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Summary, Conclusions and a Look Ahead underlying PISA science. For example, students were required to engage with and record the outcomes of simulated experiments that students in earlier PISA cycles did not have to contend with. The inclusion of such items might explain why so many countries experienced significant declines in performance in 2015. New, more complex and more challenging items were introduced and students in Ireland struggled on them compared with more traditional items. However, given the advances made by technology and its incorporation into teaching, learning and, to a lesser extent, assessment, the landscape in which students study science and other subjects is undergoing substantial change. The skillsets students will need in their future lives are also changing. Such changes are reflective of broader advances in society, and therefore should be considered when planning the assessments that students encounter in schools. However, the inclusion of new science items does not explain why many countries, including highperformers such as Canada and Australia, and, to a lesser extent, Ireland, did less well on the 53 link items in 2012, compared with earlier PISA cycles. One possibility is that the transfer of paper-based items to computer resulted in a higher level of complexity, incorporating some of the challenges identified in the item review described in Chapter 3. Although the review focused on science, it is clear that several of the issues that were identified are applicable to other domains as well. These include a heavy and repetitive reading load at the beginning of some units, ambiguity relating to where students should allocate their attention on the screen, a lack of opportunity to review units that had been completed already, possible ambiguity around the wording of some questions, and uncertainty as to how much text to produce when answering open-ended items. It is possible that students in Ireland, who are used to clearly-written and logically-structured examination papers, struggled with structure of the PISA items on computer, as well as aspects of the computer platform. It was noted in Chapter 7 that students in Ireland did not engage as frequently as students on average across OECD countries in a number of science-related activities (whether completed at home or in school). These included simulating natural phenomena in computer programmes/virtual labs, and simulating technical processes in computer-programmes/virtual labs. It might be hypothesised that additional experience with activities such as these might enable students to cope better with the requirements of items such as those administered in PISA. Similarly, while it was noted in Chapter 6 that the scores of students in Ireland on indices of Interest in ICTs, Perceived Competence in ICT, and Perceived Autonomy with Regard to ICT were above the corresponding OECD average scores, students in Ireland had scores that were below the corresponding averages on indices of Use of ICT at School in General, and ICT Use Outside of School for Schoolwork. However, it is unlikely that greater use of computers by students in post-primary schools will, by itself, lead to enhanced understanding of scientific processes or stronger performance on tests that assess higher-order thinking skills. There is a need to ensure that students adopt problem solving strategies when they encounter science problems such as the new PISA science items, and they reflect on how they arrive at answers. This contrasts with the observation by some PISA test administrators (see Chapter 3) that many students tended to move through the PISA computerbased items at a very fast rate, and did not seem to allocate the level of attention that the questions demanded. 9.2.2. High and low performers As noted in Chapter 8, there are fewer lower-achieving students in Ireland (those performing below Proficiency Level 2), compared with the average across OECD countries across all domains. And, for the most part, the proportions of students performing poorly are stable (exceptions are 2009 reading and mathematics, and 2015 science). It is remarkable that the proportions of lower- 188
Chapter 9 achieving students have remained constant even though there have been significant demographic changes, including, for example, an increase from 1.7% to 7.1% between 2006 and 2015 in the proportion of students who speak a language other than English or Irish. The priority given to teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills, and the supports available to struggling learners may well have contributed to ensuring that there are low proportions of lower-achieving students in the system. The return of the proportion performing below Level 2 in science to pre-2012 levels needs to be interpreted with regard to the transition to computer-based testing and the introduction of new science items. These factors have impacted on all students in Ireland taking PISA science in 2015. A different situation is emerging with regard to higher-achieving students. In the case of science, the proportion achieving Levels 5-6 in 2015 is 7.7%, just above the corresponding OECD average of 7.1%. Similarly, 9.8% in Ireland perform at Levels 5-6 on mathematics, compared with an OECD average of 10.7%. Only reading literacy has significantly higher proportion performing at Levels 5-6 in 2015 (10.7%) compared to the corresponding OECD average. The performance in mathematics is a particular concern since the OECD average excludes several higher-performing countries in mathematics which are outside of the OECD, including Singapore, Hong-Kong China and Japan. The relatively low proportion of higher achievers in Ireland, especially on paper-based mathematics and science, has been pointed out in reports on earlier PISA cycles (e.g., Perkins et al. 2013). In PISA 2012 computer-based mathematics, students performing at the 90th percentile in Ireland achieved a significantly lower score than on average across OECD countries even though overall performance was not significantly different from the OECD average. A number of factors seem to contribute to low performance among high achievers in mathematics, including underperformance on certain mathematical content areas (Space and Shape has been a consistent problem area in previous cycles, while Change and Relationships was identified as a potential problem in 2016; a breakdown on performance in these areas is not available for PISA 2015). Another relevant factor is the high level of anxiety about mathematics among female students in Ireland (Perkins et al., 2013) which may carry over into the types of real-life problems that are encountered in PISA. The low proportion of high performers on PISA 2015 science, and a score at the 90th percentile (617.6) that is not significantly different from the OECD average (614.8), even though Ireland’s overall mean score is significantly above the OECD average, indicates that high performers in Ireland may not be achieving their potential. The transition to computer-based assessment has undoubtedly contributed to the problem. It is unclear at this stage if the change in Ireland in the proportion performing at Levels 5-6 between 2012 and 2015 (from 10.7% to 7.1%) is due in its entirety to computer-based testing or if other factors are also involved. For example, the higher-level scientific thinking processes in which students in Ireland engage may be constrained by nature of the science tasks they encounter in curriculum and other contexts. 9.2.4. Gender differences The pattern of gender differences in Ireland has changed in substantive ways since earlier rounds of PISA. The gender difference on reading literacy (12.0 score points in favour of female students) is now among the smallest among participating countries, and is well below the corresponding OECD average of 26.9. Back in 2009, there was a gender difference in Ireland of 39.2 score points in favour of females in Ireland, compared with an OECD average of 24.5 score points in that year. On digital reading in 2012, female students in Ireland had a mean score that was 25.3 score points higher than that of male students, while the corresponding OECD average difference was not significantly different at 26.0 score points. The narrower gender gap in Ireland in PISA 2015 reflects a stronger performance among male students, as well as a lower score among female students. One issue that 189
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Chapter 1: Overview and Implementat
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Chapter 1 1.1. Framework for Scienc
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Chapter 2 2.1.5. TIMSS 1995 Student
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Chapter 2 after the implementation
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Chapter 3: The Transition to Comput
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Chapter 3 Ireland also took part in
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Chapter 3 It should be noted that m
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Chapter 3 engagement and concentrat
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Chapter 4: Performance on PISA 2015
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Chapter 4 4.2. Variation in Perform
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Chapter 5 Chapter 5: Performance on
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Chapter 5 At each key percentile ma
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Chapter 6 Chapter 6: Student- and S
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Chapter 7: Students’ Engagement,
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Page 221 and 222: Appendix B Running In Hot Weather -
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Page 227 and 228: Appendix B Slope-Face Investigation
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Page 231 and 232: Appendix B Sustainable Fish Farming
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