PISA Achievement in Sweden From the Perspective of Both Individual Data and Aggregated Cross-Country Data

Björn Boman

doi:10.3389/feduc.2021.753347

Abstract

This study set out to analyze Swedish 15-year-olds’ PISA performance in 2015 and to lesser extent 2018 by using a combination of individual data (2015) and aggregated cross-country data for 2015 and 2018, inclusive of 31 OECD countries. At the within-country and individual level, native Swedish students who took the PISA test in 2015 outperformed first- and second-generation migrants. Moreover, the latent socioeconomic variable “number of books at home” was associated with higher PISA math achievement. Ambition was positively associated with PISA math scores, wheres worry was negatively associated with PISA math. At the cross-country level, GDP per capita was associated with higher PISA scores but ethnic homogeneity was not. IQ scores, PIAAC scores for teachers, and teacher salaries were also moderately correlated with PISA math achievement. This indicates that a country with high cognitive ability levels, as well as cognitively competent and well-paid teachers are likely to perform better in large-scale international assessments such as PISA.

Highlights

When analyzing academic performance among Swedish pupils at lower-secondary and elementary level, there are typically four standardized procedures to evaluate them: grades, national tests, international tests, and specific tests constructed by researchers (Holmlund et al, 2019; Björklund et al, 2010)
In the OLS estimation with the full set of controls, we find that a one standard deviation (SD) increase in teacher cognitive skills is associated with 0.10–0.15 SD higher student performance
In concordance with methodological suggestions underlined by Gustafsson (2007; 2008), as well as Jerrim et al (2018), and to lesser extent Guglielmi and Brekke (2017), the current article focuses on both individual student data from Sweden from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) wave and aggregated data at the crossnational level for both 2015 and 2018

Summary

Introduction

When analyzing academic performance among Swedish pupils at lower-secondary and elementary level, there are typically four standardized procedures to evaluate them: grades, national tests, international tests, and specific tests constructed by researchers (Holmlund et al, 2019; Björklund et al, 2010). Recent research (Boman, 2021a; Boman, 2021b) shows that socioeconomic and sociodemographic variables are substantially associated with grades and national test results at the aggregated school level Earlier studies such as Myrberg and Rosén (2009), who used structural equation modeling to analyze data from Progress in Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), inclusive of Swedish students, have found associations between socioeconomic variables and reading achievement. An exception is the book Northern Lights on TIMSS and PISA (see Reimer et al, 2018), but this work does only focus on PISA 2015 from the perspective of all Nordic countries It lacks larger cross-national data sets with more participating countries, as well as analyses on 2018. Mathematical literacy will be highlighted because of the importance of mathematics for future educational trajectories, earnings and societal development (e.g., Rindermann, 2018) but the author admits that this selection is somewhat arbitrary

Methods

Results

Conclusion