PISA "the real conclusions"

seavill

So apparently its not all the teachers fault.

I am sure Micropig and a few more would be interested in reading the below links.
It must really be true if the Irish Independent isn't blaming the teachers.

Key conclusions from the independent review of the PISA results:

- It may be more a case of "don't care" on the part of Irish students, rather than "can't do", according to a new analysis of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results.

- PISA tests in Ireland held in the run up to the JC exams rather than in Autumn like in England leading to fatigue due to pressure from exams, orals, practicals etc.

- a contributory factor is the fact that there has been an increase in students that do not read for enjoyment compared to previous results

- The increase in immigrant students;

- A drop in early school leavers;

- More students with special needs in mainstream schools;

- More low-performing schools than in previous tests.

- They found a student’s background, behaviour and attitude had a bearing on the outcome. These included the language spoken at home, parental education and occupation, whether there are books at home, engagement in part-time work and positive attitudes towards reading.

- "The digital reading test had the look and feel of a web-based environment that may have appealed more to 15 year olds. Also, it took just 40 minutes while the print-based assessment of reading took two hours.
I was unaware of how the exam was run but clearly this stat above would have a huge impact on the results. Sitting and reading for 2 hours in something that is not your JC or LC will not gain the most from the students, or even from some adults if they were asked to do the same.

Links:

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/poor-test-results-are-blamed-on-teen-exam-fatigue-3068659.html

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/poorly-performing-teens-lack-interest-189238.html

spurious

I bet teachers are to blame somehow.:D

I know the PISA tests were run in our place a few weeks ago. I wonder how long it takes results to come through?

If there is a turnaround in the performance this year, no doubt we can all look forward to getting our cuts in salary/conditions reversed. Hurrah....er probably.

Powerhouse

I have to laugh at the two gems (below) of the bleeding obvious that they quarried out of all that information. They could have canvassed opinions in any staff-room from the real experts - the people who stand in front of these students day in day out - and heard these views for free. At the same time I suppose it is a bit of a breakthrough to have this kind of thing in the public domain.

But I still love the understatement in the sentence "they found a student’s background, behaviour and attitude had a bearing on the outcome." It had a bearing on the outcome??!! That's putting it mildly!

One of my students did this recently and told me the questions were "stuuupah". Apparently one of them asked if you were from a traveller family and he told me he said he was "for the laugh". If these people took some classes for a few weeks they'd learn far more even if they do appear to be on the right track with these headline findings anyway.

It may be more a case of "don't care" on the part of Irish students, rather than "can't do", according to a new analysis of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results.

They found a student’s background, behaviour and attitude had a bearing on the outcome. These included the language spoken at home, parental education and occupation, whether there are books at home, engagement in part-time work and positive attitudes towards reading.

ardmacha

Some of these are valid points, others are such as "More low-performing schools" are not.

However, to account for Ireland's poor relative performance than there must be more of these things in Ireland than in the other places where this assessment took place.