Learning situations and general education: Secondary analyses of the Swiss PISA data. Implications fort he evaluation of educational standards

Abstract

The international comparisons of students’ school achievement within the PISA study have been carried out on subjects which are useful in everydays life – reading, math and science. Whether or not this life-related general education is part of learning situations within tuition was not part of the analyses. Therefore a secondary analyses was carried out in which teachers and other experts made an appraisal on the curricular validity of PISA test items, and these same experts made an estimation on how different the Swiss results would be if the tests would be of higher curricular validity. The results are meaningful with regards to the planned education monitoring insofar that they show that the implementation of educational standards are unlikely to be successful, unless curricula and study materials will be adjusted.