• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.279-297
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• 2009

This paper discusses the key differences and common themes among three major assessments of pre-college mathematics learning: Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), Third International Mathematics and Science Study Repeat (TIMSS-R), and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.387-401
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• 2004

The recent international comparative studies such as PISA(Program for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS-R(Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat) provide results of relative mathematics achievement of participating countries. The purpose of this paper is to compare the mathematics results of PISA and TIMSS-R. To make PISA and TIMSS-R results comparable, they were standardized. The close investigation of these standardized results reveals that the two Asian countries(Korea and Japan) and several English speaking countries have the commonality in mathematics achievement. Thus this study looks for patterns and similarities within a group of Asian countries(Korea and Japan) and Western countries(the U.S and Australia) by in-depth analysis of PISA mathematics achievement based on item response theory. As a result, it was noted that Western countries tend to perform well on open constructed items and are likely to perform better when an item involves less formal mathematics. On the other hand, Asian countries perform well when an item involves numeric or algebraic computation related to curriculum-based content, but they are relative poor at an item calls for verbal explanations or interpretations of graphs.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.319-328
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• 2002

The PISA(Program for International Student Assessment), an international comparative study supervised by OECD, aims at producing reliable and internationally comparable indicators of students' literacy in reading, mathematics, and science. In mathematical literacy, Korean students ranked the 2nd out of the 32 participating countries in PISA. This result is very encouraging in the sense that the scores in the mathematical literacy are a forecasting indicator for the mathematical level of future citizens who are supposed to lead their countries in every field. However, Korean students showed the largest gender difference in mathematical literacy, indicating that male students achieved significantly higher scores than female counterparts. With the consideration that mathematics plays a key role in determining the overall achievement level and influences on the long-term career opportunities, it is necessary to pay more attention to the gender difference in mathematical literacy, and make an effort to reduce it to enhance the overall intelligence level of Korean human resources.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.291-311
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• 2002

The PISA(Program for International Student Assessment), an international comparative study supervised by OECD, is aimed at producing reliable and internationally comparab1e indicators of students' literacy in reading, mathematics, and science. In mathematical literacy, Korean students ranked the 2nd out of the 32 participating countries in PISA. This result is very encouraging in the sense that the scores in the mathematical literacy is the forecasting indicator for the mathematical level of future citizens who are supposed to lead their countries in every fields. In contrast to the high performance in mathematics, Korean students possess extremely low level of interest in mathematics. On the other hand, Korea's highest top 5% students are not on a par with the best students in New Zealand, Japan, Swiss, Australia, and England. This finding urges Korean education to put serious efforts to pursue academic excellence. Overall, PISA results suggest that Korean mathematics education has been effective and efficient. Korean education system should set goals to meet the world standard and the challenges of the lifelong teaming society.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.1 no.1 s.1
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• pp.51-68
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• 2001

Science cultures in the dimension of social interaction must be correlated with science cultures or science literacy in the dimension of psychological interaction. In order to develop a mature science culture, it must be assumed 1) that a science culture in a society ran be evaluated and 2) that we have to set up the criteria for evaluating it. This paper, based on the assumptions, makes an attempt to analyze the concept of science literacy underlying the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) conducted by OECD. The analyses are driven by the questions such as 'which philosophical backgrounds are absorbed into the concept of PISA' science literacy?' and 'What suggestions can be found with respect to the goal of enhancing the science culture?' In conclusion, the science literacy in PISA reflects the elements proposed by logical empiricism, naturalized philosophy of science, and social constructivism, which are being incorporated by the 'collaboration research program' conducted by the newly-emerging interdisciplinary field of 'science of science.' Finally, some further suggestions are added to the analyses to pursue more positive directions to induce mature science cultures in our society.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.647-655
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• 2004

PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2003, the second cycle of PISA, collected data with respect to students' cross-disciplinary problem solving capabilities. Problem solving is defined as the ability to use cognitive processes to solve real cross-disciplinary problems. For the purpose of PISA 2003 assessment, three problem types were chosen: Decision Making, System Analysis and Design, and Trouble Shooting. For this paper a preliminary analysis on Korean students' responses to the PISA 2003 problem-solving items was conducted. The quantitative analysis mainly focused on the difficulties of the PISA 2003 items, while the quantitative analysis dealt with students' responses to open-ended items, which helped understand Korean students' cognitive style and reasoning processes. According to the item analysis result, Korean students had difficulty in representing their answers with pictures or graphs, and interpreting long and complex text. They also showed low achievement with relatively unfamiliar topics or tasks. The paper concluded with several suggestions on improve the quality of science education.