Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2022): Scotland's results - highlights

1. Learning during Covid: school closures, learning and wellbeing

36. PISA 2022 was conducted during or immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme thus took the opportunity to examine how education systems, schools, teachers and students in the 81 participating countries/economies responded to this global challenge.

37. In Scotland, assessments took place in Autumn 2022, around seven months after in school Covid restrictions were lifted. Students will have been aged between 13 and 14 during the periods of school building closures, and in the early years of high school education.

38. Students and headteachers were asked a range of questions regarding their experiences during periods of school building closures, including learning arrangements, problems experienced at home, and their wellbeing. The results provide important context to the learning experiences of this cohort of students prior to the PISA assessments.

Summary of findings

39. The findings show a mixed picture. The majority agreed that their teachers were well prepared to provide instruction remotely and were available when they needed help, while students in Scotland were less likely than the OECD average to experience problems accessing the internet, digital devices, and learning materials. However, students in Scotland were less likely than the OECD average to agree that they were prepared for learning on their own and that that they had felt motivated to learn.

40. The majority of students felt that they learnt less at home than they would have done at school. However, the findings also show evidence of resilience, with students reporting higher life satisfaction and being more likely to report a sense of belonging in school than PISA 2018.

Student experiences of home learning

41. Students in Scotland were less likely than the OECD average to report that they experienced problems with access to learning materials, including access to a digital device, internet access, school supplies, and having a quiet place to study.

42. Students in Scotland were more likely than the OECD average (59.8 per cent compared to 50.7 per cent) to agree that their teachers were well prepared to provide instruction remotely, while two thirds of students agreed that teachers were available when they needed help (similar to the OECD average).

43. Students in Scotland were less likely than the OECD average to agree that they were well prepared to learn on their own (45.2 per cent compared to 54.6 per cent) and were less likely to agree that they were motivated to learn (25.7 per cent compared to 38.5 per cent), while more than half (55.6 per cent) agreed that they had fallen behind on their school work.

44. Compared to the OECD average, students in Scotland were more likely to report that the school sent them learning materials to study on their own, sent them assignments and asked for them to be submitted, and uploaded material on a school management system.

45. The only activity that students in Scotland were less likely to report was the school checking in with them to ask how they were feeling, with 18.7 per cent reporting that this happened at least once per week. Over half of students (55.3 per cent) reported that this had never happened, compared to the OECD average of 38.2 per cent.

46. Students were asked whether they felt that they had learnt more, less, or about as much, when their school building was closed. Seventy-seven per cent of students felt that they had learnt less when their school building was closed.

Student wellbeing

47. The PISA student questionnaire asks students a range of wellbeing questions which can be used to measure wellbeing before and after the pandemic. The findings show that students answered more positively on the majority of these measures in PISA 2022 than they did in PISA 2018.

48. Compared to 2018, students in Scotland were more likely to report that they feel like they belong at school and that they make friends easily at school in 2022; students in Scotland were less likely than in 2018 to say that they feel like an outsider (or left out of things) at school.

49. Compared to the OECD average, students in Scotland were less likely to say that they feel lonely at school and more likely to say that they make friends easily. However, students in Scotland were less likely to report they feel like they belong at school than the OECD average.

50. The PISA student questionnaire asks students to rate their current life satisfaction on a scale of 1-10. Students in Scotland had an average rating of 6.48, which was higher than the Scotland average of 6.25 in 2018. However, this was lower than the OECD average of 6.75 in 2022.