The Assessment of Learning Contexts in PISA

Abstract

The main goal and purpose of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is its system monitoring function. PISA was originally designed to inform the educational policy of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states by reporting on the performance of students at the age when they are about to leave compulsory education. Moreover, and especially, the assessment of learning contexts has become more and more important throughout the cycles of the PISA program. Today, a broad set of context questionnaires are implemented as part of PISA. They collect information on the learning contexts of different stakeholders in education: namely, students, principals, teachers and parents. The underlying idea is to explain differences in the educational outcomes as assessed by the cognitive tests through the information gathered about differences in educational contexts between countries. Context assessment has always been an important part of the PISA program, but with slightly different intentions and content focus in each study and cycle. The shifting of the major domains and the shifts of interest in measures of learning contexts have heavily influenced the respective topics and design of context assessment. Thus, the context questionnaires as assessment instruments of choice have evolved over time; this process is discussed in the present chapter. This chapter elaborates on the organization of context questionnaire and framework development, including the roles and responsibilities of the different expert groups involved. Changes in the assessment of learning context are discussed and, focusing on PISA 2015, the latest developments in the context questionnaires are described, before possible developments for future context assessment in PISA are elaborated upon.