Students’ tests, illustrative stock photo (source: Sme - Ján Krošlák )
The 2015 international PISA tests have shown that Slovak pupils are below the average of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in collaborative task solving. While the average was 500 points, Slovaks scored a mere 463, the Sme daily wrote on November 22.
Out of the 52 countries around the world that participated in this PISA measurement, only pupils from Mexico and Turkey scored worse than Slovakia, while similar performance as that of Slovak pupils was also achieved by teenagers in Israel, Greece and Chile. A total of 1,568 pupils of age 15 from Slovakia were included in the measurement.
New skills measured
In addition to testing pupils’ performance in reading, mathematics, natural science and financial literacy in PISA tests, for the first time Slovakia tested pupils in collaborative problem solving, the TASR newswire wrote.
The collaborative problem solving measurement was aimed at monitoring how and at what level a pupil can work with other team members in order to resolve a particular problem. Pupils were asked to interact with computer-based agents, which simulated team members, to carry out tasks. The tests were performed electronically.
The tests also showed that in Slovakia, as well as in all OECD countries, boys scored better than girls in this category.
As many as 123,412 pupils from around the world were involved in the PISA testing, while 1,856 of them were Slovak.
Singapore’s students were best at cooperating with one another in terms of solving problems (561 points), followed by pupils from Japan (552) and Hong Kong (541), according to TASR.
