Chloe Kimball

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Alcock, Frank

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

Over the last century, education stakeholders have increasingly used standardized assessments to measure educational attainment and achievement in school systems across the globe. Since the rise of international large-scale assessments (ILSA) in the 1960s, countries have been able to measure change within their own system over time and compare themselves to other members of the global economy. One ILSA, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has identified itself for its usefulness in measuring students’ preparedness for life after school and their ability to participate in the global economy. Since 2000, PISA has recorded student achievement in 81 countries and economies by testing 15-year-old students in math, science, and reading every three years. There merits and downsides of PISA have been debated by policy experts, but the test has been a useful tool when determining policies that will increase student performance. In this study, quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted to explore the relationship between countries’ education systems and their PISA scores. Although data limitations made it difficult to identify causal relationships between education system characteristics and PISA scores, using PISA scores to identify interesting cases revealed the standardized assessment’s role in informing and directing education stakeholders in their mission to improve their country’s educational outcomes.

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