Pisa and Reading Literacy: a didactical point of view. A critical analysis of the didactical validity of an international survey

Abstract

Whatever the intentions of the initiators of PISA, it is important to examine the validity – and thus the interest – of such an operation from the didactical point of view. We leave it to others to defend the positive aspects of this programme, seeking here only to highlight the limits of it’s usefulness for didactics – perhaps even the obstacles which this type of investigation might erect with respect to current efforts to improve the teaching of reading. We will conclude by asking about the secondary effects of the study and whether the effort is worth the investment.
Our analysis, reflections and questions are based essentially on our experience in didactics of French as a mother tongue, in collaboration with teachers of the Cycle d’orientation in Geneva (lower secondary school) and on our participation in two other international surveys IEA, International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, Reading Literacy, 1991; TIMSS, Third International Mathematics and Science Study, 1995) .