PISA : a political project and a research agenda

Abstract

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is one of two large scale international comparative projects of student assessment that now exert considerable influence upon school science education policy, the other being TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). This paper focuses on PISA, now the most influential study. This article outlines the origins of PISA, identifies some of the challenges in its construction and the claims made for it. It argues that while the statistical and methodological aspects of PISA have received much research attention, other elements of PISA have been largely ignored. In particular, there are several outcomes of PISA testing that point towards a significant research agenda. In addition, the political, ideological and economic assumptions underpinning the PISA project have implications for school science curriculum policy that deserve closer scrutiny and debate.

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Svein Sjøberg iD ORCID 0000-0001-9638-0498 (University of Oslo); Edgar W. Jenkins (University of Leeds)
Published in: Studies in Science Education, vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 1-14
Publication date:27/09/2020
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
Document type:Article
Language:English
DOI: 10.1080/03057267.2020.1824473
ISSN:0305-7267, 1940-8412
Open access: Open access Hybrid: open article in a subscription journal – Studies in Science Education (license: CC-BY-NC-ND, published version)
Cited by:66
Subjects:
Global Educational Policies and Reforms (Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Political Science and International Relations)
Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies (Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Sociology and Political Science)
Science Education and Pedagogy (Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Education)
Identifiers: OpenAlex W3088898264

Central index data: OpenAlex (CC0 license).

Full central index record (JSON) from api.openalex.org/works/W3088898264

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