IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v8y2019i8p231-d254250.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trends in International PISA Scores over Time: Which Countries Are Actually Improving?

Author

Listed:
  • Kristie J. Rowley

    (Independent Researcher, 429 North 750 West, Springville, UT 84663, USA)

  • Shelby M. McNeill

    (Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, Vanderbilt University, PMB #414 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203, USA)

  • Mikaela J. Dufur

    (Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, 2008 JFSB, Provo, UT 84602, USA)

  • Chrisse Edmunds

    (Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, 238 Townshend Hall The Ohio State University 1885 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA)

  • Jonathan A. Jarvis

    (Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, 2008 JFSB, Provo, UT 84602, USA)

Abstract

Many countries attempt to increase their Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings and scores over time. However, despite providing a more accurate assessment of the achievement-based improvements across countries, few studies have systematically examined growth in PISA scores over multiple assessments. Using data from the 2006, the 2009, and the 2012 PISA, we analyzed which countries experienced significant increases in their country-level average PISA scores between 2006 and 2012. To facilitate improved policy decisions, we also examined what country-level conditions were associated with such increases. Contrary to expectations, we found that few countries significantly increased their PISA scores over time. Countries that did experience meaningful improvements in PISA scores were more likely to have had lower PISA scores in 2006 and experienced country-level foundational advancements more recently, such as advancing to a more democratic form of government and/or a higher income classification.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristie J. Rowley & Shelby M. McNeill & Mikaela J. Dufur & Chrisse Edmunds & Jonathan A. Jarvis, 2019. "Trends in International PISA Scores over Time: Which Countries Are Actually Improving?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-18, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:8:p:231-:d:254250
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/8/231/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/8/231/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesus Felipe & Utsav Kumar & Reynold Galope, 2017. "Middle-income transitions: trap or myth?," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 429-453, July.
    2. Kevin Macdonald, 2008. "PV: Stata module to perform estimation with plausible values," Statistical Software Components S456951, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 25 Oct 2023.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Janine Anne Campbell & Joseph McIntyre & Natalia Kucirkova, 2021. "Gender Equality, Human Development, and PISA Results over Time," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-18, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Macdonald, Kevin & Patrinos, Harry Anthony, 2021. "Education Quality, Green Technology, and the Economic Impact of Carbon Pricing," GLO Discussion Paper Series 955, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Miroslava Federicova, 2014. "The Impact of High-Stakes School-Admission Exams on Study Effort and Achievements: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Slovakia," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 9, in: Adela García Aracil & Isabel Neira Gómez (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 9, edition 1, volume 9, chapter 27, pages 515-532, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    3. Nicolas Contreras, 2015. "School Autonomy, Education Quality and Development: an Instrumental Variable Approach," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01161888, HAL.
    4. Glawe, Linda & Wagner, Helmut, 2020. "China in the middle-income trap?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    5. Anne Booth, 2016. "Falling Behind, Forging Ahead and Falling Behind Again: Thailand from 1870 to 2014," Economies, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-17, January.
    6. Wagner, Helmut, 2018. "Structural change, rebalancing, and the danger of a middle-income trap in China," BOFIT Policy Briefs 6/2018, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    7. Ahmad, Mahyudin, 2016. "Middle income trap and income inequality: Empirical evidence on the distributional effect of economic liberalization and political regime," MPRA Paper 76437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Gilberto Turati & Daniel Montolio & Massimiliano Piacenza, 2011. "Fiscal decentralisation, private school funding, and students’ achievements. A tale from two roman catholic countries," Working Papers 2011/44, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    9. Juan Aparicio & Jose M. Cordero & Lidia Ortiz, 2021. "Efficiency Analysis with Educational Data: How to Deal with Plausible Values from International Large-Scale Assessments," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(13), pages 1-16, July.
    10. Linda Glawe & Helmut Wagner, 2016. "The Middle-Income Trap: Definitions, Theories and Countries Concerned—A Literature Survey," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 58(4), pages 507-538, December.
    11. Upalat Korwatanasakul, 2023. "Thailand and the Middle-Income Trap: An Analysis from the Global Value Chain Perspective," PIER Discussion Papers 202, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Gilberto Turati & Daniel Montolio & Massimiliano Piacenza, 2011. "Fiscal decentralisation, private school funding, and students’ achievements. A tale from two roman catholic countries," Working Papers 2011/44, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Otaviano Canuto & Matheus Cavallari & Tiago Ribeiro dos Santos, 2019. "Middle Income Countries and Multilateral Development Banks Traps on the Way to Graduation," Research papers & Policy papers on Economic Trends and Policies 1939, Policy Center for the New South.
    14. Abdul Abiad & Margarita Debuque-Gonzales & Andrea Loren Sy, 2018. "The Evolution and Impact of Infrastructure in Middle-Income Countries: Anything Special?," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(6), pages 1239-1263, May.
    15. Nicolas Contreras, 2015. "School Autonomy, Education Quality and Development: an Instrumental Variable Approach," Post-Print halshs-01161888, HAL.
    16. Vivarelli, Marco, 2018. "Globalisation, structural change and innovation in emerging economies: The impact on employment and skills," MERIT Working Papers 2018-037, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    17. Shaker A. Zahra, 2020. "Technological capabilities and international expansion: the moderating role of family and non-family firms’ social capital," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 391-415, June.
    18. Charles Gore, 2017. "Late industrialisation, urbanisation and the middle-income trap: an analytical approach and the case of Vietnam," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 10(1), pages 35-57.
    19. Gianfranco DE SIMONE, 2012. "Render unto primary the things which are primary's. Inherited and fresh learning divides in Italian lower secondary education," Departmental Working Papers 2012-14, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    20. Wagner, Helmut, 2018. "Structural change, rebalancing, and the danger of a middle-income trap in China," CEAMeS Discussion Paper Series 13/2018, University of Hagen, Center for East Asia Macro-economic Studies (CEAMeS).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:8:p:231-:d:254250. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.