The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has focused a lot of its efforts into analyzing the science data portion of the most recent round of the international comparative assessment known as PISA. In particular, they analyzed some of the gender differences that were found related to sciences. The conclusion that many could come
The results of the latest PISA or the Program for International Student Assessment are in and as usual, we have an interpretation of the highlights for you. If you recall, PISA is designed to assess not just students’ academic knowledge but their application of that knowledge and is administered to 15-year-olds across the globe every three
The National Assessment Governing Board released its 2015 Science scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders. The results were positive overall, with achievement gaps narrowing and scores improving for almost all student groups in fourth and eighth-grade students. Twelfth-grade scores remained stagnant across all groups. The tests assess students’ ability
Last semester we had the pleasure of having David Ferrier, a doctoral student studying applied developmental psychology at George Mason University, as one of our policy research interns. We enjoyed many cerebral discussions with David, who spent his time detailing what research says about executive functioning and its connection to critical thinking, specifically, and academic
With the 2012 PISA results set to be released on Tuesday you will probably hear a lot of doom and gloom about how the U.S. doesn’t fair well on international assessments. You’ll probably be bombarded with references to the 2009 PISA results showing that U.S. students ranked 24th and 19th in math and science respectively.