The international PISA tests have become “false idols of educational excellence for the world to worship”. They have extraordinary status and influence. Education systems and even nations are judged by test scores and rankings that are assumed to be accurate measures of achievement. A primary assumption is that all students always try their best. A growing literature shows this to be false.
The OECD report on PISA 2018 found that over two-thirds of students in the OECD did not fully try on the tests. Eighty per cent of students in Germany did not fully try as did 79% of students in Denmark and Canada and 78% in Switzerland. Some 73% of Australian and New Zealand students did not fully try. In contrast, 46% of Korean students and 60% of Japanese students did not fully try. This variation calls into question the validity of league tables of countries based on PISA results.
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