Attainment in science of Maltese students participating in PISA 2009

Abstract

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) measures 15-year olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. This paper examines the scientific literacy of 15-year-olds in the PISA 2009 countries and economies. It describes the task characteristics of the scientific literacy proficiency levels and then it explores attainment of Science students in Malta compared with 73 other countries. This paper provides the relative proportions of students estimated to be at each of the proficiency levels for each country. Moreover, it compares the mean performance in scientific literacy between male and female Maltese students attending different school types. The results reported for science are estimates for the whole population of 15-year-olds in Malta, based on the performance of students who were presented with science test items. These estimates take into account information about how students with specific characteristics performed. These characteristics cover a wide range of variables from the student questionnaires. Statistical tests are carried out to investigate the performance in science of 15-year-olds in Malta and measure the relationship between attainment in Science and social, economic and cultural status (ESCS). The ESCS score is also used as a predictor in a multilevel model to account for the amount of variance in science attainment scores explained by ESCS and by school level factors.