RSSProblem Solving Ability of 15-Year-Olds From Twelve Selected Countries 2003
(Continued from Mathematics Literacy Chart)
PISA 2003 found that just under 20% of 15-year-olds in OECD countries are “reflective, communicative problem solvers” able to tackle difficult tasks. The students who score in the top category (Level 3) are not only able to analyze a situation and make decisions, they are also capable of managing multiple conditions simultaneously. They can think about the underlying relationships in a problem, solve it systematically, check their work and communicate the results. In Japan and Hong Kong over a third of students place within the top level.
7 Responses to “Problem Solving Ability of 15-Year-Olds From Twelve Selected Countries 2003”
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June 27th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I’m not sure how helpful it really is to compare kids in different countries via standardized tests. Standardized tests are a poor measure of actual ability. It’s more a measure of wealth.
One odd correlation I noticed: a lot of those above-average countries have universal health care that’s easy to access. Whether getting public health care is a result of living in a less impoverished country or whether having UHC makes a country less impoverished is hard to say. But that’s actually a good argument in favor of government spending in public health care programs. It’s common sense that kids who get proper health care will do better in school. If you have ever gone to work sick or in pain, you know it’s hard to work when you’re unwell.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:42 am
I could have guessed that the U.S. spends more on eduation than any other country and also that the U.S achieves the worst results as well. Why? Again, the wrong people in positions where they can cause the most harm. Yes, it’s a definite trend throughout our government that proves lack of money isn’t the problem, the people making the decisions are! What a revelation! I agree with truckingal that clearing out the do nothing status quo from top to bottom would be the best thing we could do for our kids. It isn’t their fault they are stuck with teachers that really don’t care whether these kids excel or not. A quality teacher would make sure their students did the work necessary to not just pass but to do well for their own benefit. Every teacher must speak clear english, period. Every student must be able to understand and speak proper english, no exceptions. These teachers lack the ability to think outside the box as well as inovation and creativity. This is a situation that demands immediate attention. We are already so far behind it would be wise to have school six days a week 1st thru 12th grade indefinitely. Nothing is more important than putting the students first before spending money on anything else, education first! I’m sure we can cut out massive wasteful spending and streamline education while allowing plenty of room for the best in general education as well as the arts. There is no reason for the arts to be removed due to mismanegement of the budget. All we have to do is remove the people who aren’t qualified to run and manage a budget and replace them with people capable of producing positive results. There is NO excuse for poor management of the budget, none. Government has proven over and over that they can’t get anything right. Can you name one area where government has outperformed the private sector? Government has proven to be more trouble than good, just look at the performance of katrina! They wasted billions that if managed correctly could have made a huge difference elswhere. Thousands of trailers left sinking in the mud to renting cruise ships that no one ever used and on and on… We must have guidelines that insure all LEGAL citizens have access to a good education. We must take care of our citizens first. It isn’t our responsibility to educate anybody and everybody who wanders into the states illegally. We simply can’t manage the overcrowding from illegal residents nor should we. Anyone who disagrees can’t make the case justifying why anyone here illegally should have the same priviliges as legal residents; that is unfair and cannot be allowed. English has to be declared the official language of the U.S. where all residents have to speak english. How else is anyone supposed to learn our national language? We must act as if this is our last chance to change what we know to be a broken system. We don’t have much time to solve this massive problem so we must measure twice and cut once. It will take years of perfect test scores to just catch up let alone pass the current academic leaders.