Ability in “ electronic reading” to be evaluated in the PISA assessment
In May students from 60 countries will take the exam of the PISA assessment, the programme for International student assessment, which tests the knowledge of students around the world every three years. This year the exam will feature a new subject along with maths, science and reading; the electronic reading test according to an article published by the El Pais newspaper on February 9th.
The 15 year olds will have 40 minutes to answer a total of 27 questions. The student swill insert a pen drive in the computer and find questions and a guide to answering them. The test will evaluate not only the reading capabilities of formats very different to the traditional, but also the cognitive capacity needed to make use of the technology.
One way of assessing aptitudes for a digital era is by evaluating information obtained by the student through an application which simulates the Internet, and the construction of knowledge in an electronic format using the available resources. For example the student will have to go to a text, read it to find the necessary information to answer questions and respond on screen.
However, not all of the countries participating in PISA 2009 will do this test due to the expense in both human and technological resources that it requires. Among the 17 countries which will participate are Spain, France, Korea and Japan.
The test will also try to evaluate the critical capacity of the students with regard to information (relevance and authenticity), which will be necessary when using tools such as Google or Wikipedia.
Quality control in education
In the PISA assessment of 2006, Spanish students fell 20 points in reading compared to the assessment of 2000, being the largest negative change in the developed countries. But in 2009, the same subject will be tested again, which will confirm the quality of reading of Spanish students. The results will be published in 2010 and will openly show the evolution of the Spanish education system and the results of each region.
What is more, the fourth PISA report will have the most dramatic impact yet, both in Spain and worldwide, with 60 countries taking part, 30 of them belonging to the OECD.
In Spain 25,000 students will take the tests in reading, maths and science while 2100 will also do the test in electronic reading. The 14 autonomous communities will have specific results for the students in their territory with the exception of extra medulla, Castile manager London community of Valencia who will not take part.
The 17 countries that will participate in the electronic reading tests are Austria, Australia, Belgium, China (Hong Kong and Macao), Chile, Denmark, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden.
