Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022: Highlights from Scotland’s results

Scotland’s Chief Statistician today published Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022: Highlights from Scotland’s Results. PISA is an assessment of 15 year-olds around the world in maths, reading and science.

The main findings are:

- Scotland’s performance in the PISA assessments was above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average in reading and similar to the OECD average in maths and science. This was also the case in the previous survey, in 2018.

- Scotland’s own overall performance compared to 2018 was similar in science and declined in reading and maths.

-Scotland’s performance in maths was lower than in every previous PISA survey between 2003 and 2018. In reading, performance was lower than in 2018, 2003 and 2000 but similar to 2015, 2012, 2009 and 2006. In science, performance was similar to 2018 but lower than in 2015, 2012, 2009 and 2006.

- The proportion of pupils performing at highest levels of achievement (“Level 5 and above”) was higher in Scotland than the OECD average in reading and similar in maths and science. The proportion of pupils performing at the lowest levels of achievement (“below Level 2”) was lower in Scotland than the OECD average in reading and similar in maths and science.

- PISA measures the relationship between social background and performance, through the strength of the relationship (how much socio-economic status predicts performance) and the slope of the socio-economic gradient (the extent to which performance increases for each step in social background). In mathematics the strength and gradient of the relationship between students’ background and test scores was higher in 2022 than in 2018, and is now similar to the OECD average, having been below the average in 2018. For reading and science, the strength and gradient was similar to 2018 and to the OECD average

Background

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022: Highlights from Scotland’s Results.