OECD’s PISA assessment of the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds

Every three years, OECD tests roughly half a million of children in the principal industrialised countries, and that’s not simply about checking whether students have learned what they were recently taught, but we examine to what extent students can extrapolate from what they have learned and apply their knowledge and skills in novel settings. Extrapolating learning

How the demand for skills has changed Economy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (Levy and Murnane) Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution

PLUS CA CHANGE? In the job I’ve just left I got the chance to go to ministerial meetings in so many places, from America to Australia, to China to India, to Egypt to Scandinavia, where Ministers would unfailingly stand up and talk about how the world is changing, its uncertain, technology, global sustainability, rich and poor, economic challenge, movement of people, threats to our civilisation, etc. Then they all say, therefore, what youngsters need to be is adaptable, flexible, ever to cope with change, and words like that. Then, within an hour, all of them are marching to another drum which is about how we hold on to tradition and how we don’t let things that we have traditionally tested drift away because they’re fearful of their electorate thinking that they’ve lost what they thought the electorate matters. (Mick Waters, Former Director, The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority)

LEARNING IN THE UNFAMILIAR tasks/ problems contexts/situationsfamiliar unfamiliar familiar problems in familiar contexts novel problems in familiar contexts unfamiliar problems in unfamiliar contexts familiar problems in novel contexts

LEARNING IN THE UNFAMILIAR tasks/ problems contexts/situations familiar unfamiliar familiar problems in familiar contexts novel problems in familiar contexts unfamiliar problems in unfamiliar contexts familiar problems in novel contexts