https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/PISA2018_CN_FIN.pdf 

Trends in student performance by: 600,000 people

·         Gender: gender gap in reading was one of the widest of participating countries (52 points)

o   Most OECD countries boys outperform girls in math, but here girls outperform boys 

o   Girls outperformed boys in science by 24 points

·         Age: 15 

·         Math: 507: higher than average of 489

·         Science: 522: higher than the average of 489

·         Reading: 520: higher than the average of 487

·         Large proportion of students performed highest level of proficiency in at least 1 subject (14% versus average 9%)

·         85% have basic proficiency (avg 75)

Interesting Discoveries:

·         Happiness: 91% report sometimes or always being at school 

·         Low bullying rate 18% vs avg 23%

·         Overall happiness: 78% report they are satisfied with their lives (avg 67%)

·         Ability to problem solve and critically think: 84% (girls expressed greater fear of failer than boys)

·         Passionate teachers 69%, students score higher in reading when they think the teacher is passionate

·         Socioeconomic (gap in performance 79 points) smaller than average of 89, 13% disadvantaged students scored in top 25% reading

o   91% disadvantaged schools are fully certified with at least master’s degree

What is it specifically that these schools do to have this satisfactory performance?

Gender: Boys

Boy's performance remained stable in reading and girls declined over the years. 

-1 in 4 boys expected engineer or science compared to 1 in 8 girls
- 7% ICT-related professional girls: girls none 
- Outperformed girls in math by 16 score points

 Girls:
-1 in 4 girls desired to be in health care: 1 in 9 boys
-outprefomed boys in reading by 30 score points 

 - boys and girls similar in science 

-2012 and 2018,  amount of time that 15-year-olds in Italy spent on the Internet, on a typical weekday, more than doubled, from less than two hours per day to about four hours per day (one of which was at school). 

-students in Italy missed out on a greater amount of learning time due to absences and indiscipline in class. Some 57% of students had skipped a day of school in the two weeks prior to the PISA test (OECD average: 21%);

Content Focus:

-77% attained at least a 2 in reading

-5% top performance in reading (5 or 6)

-76% 2 or higher in math

-10% 5 or higher  math 

-74% 2 or higher in science 
-3% top in science (5 or 6)

Economic status: advantage student outperformed disadvantage in reading by 75 points
- 10% advantage 2% distadvantage were top performers 
- 12% of disadvantage scored in top quarter of reading 

3. Key Findings 

-2018, Italy scored below the OECD average in reading and science, and around the OECD average in mathematics.

-In all three subjects, mean performance in Italy was lower than that in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom (amongst other countries). 

-Italy scored at a similar level as Portugal and Spain in mathematics, but lower than these two countries in science and lower than Portugal in reading, and scored at a similar level as Switzerland in reading, but below Switzerland in mathematics and science.

-high-achieving students hold lower ambitions than would be expected given their academic achievement
-three in five high-achieving disadvantaged students – but seven in eight high-achieving advantaged students – expect to complete tertiary education.

4. What is causing Italys students to lack ambition and follow strict gender roles? 

2.   Australia’s performance in reading, mathematics, and science has been declining. Reading steadily declined from 2000 to 2018, however, was the most rapid decline. Science has high-performance levels but began an average decline in 2012. Math averagely declined between 2003 and 2018. The top performers remained stable in reading from 2009 to 2018, decreased in mathematics from 2012 to 2018, and science between 2006 and 2018. 

Australian girl students outperformed the boys by 31 score points in reading, however, in 2009 the boy's performance remained stable while the girl's performance declined over the years. Boy students excelled more than girls by 6 score points and the girls slightly excelled greater than the boys by 2 score points in science. 

This is focusing on the age group of 15-year-old students.

3.   Australian students are reported to be bullied more frequently, experience the fear of failure, are more likely to skip school, and feel lonely at school. Girls experience a greater fear of failure than boys.

Socio-economically advantaged students outperform disadvantaged students in reading.

4.   Why are Australian students more likely to get bullied than others? How can this be stopped? Why is the performance levels declining? 

One in four boys are expected to go into the engineering or science profession by the time they are 30. 

One in four girls was expected to work in the health care related profession while only one in nine boys were expected to do so. 

7% of boys are expected to work in ICT- related jobs but no girls. 
I found it surprising that the highest-performing students scored declined on the assessment.

Girls were not expected to be able to achieve the same career compared to boys. For example, boys were expected to get jobs in engineering or ICT when girls were expected to work in health care taking care of others. 

Compared to the other OECD countries, in Italy 57% of students had skipped a day of school two weeks prior to the assessment. When students did attend class and the teacher had to wait for the class to stop talking so they could began the lecture. 

When parents were rating areas of importance on criteria for their childs school not often were “The academic achievements of students in the school are high” marked as high or very high importance. School reputation, save environment, and pleasant climate were more important to parents. 
I would like to find out how important an education is to people that live in Italty compared to the U.S. In the U.S if you do not have a good education then it limited job opportunities and I wonder if in Italty an education is not needed for most professions. 

All of the schools I have attended to have attendance policies and I wonder if the schools in Italy have the same. 

Based off the data, the lack of attendance, and the chattiness of the students do the students value or want an education like students in the U.S. 

I wonder how gender roles infulence carrers compared to the U.S. 

Age - In reading, the share of 15-year-old students who scored at Level 5 or 6 (top performers) increased by almost 4 percentage points – a statistically significant increase – between 2009 and 2018, to 13.5%. The share of 15-year-old students scoring below Level 2 proficiency in science shrank by 5.7 percentage points between 2006 and 2018.

Gender - The gender gap in reading in favor of girls was 24 score points (OECD average: 30 score points). Boys outperformed girls in mathematics (by 9 score points), while in science boys and girls performed similarly. While girls slightly outperformed boys in science (by two score points) on average across OECD countries in PISA 2018, in the United States girls and boys performed similarly in science.

3. Key Findings - Socio-economically advantaged students outperformed disadvantaged students in reading, mathematics, and science. In reading, the performance gap between socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students was 99 score points (OECD average: 89 score points).

While immigrants and non-immigrants scored at a similar level before accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile, immigrant students outperformed their native-born peers by 16 score points after accounting for these factors.

20% of students had skipped a day of school and 43% of students had arrived late for school during that period. 26% of students reported being bullied at least a few times a month, compared to 23% on average across OECD countries.

4. Questions - How effective are the initiatives in the United States that are aimed at helping socio-economically disadvantaged students? 

What is the impact of mental health on academic performance? 

2.  In the student performace with reading, math and science Portugal is around the national average as of 2018. During the 200s they were about 30 points below the average in each subject. Students that were of a s higher socioeconomic status generally performed better than students of a lower status. In the report it also mentioned that half of highest performaing males in math and science were expected to go into an engineering or science profession. Where as half of the highest performing females were expected to go into a health profession

3.  I thought it was interesting that 83% of students thought their teachers enjoyed teaching, which is 9% above the national average. I also thought it was interesting that 66% of students reported having a growth mindset. With this I also read that 56% of students when they fail, they are afraid of what others may think of them. I think that is interesting that so many students want to grow, but are afraid of failure. As students, we often have to fail and learn from our mistakes. So how can we create a better environment for students to make mistakes and learn from them?

4. What can be done to create less of gap for disadvantaged and advantaged students and how did these gaps form?

 

“Some 91% of students in Luxembourg reported sometimes or always feeling happy and about 6% of students reported always feeling sad. In most countries and economies, including Luxembourg, students were more likely to report positive feelings when they reported a stronger sense of belonging at school and greater student co-operation. Students were more likely to express sadness when they were bullied more frequently.” This finding was surprising to me because not a lot of schools can make kids always feel positive or create and environment where they are more likely to express their emotions when getting bullied. I want to find more about their philosophy and what they strive to teach children. 

2. Trends in student performance: 

3.  Key findings: On average in OECD countries 21% of students skipped a day of school and 48% arrived late in the two weeks before the PISA test. In Italy 57% of of students skipped school and 45% showed up late prior to the PISA test. Frequently bullied students are more likely to miss school. 

4. Additional questions

3. Some key findings that I found interesting in the PISA report are shown below:

4. Some topics regarding education in the United Kingdom that I would like to learn more about: