Week 8 Discussion
Competitive comparison and PISA bragging rights: sub-national uses of the OECD's PISA in Canada and the USA - Laura C. Engel & Matthew O. Frizzell
Generally, competitions are good in education, more specifically in subject areas like mathematics. Mathematics is a subject less adored by most students. Therefore, such international competitions like the PISA bring together unique ideas from all over the world and ensure that students have foundational understandings and skills. It also serves as a benchmark for on-going reform. As one provincial leader from Ontario quoted in the article:
“…PISA has indirect impacts along with other sources in informing education policies and programs…and provides a sound research base for reference”.
Despite the advantages PISA brings as the ‘bragging rights’ among states and ‘healthy state-to-state competition’ (p. 676), participants in Canada however, also reflected on some of the risks of increased international exposure if perhaps the results were not good (p. 673).
Stop 1
· Is it important how a country or a school fares in a competition if it is considered as healthy and necessary for educational reforms?
Stop 2
· My District Education Service organized math and science quizzes among schools within the district and it was highly competitive. I also held several interclass quizzes with my students in Science, Math, and English. Students enjoyed the competition and learned a lot from it in terms of academics and socially (how to handle defeat and try to work harder next time).
I was alarmed to know from the findings of the research that, ‘little has been done with the state-level results outside of the ‘a big splashy announcement when the results came out… little to no data analysis has been done other than the use of PISA for benchmarking purposes or rhetorical support for the validity of existing reforms’ (p. 678). I am wondering how PISA is organized the subsequent years without any analysis.
Question
· How does your province or school prepare for PISA?
Hi Milli, thanks for the summary.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of analysis are you referring to in the last part? Do you mean Canada? My understanding is that PISA does analyze its data and organizes itself based on research and feedback, but perhaps Canada doesn't dig deeper into PISA data?
I don't know how I feel about the use of "standardized" international tests... on one hand, in a globalized world, I can see that having international comparisons would be useful. As well, I can see it as providing a platform for countries to discuss and make changes to education.
But I don't think every country needs to conform to the same standards. I have a hard time with rankings, especially on such a large scale. For instance, I also do not take great stock in university rankings.
The first time I heard of PISA was in this course. As far as I know, I have never participated in or been prepared for a PISA test. Apparently Quebec performs well, which honestly surprises me considering our educational issues, but I have never heard of PISA at all.
Thanks, Milli.
ReplyDeleteI too had never heard of PISA before this course! The closest connection I would have is the Foundational Skills Assessments (FSA) that takes place each year for Grade 4 and Grade 7 students. This exam includes literacy and numeracy, though interestingly it appears as though the literacy section is much more extensive than the numeracy. The numeracy section consists mainly of data analysis questions. As far as I know, the Grade 4 and 7 teachers prepare students with a few practise tests, but the exams themselves are not used towards the student's classroom assessment. The whole process takes about a week or two, and is usually met with grumbling from the teachers, as the process takes time away from other classroom instruction.
The exams are often marked off site, and the whole process of marking is somewhat of a mystery to me. The results are published each year, ranking schools, and often highlighted in local papers (if a school did particularly 'well' or particularly 'bad'). In my school district, these results often have a direct impact on enrolment. Schools that come up 'strong' on FSA's, often see a spike in enrolment, especially from international students.
To be honest, the whole process makes me feel very uncomfortable. I wish something else could be done with the results, rather than making schools feel like they're in competition with each other, or perhaps just eliminate the exam altogether. While I do agree that competition can be a good thing at times, I think in an education environment, it does not encourage collaboration among schools, which I think can be very detrimental.
Milli, I'd like to hear why you think that competitions are good for mathematics learning -- a controversial statement! We might talk about that in class today too.
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