PISA
The Finnish PISA 2006 pages
Scientific literacy
In PISA 2006, Scientific literacy was the main domain for the first time. Accordingly, students’ skills and knowledge in science was measured and reported in a more comprehensive manner than the two other domains (see PISA 2006 Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, pp. 31-120, and the Framework for PISA 2006, pp. 19-44, for a more comprehensive picture. Additionally, the Student questionnaire of PISA 2006 centred on issues related to science and science learning (see Students’ science-related attitudes).
Finnish students’ performance in Science literacy can be described as in a class of its own, with Finnish students performing at the top in both the overall Science score (xls,22Kb,English) (563) and in all the three sub-areas of identifying scientific issues (555), explaining phenomena scientifically (566), and using scientific evidence (567). In terms of proficiency levels, Finland and New Zealand stood out with the highest share of students at level 6 (3.9% vs. the OECD average of 1.3%). The share of students below level 2, instead, was clearly lowest in Finland at 4.1% with the OECD average at 19.2%.
Even if the results of the earlier cycles of PISA can not be fully compared to the results of PISA 2006, Finnish students’ success seems to continue their peers’ performance near or at the top already in PISA 2000 and PISA 2003. Also, like in the other domains and through all PISA cycles, Finnish students’ performance was very even, with the smallest between-school variance among all participating countries and the smallest total variance among the well performing OECD countries. Also the <impact of students’ home background> (Figure 2) on their Science performance was in Finland well under the OECD mean. And as in other countries with small differences between schools, the impact is visible mainly inside schools.
There was no overall gender difference in Finnish students’ performance in Scientific literacy with boys’ mean score at 562, girls’ at 565. However, looking closer at the different subareas, the same differences characteristic for boys and girls across the countries were also visible in Finland. In Identifying scientific issues Finnish girls outperformed boys by 568 vs. 542, in Explaining phenomena scientifically boys outperformed girls by 571 vs. 562, and in Using scientific evidence Finnish girls again performed a little better than boys (571 vs. 564 score points). However, as the tasks also vary in other respects (e.g. item format and item difficulty), it is not clear to what extent these small gender differences reflect the actual competence in question compared to some other characteristics of the tasks.
Scientific literacy is also approached in PISA via two types of science-related knowledge, knowledge about science vs. knowledge of science. Differences in countries’ performance in these two can probably be interpreted to reflect differences in the relative importance these two dimension are given in the local curricula. Among the countries, Finnish students expressed a fairly balanced profile between the two, with their competence in tasks regarding knowledge of science. As to the three knowledge domains of science, Finnish students’ (especially girls) relative strength was in ‘Living systems’ while their performance was weaker, even if still better than anyone else’s, in ‘Physical systems’ and in ‘Earth and space systems’(574, 560 and 554 score points, respectively).
For a broader picture of Finnish students’ performance in Scientific literacy in PISA 2006, see PISA06 Finland Analyses Reflections Explanations (Chapter 5: Scientific Literacy Assessment).
Table 1 Mean performance in Scientific literacy (xls,22Kb,English)
Figure 1 Percentage of students at each level of the proficiency scale (OECD 2006 p. 49)
Table 2 Top performers in Scientific Literacy in PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006
Figure 2 Overall variation divided into school- and student-level variation, showing the share of variance explained by students’ home background (OECD 2006, p. 171)
Figure 3 Difference in boys’ and girls’ performance in identifying scientific issues (OECD PISA 2006, p. 69)
Figure 4 Difference in boys’ and girls’ performance in explaining phenomena scientifically (OECD PISA 2006, p. 70)
Figure 5 Difference in boys’ and girls’ performance in using scientific evidence (OECD PISA 2006, p. 70)
Figure 6 Students’ knowledge about science and their knowledge of science (OECD PISA 2006, p. 72)
