Pearson, the multinational education company, has been chosen by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to develop the frameworks for the 2018 PISA tests.

PISA, which stands for the Program for International Student Assessment, establishes a benchmark for education systems in various countries by assessing 15-year-old students’ skills and knowledge in preparation for further education or joining the workforce.

Pearson won in a competitive bidding process, the company indicated in its release on Dec. 10.

The frameworks define what will be measured in PISA 2018, how the results will be reported, and which approach will be chosen for developing tests and questionnaires. By 2018, most students will be taking the test by computer. 

PISA 2018 could be the start of a new phase of the organization’s international assessments, according Andreas Schleicher, the head of the PISA program. “We can now make much smarter use of technology in how we test young people, and we need global competence as governments around the world seek to equip young people with the skills they need for life and employment,” he said in a statement.

The most important goals of the process for 2018 will be how the frameworks:

• Redefine reading literacy, taking into account how young people are taught to approach the digital environment, including how they recognize credible websites and online documents.
• Review mathematics and science, and where necessary, adapt the frameworks for these two subject areas.
• Develop the student questionnaire framework for the collection of contextual information and the measurement of other education outcomes that may have connections with performance.
• Develop a framework for measuring global competence by assessing students’ awareness of the interconnected global world we live and work in, and their ability to deal effectively with the resulting demands.

PISA is administered every three years in about 70 participating countries around the world. Representative national samples of 15-year-olds took the PISA 2012 test; approximately 510,000 students represented about 28 million 15-year-olds globally. The organization expects at least that size of a student sample to take the PISA 2015 and PISA 2018 assessments. 

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