A Methodological Critique of the PISA Evaluations

Authors

  • Antonio Fernández-Cano University of Granada

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/relieve.22.1.8806

Keywords:

Evaluation, Meta-evaluation, Methodology of evaluation, PISA

Abstract

This paper conducts a methodological evaluation of the PISA international evaluations, giving a critical analysis of their shortcomings and limitations. A methodological review or meta-evaluation has been carried out on the multiple PISA reports in an attempt to demonstrate the plausible validity of the inferences that PISA maintains given a series of methodological limitations such as: an inconsistent rationale, opaque sampling, unstable evaluative design, measuring instruments of questionable validity, opportunistic use of scores transformed by standardization, reverential confidence in statistical significance, an absence of substantively significant statistics centered on the magnitudes of effects, a problematic presentation of findings and questionable implications drawn from the findings for educational norms and practice. There is an onus on PISA to provide and demonstrate more methodological rigor in future technical reports and a consequent need to be show great caution lest unfounded inferences are drawn from their findings.

Author Biography

Antonio Fernández-Cano, University of Granada

PhD. Chairman and Professor at the Department of Research Methods and Diagnostics in Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Granada, Spain. His interest areas are methodologies for research and evaluation, program evaluation, educational scientometrics and research. His postal address is: Universidad de Granada. Facultad Ciencias de la Educación. Departamento de Métodos de Investigación y Diagnóstico Educativo. Despacho 216.1 Campus de Cartuja. 18071- Granada (España)

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Published

2016-07-15

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