Impact of Program For International Students Assessment 1

PISA Results Impacting Vietnam

Anonymous

University of the People

EDUC 5440 - Assessment and Evaluation

Dr. Emad Shahrori

21st, December 2022

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide test given

every three years to evaluate the reading, arithmetic, and science knowledge of students aged 15

around the world. According to PISA (n.d.), every few cycles, the focus shifts from reading and

writing to math and science. PISA also includes tests of "general" or "cross-curricular" skills like

teamwork and problem-solving. As students near the end of their required schooling, PISA

focuses on their practical skills. For the United States, PISA is coordinated by the National

Center for Education Statistics (NCES), while the OECD oversees the assessment globally.

The overall aims of PISA had already been stated in 1999, before the first PISA testing

took place in 2000: “How well are young adults prepared to meet the challenges of the future?

Are they able to analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively? Do they have the

capacity to continue learning throughout life? Parents, students, the public and those who run

education systems need to know” (OECD, 1999, p. 7) as cited in (Pisa’s inconsistencies…, n.d.).

The development of PISA has led to new approaches to comparing educational systems. The

analysis has shifted from measuring how much and what students have studied to gauging their

ability to apply what they have learned. In 2007 (Hutchison & Schagen, as cited in Pisa’s

inconsistencies…, n.d.)

This paper will discuss the PISA results in Vietnam will explain and analyse how the

country has been impacted positively and negatively. According to Asadullah et al., (2020), the

seemingly paradoxical success of East Asian students in places like Hong Kong, Mainland

China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore has inspired new studies of how to best educate this

region . Despite Vietnam's impressive PISA score, little research has been conducted on the

topic. Through a cross-national regression analysis, Asadullah et al., (2020 ) found that
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Vietnam's primary education system is superior to those of other developing countries in terms of

teacher-to-student ratio, proportion of trained teachers, and per capita spending. The pattern is

the same in both Thailand and Malaysia.

It is plausible that Vietnam's PISA advantage stems from the country's policies managing

financial allocations and the composition of its teaching force, given the evidence linking public

education spending and economic growth according to Jung and Thorbecke (2003) as cited in

Asadullah et al., 2020). While differences in enrollment rates, private school participation rates,

and educational inequality may help explain Vietnam's PISA advantage in a global context, these

factors cannot fully account for Vietnam's PISA advantage on their own. By comparing Vietnam

to other ASEAN countries, such as high-performing South Korea, student-level regional analysis

shows that Vietnam's surprise PISA performance cannot be accounted for by variances at the

child level in family background, educational inputs, and investment. The average student's

performance on scientific exams in Vietnam and Singapore is converging when differences in

students' socioeconomic backgrounds are controlled for. When variations in school-based factors

are considered, Vietnamese students perform at the same level as their Singaporean counterparts

in all three subjects. For Vietnam's PISA results to catch up to those of similarly-positioned

countries in the area, further improvements in the country's socioeconomic climate are needed.

To better understand Vietnam's out-of-the-blue success on international education tests,

one body of study looks at the representativeness of the Vietnam PISA sample (higher

socioeconomic status of participating children, for example) (Glewwe,2016) as cited in

Asadullah et al., (2020) . Modifying the educational production model in the cross-country

analysis by controlling for school participation rate did not erase the Vietnam’s advantage. This
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is consistent with the results of our student-level study, which found that differences in family

and socioeconomic status could not account for the performance discrepancy when compared to

economically developed HPES nations like Singapore and South Korea. As a result, our findings

lend credence to the theory that Vietnam's competitive edge has nothing to do with economic

development or poverty reduction policies.

Standardized Testing - Despite major concerns regarding its validity and reliability,

standardised testing has been utilized for decades in many countries. However, Pisa has

contributed to a growth in such testing and a much greater dependence on quantitative metrics.

According to OCED (2019), most nations employed computer-based tests, with exams lasting a

total of two hours. In computer-based reading assessments, a multi-stage adaptive technique was

used, in which pupils were given a block of test items based on their performance in previous

blocks.

Narrow Range of Educational Outcomes - and their exclusive focus on English,

mathematics, and science reflects the biases of the wealthy persons who have been

predominantly involved in their establishment. Thompson (2020) says that despite the claims, the

tests cannot be considered universally applicable. These standardized tests in math, science, and

English are likely more suited to children in affluent countries and do not accurately reflect the

challenges pupils in developing nations experience.

Thompson (2020), states that instead of long-term development, these tests promote a

concentration on a three-year cycle of improvement. Although "work preparedness" is not

always the primary goal of education, PISA examinations are meant to measure it. PISA has only
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"imposed itself on" these nations and that it has no official authority and finally It gives private

businesses the opportunity to market "education improvement" items based on PISA results.

In conclusion, I believe PISA test results should be used as a trigger to change the

educational system in the country, rather than adopting the experiences of other nations to

improve the status and the test scores of 15-year-olds, in the country.
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References

Asadullah, M. N., Perera, L. D., & Xiao, S. (2020, March). Vietnam’s Extraordinary

Performance in the PISA Assessment: A Cultural Explanation of an Education Paradox.

IZA Org. Retrieved December 20, 2022, from https://ftp.iza.org/dp15168.pdf

OECD (2019), PISA 2018 Results (Volume I): What Students Know and Can Do, PISA, OECD

Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5f07c754-en

Pisa ' s inconsistencies why policy-makers should be cautious with Pisa results: Semantic

scholar. [PDF] PISA ' s Inconsistencies Why policy-makers should be cautious with PISA

results | Semantic Scholar. (n.d.). Retrieved December 20, 2022, from

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/PISA-%E2%80%99-s-Inconsistencies-Why-policy

-makers-should/dcdb3497261b92214a358d5a8242f8ee760e65c2

Program for International Students Assessment (PISA) . (n.d.). IES, National Center for

Education Statisitics. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/

Thompson, K. (2020, May 12). The Pisa global education tests – arguments for and against.

ReviseSociology. Retrieved December 21, 2022, from

https://revisesociology.com/2020/05/15/the-pisa-global-education-tests-arguments-for-an

d-against/