More than 2,500 15-year-old students are currently in the PISA 2025 pre-test period, which will end on June 7. It is, more precisely, about a first phase of the next round of the international evaluation that also comes with some news.
Romanian students, stuck in education. Photo source: archive
The purpose of this first stage is the preparation of the PISA 2025 study, which aims to assess students' skills in Reading, Mathematics, Science and digital skills, writes edupedu.ro. The main area assessed in the next wave of PISA is Science. Also, for the first time, students' English skills are also assessed. Another novelty is the questionnaires that both the parents of the participating students and the teachers will have to fill out.
Specifically, 253 teachers who teach 9th grade physics, chemistry, biology and geography and 110 teachers who teach English. The thematic questionnaire for parents is applied in printed format, and all others – computerized.
Participating students come from 31 schools in 18 counties of the country.
What is in the questionnaire for parents
The questionnaire for parents contains questions about their involvement in the child's education, about the emotional support they offer him, the expectations they have regarding the child's educational development, but also regarding their involvement in school activities. Parents are also informed about their children's participation in the PISA 2025 pretest phase and receive detailed explanations about what PISA is, how students are tested, what are the benefits of this international testing, etc. Parents are reminded that students will not be graded in the catalog and do not need to prepare specifically for this exam.
What is in the questionnaire for teachers
The Teacher Questionnaire collects information about teachers on socio-demographic data, qualifications, professional development, work experience, instructional practices, and job satisfaction, in addition to core and innovative domain-specific questions.
How the pretest stage works
The procedures are carried out in a standardized manner, according to the international PISA methodology, and the collected data (student answers to tests and questionnaires, questionnaires for teachers) are uploaded directly to the platform dedicated to PISA 2025. The organizers state that “the results of the pretest stage are not used for comparisons or rankings of educational systems, but only for the collection of data leading to the optimization of the translation of the test instruments, to the highest possible quality of them, to the piloting of the implementation procedures of the study and obtaining some information about the parameters of the items that are used in adaptive testing”.
Optional assessments
The English language assessment “combines cognitive and non-cognitive tools to have a more complete picture of the levels of competence and the contextual factors that influence their acquisition and will be offered every two cycles, alternating with the financial literacy assessment”, say the organizers.
The ICT questionnaire measures students' online behaviour, access and use of ICT resources, but also students' views on how ICT is used in teaching-learning activities.
PISA test models
Here are some topics that students who participated in PISA testing in 2022 had to solve.
According to the website Radio Europa Liberă, in mathematics, one of the problems referred to a moving truck. The children were given the dimensions of this and the boxes that people who want to move use. The students had to find out how many medium boxes fit in the truck.
In the problem about buying a car, students are given more information about the cost of a car, its maintenance and fuel. In the second question, using a calculator built into the web page, students have to find out which of the four car options would be cheaper. Finally, they must calculate an approximate resale price.
The results of the Romanian students who participated in PISA 2022 were a disaster that placed us at the bottom of the European ranking in terms of education.
