points, was the highest-performing country on the PISA 2006 science scale.

• Six other high-scoring countries had mean scores of 530 to 542 points: Canada, Japan and New Zealand and the partner countries/economies Hong Kong-China, Chinese Taipei and Estonia. Australia, the Netherlands, Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Ireland, and the partner countries/economies Liechtenstein, Slovenia and Macao-China also scored above the OECD average of 500 score points.

• On average across OECD countries, 1.3% of 15-year-olds reached Level 6 of the PISA 2006 science scale, the highest proficiency level. These students could consistently identify, explain and apply scientific knowledge, and knowledge about science, in a variety of complex life situations. In New Zealand and Finland this figure was at least 3.9%, three times the OECD average. In the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and Canada, as well as the partner countries/economies Liechtenstein, Slovenia and Hong Kong-China, between 2 and 3% reached Level 6.

• The number of students at Level 6 cannot be reliably predicted from a country’s overall performance. Korea was among the highest-performing countries on the PISA science scale, with an average of 522 score points, while the United States performed below the OECD average, with a score of 489. Nevertheless, the United States and Korea had similar percentages of students at Level 6.

• Over one in five students in Finland (21%) and over one in six in New Zealand (18%) reached at least Level 5. In Japan, Australia and Canada, and the partner economies Hong Kong-China and Chinese Taipei, this figure was between 14 and 16% (OECD average 9%). By contrast, 15 of the countries in the survey had fewer than 1% of students reaching either Level 5 or Level 6, and nearly 25 countries had 5% or fewer reaching the two highest levels.

• The number of students at very low proficiency is also an important indicator – not necessarily in relation to the development of future scientific personnel but in terms of citizens’ ability to participate fully in society and in the labour market. At Level 2, students start to demonstrate the science competencies that will enable them to participate actively in life situations related to science and technology. Across the OECD, on average 19.2% were classified as below Level 2, including 5.2% below Level 1.

• Males and females showed no difference in average science performance in the majority of countries, including 22 of the 30 OECD countries. In 12 countries, females outperformed males, on average, while males outperformed females in 8 countries. Most of these differences were small. In no OECD country was the gender difference larger than 12 points on the science scale. This is different from reading and mathematics where significant gender differences were observed.

• However, similarities in average performance mask certain gender differences: In most countries, females were stronger in identifying scientific issues, while males were stronger at explaining phenomena scientifically. Males performed substantially better than females when answering physics questions. Last but not least, in most countries more females attend higher performing, academically oriented tracks and schools than do males. As a result of this, in many countries gender differences in science were substantial within schools or programmes, even if they appeared small overall.

• On average across OECD countries, around one-third of all variation in student performance (33%) was between schools, but this varied widely from one country to another. In Germany and the partner country Bulgaria performance variation between schools was about twice the OECD average. It was over one and a half times the average in the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan and Italy, and the partner countries Slovenia, Argentina and Chile. In most of these countries, the grouping or tracking of students affected this result.

• In other countries, school differences played only a minor part in performance variation. In Finland less than 5% of the overall performance variation among OECD countries lay between schools and in Iceland and Norway it was still less than 10%. Other countries in which performance was not very closely related to the schools in which students were enrolled included Sweden, Poland, Spain, Denmark and Ireland as well as the partner countries Latvia and Estonia. Considering that Finland also showed the highest overall performance in science suggests that Finnish parents can rely on high and consistent performance standards across schools in the entire education system.

• Students’ socio-economic differences accounted for a significant part of between- school differences in some countries. This factor contributed most to between-school performance variation in the United States, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Slovak Republic, Germany, Greece and New Zealand, and the partner countries Bulgaria, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

• Less than 10% of the variation in student performance was explained by student background in five of the seven countries with the highest mean science scores of above 530 points (Finland, Canada and Japan, and the partner countries/economies Hong Kong- China and Estonia).

• There is no relationship between the size of countries and the average performance of 15- year-olds in PISA. There is also no cross-country relationship between the proportion of foreign-born students in countries and the average performance of countries. Last but not least, an analysis undertaken in the context of the PISA 2003 assessment showed that there were few differences among countries in students’ test motivation.