3.5.4 PISA GOLD – A Wealth of Potential Evidence Advocating Policy For Gifted and Talented Education

PISA is a research gold mine of valuable international educational data waiting to be mined at the depth of its full potential. Like any mining process, it involves digging through a huge amount of sediment to shake and sift out the nuggets of gold in valuable research data. PISA can support any number of policy initiatives in education, including Gifted and Talented Education. The data mining process of this presentation will metaphorically focus on 14 karats of evidence from the PISA 2015 gold mine that can be a source of advocacy supporting advanced achievement worldwide. PISA uses the terminology of “Top Performers” rather than “Gifted” in analysis and reporting of data on the percent of students scoring in the highest Proficiency Levels 5/6. The value of PISA 2015 data will be demonstrated through accessing the wealth of gold nuggets from the OECD’s extensive PISA online database. Each of 14 items supporting PISA Top Performers will be analyzed by descriptive statistics generated to compare each of the 14 items across various comparative samples of countries from the 72 country PISA 2015 test cycle. Evidence relevant to gifted will relate to: (1) Top Performers in Science, Math, Reading; (2) Excellence Gap between Top Performers and Low Achievers; (3) Gender Differences: (4) Content Sub-Scales; (5) Cognitive Sub-Scales; (6) International Proficiency Levels as Benchmarks: (7) Socioeconomic Factors; (8) Early Childhood; (9) Opportunity to Learn; (10) Grouping; (11) Immigrant Students; (12) Financial Literacy: (13) Problem-Solving; (14) Change Over Time. Limitations are recognized in causality related to PISA scores. Reference is made to the 2018 report from the U. S. National Academy of Education, “International Education Assessments – Cautions, Conundrums, and Common Sense.” Areas of caution include design issues, sampling, questionnaire development, computer-based assessment, analysis, interpretation and reporting, and policy uses and limitations. A few countries have been tested by region, and those analyses will also be compared. This presentation will guide the audience in easy online access of PISA data and organization of data for analyses. It is hoped that increasing familiarity with access to PISA can help countries target specific transnational comparisons and develop ease in country specific descriptive statistics. Advocacy with policymakers is critical to the support of high achievement and Gifted Education and the skill of graphic representation is persuasive. PISA can be a source of uncovered gold in efforts to positively contribute to a country’s international educational profile in high achievement

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