PISA is an international assessment of the skills and knowledge of 15 year olds, coordinated by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), that assesses whether students approaching the end of compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in society.
The OECD defines math skills as “an individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgements and to use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen.”1
In its report on the 2006 PISA results, the OECD outlines the importance of math skills in today’s world:
With the growing role of science, mathematics and technology in modern life, the objectives of personal fulfilment, employment and full participation in society increasingly require that all adults, not just those aspiring to a scientific career, should be mathematically, scientifically and technologically literate. The performance of a country’s best students in mathematics and related subjects may have implications for the role that that country will play in tomorrow’s advanced technology sector, and for its overall international competitiveness. Conversely, deficiencies among lower-performing students in mathematics can have negative consequences for individuals’ labour-market and earnings prospects and for their capacity to participate fully in society.2
An outstanding issue is whether high results on the PISA math tests set students on a path to pursue advanced credentials in related fields. Over time, we might expect to see a relationship between these scores and the number of graduates in science, math, computer science and engineering.
Eighteen per cent of Canadian students who participated in the PISA test in 2006 scored at the highest levels. In the Conference Board’s comparison, Canada scores a “B” and ranks 6th out of 17 countries. Finland comes in first, with 24 per cent of its students achieving high scores on the PISA math test.
Canada’s performance in high-level math skills is slightly weaker than in low-level math skills, suggesting that the majority of Canadian 15 year olds who participated in the PISA math test rank somewhere in the middle.
In the latest PISA report, the OECD concludes that performance in its mathematics assessment is closely related to subsequent outcomes, such as finishing high school and participating in post-secondary education.3 To reach this conclusion, the OECD used an Australian study. In 2006, Australia tracked the progress of the 15-year old students who had taken the 2003 PISA math test. The 2006 analysis found there was an increased probability of Year 12 (high-school) completion for each proficiency level achieved on the PISA math test three years earlier.
1 Patrick Bussière, Fernando Cartwright, and Tamara Knighton, Measuring Up: Canadian Results of the OECD PISA Study (Ottawa: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Statistics Canada, 2004), p. 9.
2 OECD, PISA 2006: Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, Volume 1: Analysis (Paris: Author, 2007), pp. 322-23.
3 OECD, PISA 2006: Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, Volume 1: Analysis (Paris: Author, 2007), p. 300.