This investigation delves into the numerical comprehension among elementary and middle school students within Israel's Arab sector, challenging the conventional metrics of mathematical ability. Despite the apparent adeptness in standard mathematical tests, a significant discrepancy exists between calculative prowess and genuine numerical…

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results have become synonymous with quality benchmarking, determining standards and comparing performance among 15-year-old students in countries around the globe. Concern, however, exists with the utility and consequential validity of the newest measure to the suite of the OECD's PISA tests:…

Creativity has fascinated scholars for generations, and its identification as one of the key 'twenty-first century skills' necessary for economic growth has led to renewed interest. This creates two challenges for the OECD: its flagship Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) does not directly measure creativity. Secondly, the…

The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are large-scale measurements about teaching and learning. There is a link between TALIS indicators and PISA results. We investigated which countries are effective according to TALIS indicators as inputs and PISA 2015 mathematics,…

This paper reports the results of a document analysis study examining the policies, trends, and conceptions developed by the OECD in the last 15 years regarding the development and mainstreaming of globalised policies of migrant education. From the process of the analysis, three thematic categories emerged: (i) Socio-economic aspects of education:…

This paper quantifies the learning gain that accrues to 15-year-old students over one year of schooling in 18 countries and economies, where the cohort eligible to sit the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)ISA test overlaps with two distinct school cohorts. School-entry regulations are used as an exogenous source of…

This paper derives efficiency scores for around 8,500 schools in 30 countries, using Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data and a nonparametric approach called data envelopment analysis as method. On average, achievement scores of schools can be increased by 27%, holding inputs constant. Efficiency scores vary considerably both…

Since 2000, the PISA test implemented by OECD has become the prime benchmark for international comparisons in education. The 2015 PISA edition introduced methodological changes that altered the nature of its results. PISA made no longer valid non-reached items of the final part of the test, assuming that those unanswered questions were more a…

This paper compares the learning gain over one year of schooling among 15-year-old students in Austria and Scotland (United Kingdom). Common metrics for reading, mathematics and science learning, as established by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), are used. In order to overcome the limitations of a cross-sectional,…

This paper describes and evaluates a multistage adaptive testing (MSAT) design that was implemented for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 main survey for the major domain of Reading. Through a simulation study, recovery of item response theory model parameters and measurement precision were examined. The PISA 2018 MSAT…

In this paper we describe content focused, practical procedures to establish benchmarked performance standards for educational and other tests. To implement our procedures, we identify one or more external benchmark (e.g., NAEP or PISA performance levels, college and career readiness benchmarks); link to the external benchmarks to locate those…

Purpose: Prominent at the intersections of national educational agencies, higher education, and international educational performance assessments are two reform standards: "benchmarks" determining optimal student performance, and "empirical evidence" for determining the quality of reform practices. These two notions are often…

In this chapter, the authors analyse and discuss conceptual and methodological issues related to international benchmarking and its effect on educational policy and practice in selected European countries. Benchmarking is viewed as a process of comparing educational outcomes in schooling systems, identifying strengths and weaknesses and serving as…

Participation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has continuously expanded: from 43 systems in 2000 to 65 systems in the 2012 cycle, with 71 signed up for PISA 2015. There also has been a growth in sub-national participation, expanding PISA's reach beyond the…

This paper investigates how and why test-based accountability (TBA), a global model for education reform, began to dominate educational debates in Norway in the early 2000s, and how this policy has been operationalised and institutionalised over time. In examining the adoption and retention of TBA in Norway, we build on the cultural political…