Challenges for Australian Education: Results from PISA 2009

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Challenges for Australian Education: Results from PISA 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment Challenges for Australian Education: Results from PISA 2009 The PISA 2009 assessment of students’ reading, mathematical and scientific literacy Sue Thomson Lisa De Bortoli Marina Nicholas Kylie Hillman Sarah Buckley Programme for International Student Assessment Challenges for Australian Education: Results from PISA 2009 The PISA 2009 assessment of students’ reading, mathematical and scientific literacy Sue Thomson Lisa De Bortoli Marina Nicholas Kylie Hillman Sarah Buckley First published 2011 by ACER Press, an imprint of Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd 19 Prospect Hill Road, Camberwell Victoria, 3124, Australia www.acerpress.com.au [email protected] Text © Sue Thomson, 2011 Design and typography © ACER Project Publishing Department 2011 This book is copyright. All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Copyright Act 1968 of Australia and subsequent amendments, and any exceptions permitted under the current statutory licence scheme administered by Copyright Agency Limited (www.copyright.com.au), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, broadcast or communicated in any form or by any means, optical, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. Cover and text design by ACER, Project Publishing Department Printed in Australia by Blue Star Print Group Australia Pty Ltd National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Title: Challenges for Australian education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students’ reading, mathematical and scientific literacy / Sue Thomson ... [et al.]. ISBN: 9781742860169 (pbk.) Series: PISA national reports. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Programme for International Student Assessment. Education-- Australia. Competency based education--Australia. Educational evaluation--Australia. Other Authors/Contributors: Thomson, Sue, 1958- Australian Council for Education Research. Dewey Number: 370.994 This publication is the result of research that formed part of a program supported by a grant to the Australian Council for Educational Research by Commonwealth, State and Territory governments. The support provided by these governments is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments.. Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ i List of Tables .................................................................................................................................xv List of Figures ..............................................................................................................................xxi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... xxiv Reader’s Guide ........................................................................................................................... xxv Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 The main goals of PISA .................................................................................................................. 1 Features of PISA 2009 .................................................................................................................... 1 Implementing PISA ....................................................................................................................... 2 What do PISA participants do? ................................................................................................ 2 Participants in PISA 2009 ............................................................................................................... 3 Countries ................................................................................................................................. 3 Students ................................................................................................................................... 5 PISA 2009 students and language spoken at home ................................................................... 8 Organisation of the report ........................................................................................................ 9 Further information .................................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 2 Reading literacy .......................................................................................... 11 The reading literacy framework – then and now .......................................................................... 11 How is reading literacy defined in PISA?...................................................................................... 11 How reading literacy is measured in PISA ................................................................................... 12 Texts ...................................................................................................................................... 14 Aspects .................................................................................................................................. 16 Situation ................................................................................................................................ 18 The structure of the assessment ................................................................................................... 19 Item response formats ............................................................................................................ 19 Distribution of items .............................................................................................................. 19 Constructing the assessment booklets .................................................................................... 20 Scaling the reading literacy tasks ............................................................................................ 20 Reading proficiency levels in PISA 2009 ...................................................................................... 21 Sample reading literacy items and responses ............................................................................... 25 Brushing your teeth ................................................................................................................ 27 Mobile phone safety ............................................................................................................. 29 Balloon ................................................................................................................................. 33 Blood donation notice ........................................................................................................... 37 Miser ..................................................................................................................................... 38 The play’s the thing ............................................................................................................... 41 Telecommuting ...................................................................................................................... 44 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3 Australian students’ performance in reading literacy .................................. 47 Key Findings ................................................................................................................................ 47 Reporting reading literacy performance: mean scores and proficiency levels ............................... 49 Mean scores and distribution of scores .................................................................................. 49 Proficiency levels ................................................................................................................... 49 Challenges for Australian Education: Results for Australian Students in PISA 2009 Student performance in reading literacy....................................................................................... 50 Reading literacy performance from an international perspective ............................................ 50 Reading literacy performance and gender from an international perspective .......................... 55 Reading literacy performance across Australian states and territories ...................................... 57 Reading literacy performance and school sector .................................................................... 61 Reading literacy performance and Indigenous status .............................................................. 63 Reading literacy performance and geographic location of school ........................................... 65 Reading literacy performance and socioeconomic background .............................................. 66 Reading literacy performance and immigrant status ............................................................... 67 Reading literacy performance and language background ....................................................... 67 Student performance on the reading literacy subscales: aspect ...................................................
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