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PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

oecd.org

111–120 of 164 posts

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#111

This is alarming. I believe it is probably a combination of several factors: - Social media and doomscrolling without sufficient parental controls: Several OECD countries are already addressing this by introducing or considering restrictions on teenagers’ access to social media. - App UX/UI: Many apps are designed to compete for our attention, which can gradually reduce our ability to sustain focus. - LLMs: The impac…

>- Social media and doomscrolling without sufficient parental controls: Several OECD countries are already addressing this by introducing or considering restrictions on teenagers’ access to social media.

Surely this time banning things will improve test scores!

Even before you get to the scores in the report, it shows what percentage of students come from schools that have banned phones. There doesn't seem to be any obvious correlation where banning phones from school gives better results. Eg Estonia averaged 520 points with 26% of students from schools that ban phones. 88.9% of students were in NZ schools where cellphones are banned, but NZ averaged 511 points.

I think before we start banning more "random" things we should consider whether these bans actually produce results. Let the countries that are making these changes run their banning experiment and the rest of us should wait and see whether their scores meaningfully improve afterwards.

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#112
post #10

At Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg Sweden 80% of the students would pass the entrance exam in the 60s. These days it's reversed, only 20% pass. I was told this was the case around 2005 when I studied there. The exam has not changed in difficulty.

What's the difference in how many people apply?

^^^ case in point.

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#113

"English pupils have pulled ahead of the rest of the UK in international reading, maths and science tests, new data suggests, with Scotland and Wales falling further behind." Appreciate this stuff gets political very quickly, but I'm curious what did England do that Scotland and Wales did not do (or vice versa)?

Take over Scotland and Wales?

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#114
post #93
post #27

PISA data show that students who use AI for specific schoolwork tasks, such as summarising texts, drafting or conducting research, attain lower scores in science than students who do not use AI. See graphs on PISA 2025 homepage : https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2025-results-volum... So much for all the EdTech startups that want you to use their AI teachers. Seriously, this should be a major signal to keep s…

> So much for all the EdTech startups that want you to use their AI teachers. Kid pasting the question into ChatGPT and pasting its answer back is not the same as an AI teacher persona. In my mind an AI teacher can be like a traditional education package (syllabus, material, questions, keeping track of progression) but way more flexible. I don't see no reason why AI teachers shouldn't give Bloom's 2 sigma effect to k…

> In my mind an AI teacher can be like a traditional education package (syllabus, material, questions, keeping track of progression) but way more flexible. I don't see no reason why AI teachers shouldn't give Bloom's 2 sigma effect to kids (and adults) very soon.

I think it's a double-edged sword.

I think some kids will absolutely use it that way, and it turns out to be revolutionary for them. Kids who couldn't afford a tutor now can have one.

But also, there will be kids that think they will do this, and they don't. Instead, they end up talking the AI into letting them off the hook of learning things for themselves, and society pays for the AI tutor while get nothing in return.

When I look at young people today, that's what I see. Some teenagers seem to have a college degree via self-study, while many others have completely fried their brains, while looking into the same devices for the same amount of time.

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#115

"English pupils have pulled ahead of the rest of the UK in international reading, maths and science tests, new data suggests, with Scotland and Wales falling further behind." Appreciate this stuff gets political very quickly, but I'm curious what did England do that Scotland and Wales did not do (or vice versa)?

Take over Scotland and Wales?

Very droll.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

"The school curriculum in England is the responsibility of the Westminster Government. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for setting their own curriculum policies."

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#116
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a big difference between different immigrant groups. In the U.S., children of immigrants are also often the lowest performers. My comment did not preclude either of these from being true. I didn't say "On average, children of immigrants do better in the US." I said "often the highest performers are children of immigrants." > But looking at test scores for hispanic students is a rough proxy because more tha…

I guess I left out what I thought was a shared premise: immigration patterns in Europe are heavily skewed towards refugees and economic migrants. But yes you’re right that the kids of skilled immigrants can score very high (as you’d expect), I just think that’s not as relevant to Europe.

Indeed it would be nice that people not lump everything into "immigrants". There are different categories of immigrants. I think it is fair when someone makes a comment about immigrants that applies only to one category, to counter with a comment about immigrants that applies only to a totally different category.

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in one Asian country, phone scrolling still happens with adults but kids get a lot of homework and definitely do it. Honestly excessive amounts, quantity over quality but at least studying is happening. If some third type of country didn't do doomscrolling but ignored their homework to play outside, that's better than scrolling but it's still not homework.

At what age does the homework kick in for kids growing up in Asia?

Speaking for China specifically, and this is all word of mouth since my kids are at a posh international school (apply hate appriopriately):

Elementary school is 8-5, longish day but not too bad on homework.

Middle school (grades 6-9) there's been a recent drive to have less homework so they stay till only 7:00 (!) doing it at school and only a little take home done between dinner and bed.

High school is your life revolves around homework, everyone realizes it's counterproductive to learning but they're all stuck in this trap grinding for the big exams that will shape the rest of your life. Key word neijuan.

Actual Chinese (and other asian countries) can chime in where I'm mistaken.

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I left out what I thought was a shared premise: immigration patterns in Europe are heavily skewed towards refugees and economic migrants. But yes you’re right that the kids of skilled immigrants can score very high (as you’d expect), I just think that’s not as relevant to Europe.

Indeed it would be nice that people not lump everything into "immigrants". There are different categories of immigrants. I think it is fair when someone makes a comment about immigrants that applies only to one category, to counter with a comment about immigrants that applies only to a totally different category.

Fair enough.

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#119

This is alarming. I believe it is probably a combination of several factors: - Social media and doomscrolling without sufficient parental controls: Several OECD countries are already addressing this by introducing or considering restrictions on teenagers’ access to social media. - App UX/UI: Many apps are designed to compete for our attention, which can gradually reduce our ability to sustain focus. - LLMs: The impac…

> - Social media and doomscrolling without sufficient parental controls: Several OECD countries are already addressing this by introducing or considering restrictions on teenagers’ access to social media. Surely this time banning things will improve test scores! Even before you get to the scores in the report, it shows what percentage of students come from schools that have banned phones. There doesn't seem to be any…

Thanks Aerroon for sharing ! Banning social media is indeed an experiment and we don't know yet how efficient it will be.

Re: PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD

#120

IQ scores in most of the Western world began reversing sometime from the 90s to early 00s. [1] That link is for the US but similar stuff has also been observed in most of every Western/OECD nation. By contrast they're still rapidly increasing in the 'Global South'. You'd expect this to manifest in reduced test scores and reduced quality of outcomes across a breadth of fields over time paired with the inverse happenin…

> IQ scores in most of the Western world began reversing sometime from the 90s to early 00s. [1] That link is for the US but similar stuff has also been observed in most of every Western/OECD nation. I wonder to what extent demographic shifts account for the observed reversal? It would be interesting to tease out what happens where composition remains constant, i.e. Poland. Though I doubt this explains the entire eff…

In what manner are you suggesting demography would be at issue here?
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