Measuring student knowledge and skills

CONSIDERATIONS FOR FUTURE SURVEY CYCLES OF OECD/PISA
Exposure and attitudes relevant to the assessment of scientific literacy
In addition to the cognitive outcomes it is important to collect information about the affective outcomes of sci-
ence education. Many different types of information concerning students’ participation in science-based activities
and their views about the value of scientific activity for themselves and for society in general are relevant to
OECD/PISA. Furthermore, since the tasks used in OECD/PISA surveys may be novel to some students it will be impor-
tant to have information about familiarity with the content and form of the tasks and items. In some cases this infor-
mation can provide explanatory variables; in other cases it can significantly add to the data about the outcomes of
students’ science education.
In future cycles it is therefore planned to collect information, either in the student questionnaire or within a test
package, about students’:
– participation in science at school and outside school (e.g. their participation in extra-curricular science activi-
ties, such as reading science magazines, watching science television programmes and involvement in com-
munity activities such as environmental organisations);
– evaluation of the utility of the science they have learned in school and out of school for making personal and
community decisions;
– judgements about the role of science in creating or solving problems;
– exposure to learning about the particular topics on which the assessment tasks have been based;
– familiarity with the form of the task and items.
This information should be gathered in the general student questionnaire, with the exception of the fourth item:
exposure to learning about the particular topics on which the assessment tasks have been based. This could be
posed as a final question in the science tests. The question would list the test items and ask students to indicate for
each item whether they had heard some, little or no discussion on a topic related to the question, first, in school and,
second, in a non-school setting.