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Session 4. PISA, Global Competence and TALIS: What They Show a School
Objective. State what PISA, its global competence assessment and TALIS do and do not show a school, audit a sample of school tasks against the ideas of applying knowledge, and design a short staff survey on TALIS-style themes.
When a ranking appears in the news, the usual reaction is to ask how to climb it. A better question is what the study asks young people to do. PISA, its global competence assessment and TALIS are each designed for a particular purpose and a particular group of people. In this session you learn what each one says about itself, test your own tasks against its ideas, and use a survey to listen to your teachers, without using any country's score.
Key ideas
What PISA assesses
- The OECD describes PISA as measuring 15-year-olds' ability to apply reading, mathematics and science knowledge to real-life challenges. The PISA 2022 framework report says the 2022 assessment covered reading, mathematics and science with a major focus on mathematics, and also creative thinking and financial literacy.
- Notice the word 'apply'. PISA is built around using knowledge, not around a national syllabus. That is why a school can learn from its framework and still say nothing about its own pupils' results from it.
A closer look at mathematics
- The PISA 2022 mathematics framework defines mathematical literacy as an individual's capacity to reason mathematically and to formulate, employ and interpret mathematics to solve problems in varied real-world contexts. It describes a modelling cycle with three processes: formulate, employ, and interpret and evaluate.
- Many classroom tasks give only the 'employ' step: the equation is already written. The cycle asks pupils also to turn a real situation into mathematics and then to judge whether the answer makes sense. The framework also lists 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, communication and reflection, and says the 2022 items were not specifically built around them.
Global competence and TALIS
- OECD's global competence framework, also assessed in PISA 2018 with a cognitive test and a questionnaire, has four dimensions: investigating the world, understanding others, communicating across cultures and taking action for collective well-being and sustainable development. For a school, these are useful headings for projects about the mahalla, other languages and environmental issues such as the Aral Sea.
- TALIS, the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey, asks teachers and principals about their work and conditions. Topics in its framework include teacher training and development, classroom and professional practices, self-efficacy, job satisfaction, school leadership, feedback and school climate. It is a survey of teachers, so it cannot tell you how well your pupils learn.
Cautions: rankings and fit
- A league table puts countries in a line by one score. It does not show what was taught, how many children were in a class, which language they learned in or what changed over time. This course makes no claim about any country's position. If a news story gives a rank, ask what the framework itself measures, then audit your own tasks.
- Also check the age: PISA assesses 15-year-olds, so it says nothing directly about Grades 1-4. Use its ideas as questions for tasks at any age, not as claims about pupils who did not take part.
PISA 2022 mathematics: the modelling cycle
Reading PISA's statement of purpose
The OECD says PISA measures the ability of 15-year-olds to apply their knowledge of reading, mathematics and science to real-life challenges, and that the 2022 round also covered creative thinking and financial literacy. The key word is 'apply'. A pupil who can recite a rule but cannot decide when to use it is doing something PISA does not target.
The mathematics framework adds structure. It names three processes: formulate, employ, and interpret and evaluate. Ask of each of your tasks: where does the pupil decide that mathematics can help? where do they check that the answer fits the situation? Tasks with the equation already written leave out the first and third processes, which is not wrong but is incomplete.
What each study cannot tell you
PISA assesses 15-year-olds, so it speaks directly only about that age group. Its framework is not your syllabus, and its results describe groups of students in participating systems, not your Grade 9 class. Global competence, assessed in PISA 2018 with a cognitive test and a questionnaire, has four dimensions that suit project work but are not a ready-made scheme of work.
TALIS gives teachers and principals a voice about their work, including training, practices, job satisfaction, leadership and school climate. It does not measure pupils' learning. A school can borrow the themes to run its own anonymous pulse, but it should never compare its small sample with international percentages. Always ask: who answered, how many, and what will we do with the answers?
Examples from the classroom
From equation to cotton field
Scene. Dilnoza, Grade 9 maths in Fergana, has the task 'Solve 3x + 7 = 28'. After reading the cycle she writes a second version: a farmer pays 7 000 so'm for a permit and 3 000 so'm per kilogram of seed, and has 28 000 so'm. Pupils must write the equation, solve it and say whether the answer fits the money she has. Her pupils need 12 minutes instead of 4.
Insight. Adding formulate and interpret asks pupils to use mathematics, not only to compute.
The ranking headline in a Grade 1-11 school
Scene. A news site in Tashkent ranks countries and a district officer asks Malika, principal of a Grade 1-11 school in Navoi, how her school will 'rise'. Malika checks the framework, sees it concerns 15-year-olds, and audits ten Grade 9 tasks: nine need only a known procedure. She proposes one 'formulate and interpret' task per unit and keeps results of the audit in a folder.
Insight. Turn a headline into a question about your own tasks, and respect the age group of the study.
A six-question staff pulse
Scene. Aziz, head of a school with 22 teachers in Samarkand, drafts six anonymous questions on feedback, professional learning and school climate with a 1-4 scale. He decides not to show results for groups under five. Only 9 teachers answer in the first week. He shares a one-line summary with all staff and promises one action: a 20-minute peer visit per term.
Insight. A survey earns trust only when it is anonymous and when results lead to a visible action.
Common pitfalls
- Quoting a rank from a news site as if it described your school.
- Applying a study of 15-year-olds to Grade 3 pupils as if they took part.
- Using TALIS themes to compare your staff's answers with international percentages.
- Running a staff survey and not sharing what you learned within a month.
Audit Six School Tasks and Draft a Staff Pulse
- Trios (10 min): read Table A in the Activity Kit. Work through the worked example together: a Grade 9 task 'Solve 3x + 7 = 28' and a rewritten version about a cotton field in Fergana. Say which of formulate, employ, interpret and evaluate each version asks.
- Trios (20 min): from your own school documents choose six tasks (two maths, two language or reading, two science or social studies). Complete Table B for each: is there a real context? Does the pupil decide what to do? Must they judge if the answer makes sense? Which global competence dimension, if any? Mark yes, partly or no.
- Whole group (10 min): count 'yes' answers across the room. Which question is most often 'no'? Discuss one newspaper-style claim ('We must reach the top five') using the cautions card: what would you answer?
- Part B, pairs (15 min): use Table C to draft a six-question anonymous staff pulse on three TALIS-style themes of your choice (for example professional learning, feedback, school climate). Write the question, the answer scale and one action you would take if most answers were low. These are your own questions, not TALIS items.
- Alone (5 min): write your leadership task from the Kit and decide how you will protect anonymity (for example no results shown for fewer than five people).
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which of the six tasks became easy to improve once you named the missing process?
- What did the audit show that no ranking could have shown you?
- What would make staff answer the pulse honestly, and what could make them stop?
Reflect
- Which of my school's tasks would a pupil answer without ever deciding what to do?
- What did the last ranking I saw make me want to do, and was that sensible?
- What do I not know about my staff's working conditions that a short survey could show?
Try it tomorrow
- Take three tasks from your own school and mark which of formulate, employ, and interpret and evaluate each one asks of pupils.
- Rewrite one task so that pupils must decide what to do and judge whether their answer makes sense.
- Draft three anonymous staff questions on one theme and decide what action you would take if most answers were low.
Further reading and links
Use PISA's ideas as questions about your own tasks, use global competence for project design, use TALIS themes for your own staff survey, and never read a rank as advice.