Session Information
09 SES 10 C, Findings from International Comparative Achievement Studies and their National Extensions: Evidence from, and in relation to, PISA
Paper Session
Contribution
The quality of national systems of education is increasingly becoming identified with students’ scores on international achievement tests such as the PISA and the TIMSS (Hanushek et al., 2006). In fact, the international organizations behind these tests actively promote the idea that each country’s results are directly related to the quality of their educational systems (OECD, 2010). However, there is large evidence that student scores on TIMSS or PISA are due to the mix of different factors reflecting teaching quality, school environment, features of national educational system, home resources, etc. It means that PISA test score can mislead if one interprets it directly. A better measure of the quality of schooling itself is how much achievement students gain in each extra year of schooling. Even this measure may overestimate the quality of schooling if students are simultaneously being tutored outside of school. But that said, internationally comparative evidence on the causal impacts of attending an extra year of schooling may be more helpful in informing national education policies than cross-sectional data on achievement scores for students at a certain age or in a given grade.
In many countries the 15-year-olds in the PISA sample are distributed across the seventh to twelfth grades, and 15-year-olds can receive a varied number of years of schooling. It allows us to apply the quasi-experimental design of analysis minimizing a number of possible biases (student age and SES, grade retention, and so on). With the quasi-experimental methods it is possible to assess school effectiveness (in terms of benefits from one extra year of schooling) as well as its dynamics more precisely than PISA scores do it.
The primary aim of this study is to examine the impact of one additional year of schooling on achievements in PISA, addressing the selection bias problem. Secondly, to draw how the effectiveness of one school year has been changing over 10 years. At last, to check whether revealed dynamics of grade effect match changing national PISA test scores.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Hanushek, E. & Wößmann, L. (2006). Does Educational Tracking Affect Performance and Inequality? Differences-in-Differences Evidence Across Countries. Economic Journal, 116, 63-76. Brodziak, I. (2009). School Matters: Perspectives on Differences in Student Achievement in Mexico. A dissertation for the degree of Doctor of philosophy. Stanford University. Luyten, H., Peschar, J., Coe, R. (2008). Effects of Schooling on Reading Performance, Reading Engagement, and Reading Activities of 15-Year-Olds in England. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 2, 319-342 OESD (2010). PISA 2009 Technical Report (Preliminary version). OECD publishing. E-book: http://www.oecd.org/document/19/0,3746,en_2649_35845621_48577747_1_1_1_1,00.html Schneider, B., Carnoy, M., Kilpatrick, J., Schmidt, W. H., & Shavelson, R. J. (2007). Estimating causal effects using experimental and observational designs (report from the Governing Board of the American Educational Research Association Grants Program). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
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