PISA study shows corona crisis - results worse than ever
Every three years, the PISA study compares education systems based on the academic performance of 15-year-old pupils. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the gap has grown to four years this time. The results show Germany lagging well behind the top nations.
After the coronavirus pandemic, the average skills of 15-year-olds in Germany in reading, math and science are worse than in 2018. This is the result of the new OECD PISA study, which is being presented in Berlin this hour and the results of which were made available to ntv.de in advance. It has been conducted every three years since 2000; the tests were postponed in 2021 due to the coronavirus restrictions.
According to the OECD, the 2022 results in all three areas of competence are the lowest values ever measured in PISA. The difference between the 2018 and 2022 average scores in mathematics and reading literacy is roughly equivalent to the typical learning progress made by students aged around 15 during an entire school year.
The sharp decline in mean scores between 2018 and 2022 therefore confirmed and reinforced a trend that was already evident in 2012 and 2015. In the three years from 2018 to 2022, the performance gap between the highest-performing young people, i.e. the 10 percent with the highest scores, and the lowest-performing 10 percent with the lowest scores in mathematics, reading and science did not change significantly. In mathematics, the performance of the particularly high-achieving and low-achieving pupils deteriorated equally.
Two hours of questions answered
Compared to 2012, the proportion of learners whose performance was below the basic competence level (level 2) increased by 12 percentage points in mathematics and by 11 percentage points in reading literacy and science. Overall, Germany's results are at or slightly above the OECD average, but well behind leading nations such as Singapore, Japan and Estonia.
The tests for the PISA study are now mainly carried out on computers. Pupils have to click their way through various tasks. USB sticks are distributed to schools by testers, where the students then solve tasks in the areas of reading, math and science on the computer. The test lasts around two hours and consists mainly of multiple-choice questions in which the pupils have to choose from predetermined answer options. In addition, students, teachers, school administrators and parents answered questions on socio-economic background, learning times and learning environment, computer use and lesson organization as well as attitudes and expectations of young people.
81 countries and more than 600,000 young people worldwide took part in the most recent survey in 2022. The representative sample for Germany comprises 6116 female students in 257 schools, representing around 681,400 15-year-olds. That is an estimated 92 percent of the total population of 15-year-olds.
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Source: www.ntv.de
