What Does PISA Tell Us About Performance of Education Systems?

Abstract

The performance of education systems is an area where intense discussions take place around the world. Since international student achievement researches, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), provide information about readiness of students to modern society and participation to workforce differences in achievements between countries create great pressure for policy makers. Due to this pressure, many countries implement serious revisions in their education systems without adequately focusing on the national background of differences. Lack of national monitoring studies also increases the probability of inaccurate identifying the background of problems. In this study, the factors that function on the background of achievement differences between countries, especially in PISA studies, are tried to be determined and the most important factors that are effective in student achievement, which are independent of the cultural and social context differences of the countries, are tried to be specified. It is seen that the three major factors are teacher quality, delaying students' school tracking and allocating resources to schools, considering disadvantaged schools as priority. In addition, it is recommended to establish a national monitoring and evaluation system to evaluate international student achievement research results in healthier way and to develop more realistic policies.