In my opinion they show how good students are at learning rote fashion and passing exams. It does not measure important things like critical thinking or creativity. It certainly does not measure intelligence.
Perhaps I am overstating, but it is exam only. I note they have tried to introduce more problem solving. I have taught students from around the world and for me this league table does not reflect their abilities when it comes to solving problems or being critical thinkers. For example China comes out top, but when I ask Chinese students (and I know I am generalising here) to solve an open ended question they struggle being more used to being told the "right" answer which they are very good at memorising.
It provides an intersting data point; but of course, it isn't comparing apples to apples. For example, Shanghai is hardly typical of China. I certainly agree that it reflects the overemphasis of rote learning, although I also believe that a developing country such as China is doing rather well with limited resources.
The wiki entry Programme for International Student Assessment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
provides a good breakdown of the apparent low scores of the US and how the US scores would actually compare if demographically similar regions in the US were compared to similar-sized countries. I note that not to defend the US educational system (which has many failings at the public school level) but only to note that the results 'prove' very little in the real world.
Any education system that places a huge emphasis on a Standardised Assessment Test will end up filtering out able kids that do not perform well at narrow scholastic tests.
The questions in the test I have seen seem pretty standard in terms of asking 'understanding' questions rather than just regurgitating answers.
There may be other reasons why Finland & Chinese (HK & SH) come top such as low levels immigrants who struggle with non-mother tongue education and regular (rather than irregular) spelling as well as the derivational morphology of both languages making it simpler to understand (guess) new words.
Last edited by East_coast; 22-08-2011 at 09:33 PM.
The test provides some information and a place to start but it's pretty hard to pass judgment on this kind of information without having all the data. If you want to make a good mold, the first thing you need is good clay. If you test an inner city school in a lower economic area, you are very likely to get lower results than in an private school that filters students regardless of the quality of the school or teachers.
If you test mostly in cities in North America, parts of Europe and Australia, you'll likely have a lot more kids that are taking a test that isn't in their mother tongue. I attended a lecture by a very prominent educational psychiatry expert recently and one of the things he mentioned that many studies have found that the single most important factor in educational success is the home environment.
Another interesting bit is that many of the well to do people in asian countries ranked at the top pay a lot of money to send their children to have an education based on the standards and policies of countries like Australia, Canada, the US and the UK. There are agents that make very good money in virtually many countries(particularly in Asia) funneling students to High Schools and universities. In Hong Kong, the public system is closing schools meanwhile, good international schools are full with long waiting lists...
In any case, people often disagree as to what a "good education" is... Many parents seem to feel cheated when their kids are not being tested at every corner yet who writes a test in a work environment? Education is often a filter that allows a certain kind of person to progress further, not always preparing them to be the leaders of tomorrow.
That is what I say to students about exams, when was the last time your manager said to you "we have this problem, can you solve it but you are not allowed to look at any books or speak to anyone".