Measuring student knowledge and skills

Scientific literacy is defined in terms of being able to use scientific knowledge and processes not
just to understand the natural world but to participate in decisions that affect it. Scientific literacy is
assessed in relation to:
– First, scientific concepts, which constitute the links aiding understanding of related phenomena. In
OECD/PISA, whilst the concepts are the familiar ones relating to physics, chemistry, biological

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Measuring Student Knowledge and Skills
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OECD 1999
sciences and earth and space sciences, they will need to be applied to the content of the items
and not just recalled. The main item content will be selected from within three broad areas of
application: science in life and health, science in earth and environment and science in technology.
– Second, scientific processes, centred on the ability to acquire, interpret and act upon evidence. Five
such processes present in OECD/PISA relate to: i) the recognition of scientific questions; ii) the
identification of evidence; iii) the drawing of conclusions; iv) the communication of these conclu-
sions; and v) the demonstration of understanding of scientific concepts. Only the last of these
requires a pre-set body of scientific knowledge, yet since no scientific process can be “content
free”, the OECD/PISA science questions will always require an understanding of concepts in the
areas mentioned above.
– Third, scientific situations, selected mainly from people’s everyday lives rather than from the practice
of science in a school classroom or laboratory, or the work of professional scientists. The science
situations in OECD/PISA are defined as matters relating to the self and the family, to the wider com-
munity, to the whole world and to the historical evolution of scientific understanding.