Abstract
Globalisation and policy transfer in education make it incumbent upon decision makers to prioritise among competing policy options, select policy initiatives that are appropriate for their national contexts, and understand how system-specific factors moderate the relationship between those policies and student outcomes. This study used qualitative comparative analysis and correlational analyses to explore these relationships with publicly available data on socio-economic, cultural, and education conditions, and their association with PISA 2015 results in 49 countries. Findings show that gender and income equality, human development, and individualism were outcome-enabling conditions for PISA 2015 results, and gender equality was the most consistent of these conditions. These factors significantly moderated the relationships between education policy and PISA results. Implications for the identification of meaningful peer countries for comparative educational research, policy transfer, and the future expansion of PISA are discussed.
Highlights
Education policies, and the systems in which they exist, are unique to their historical, social, economic, and cultural contexts [1]
This study examined the associations between Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results and these system-specific factors and policy variables, guided by the theoretical understanding of education as a social ecology where policies, practices and student outcomes are mutually dependent on socio-economic and cultural factors
qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used for the identification of system-specific factors consistent with PISA results, and correlational analyses are used for the exploration of moderated relationships between education policies and student outcomes
Summary
The systems in which they exist, are unique to their historical, social, economic, and cultural contexts [1]. The concept of education as a basic human right, global public good, and source of national economic competitiveness is almost universally accepted, and international models for improving education quality have become popular among policymakers, researchers, and practitioners alike [5,6,7] Within this context, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and other international organisations have developed multinational assessments of student achievement that rank the relative performance of countries and provide extensive data on their education systems. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is one of the most influential of these programs [5] and has contributed extensively to education policy discourses around “best practice” and “high-performing countries” [6,7] This has put policymakers under increasing pressure to improve their education systems in alignment with converging global processes identified by international comparative assessments [8]. Little insight is offered into the moderating effect that larger social forces have on the relationships between policies and outcomes, when transferred to different contexts
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