1. Psychological Theory and Educational Reform: a Finnish perspective using PISA and L2L results, with some Russia/Fin comparisons using PISA data
Jarkko Hautamäki
Using data compiled by Patrik Scheinin, Sirkku Kupiainen and myself
University of Helsinki, Finland
Departments of Education and Teacher Education
& Centre for Educational Assessment
Moscow, Russia
The next picture is Patrik’s and the place is Hanko, Finland

2. The Finnish PISA results have been described as a Miracle…
Are there any reasons to believe in educational miracles?

3. L2L in relation to GPA, National Assessment and PISA

4. OECD PISA

5. Are students prepared to meet the challenges of the future
Are students prepared to meet the challenges of the future? Do they have the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in society? Do they have the capacity to continue learning throughout life? What is our situation compared with other countries?
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provides some answers.
PISA is an internationally standardised assessment that was jointly developed by participating OECD countries.
Administered to 15-year-olds in schools.
Repeated every three years: 2001, 2003, 2006, and 2009.
In all PISA cycles the domains of reading, mathematical, and science literacy are assessed, one major/two minor
Tests are typically administered to between 4,500 and 10,000 students in each country.

7. Learning to learn - Finnish studies since European Union Pilot Project 2008 as a part of defining and measuring key competencies (8 participating countries) google search : Eu learning to learn pilot -L2L is used to more detailed modelling national education, to complement PISA and other studies

8. Learning-to-learn (Def) = competency and willingness to adapt to novel tasks
activating one’s mastery-of-thinking and perspective-of-hope
by means of maintaining cognitive and affective self-regulation in-and-of learning activity
L2L is then understood as a resulting ’vector’ of cognitive and personal beliefs ’vectors’

9. Basic Issue is - So what! – given our psychological understanding or other source of data, PISA,L2L…

10. Developing national education using causal information
How are national concerns constituted or identified?
How one can use PISA or any international comparative study to solve national concerns?
David Olson ‘Psychological theory and educational reforms’ presents a communication dilemma between psycho-educational studies and policy-related national educational reforms:
the causal analysis of the factors relevant to the functioning of school as an institution < a break > the intentional analysis of the processes relevant to teaching and learning
Causal modelling produces variances and correlations, which are not easily translated into intentions and goals

11. Developing national education using causal information
Social science knowledge as well as educational and psychological knowledge – is characterized by 3 rules concerning factors of causality, comparison, and multivariate complexity (see Edward Tufte Beautiful evidence, 2006)
Some factors make a difference, some don’t
The differences aren’t very great
It’s more complicated than that

12. Some evidence and some interpretations
PISA 2003, 2006 and 2009
Some evidence
and some interpretations

13. PISA 2009 subject means (read, math, science) by country
500 is the OECD mean with 100 SD
Countries with best results do well in all tests and vice versa

14. The results cannot be explained by factors associated with just one subject.
Broad explanations are more interesting from the point of educational policy.
However, what psychological theories can be used /proved?

15. Money does have a role in the results BUT
Top results are attained with medium costs.

16. Gender as an independent factor,
or a fact to be explained?
Parents’ education as an independent factor, or what are
the effective mechanisms?

17. PISA 09 Reading

18. In countries with top results even children from the least educated families perform over or on the OECD average (2009).

19. Contextual factors where politics decide
And difficult issues of the schooling systems with its regions, schools, and classes
And it all is about mastering the student variation, differences between students,
organising schooling by the spesific national institutional solutions

20. The average yearly number of hours spent in school correlates negatively with PISA results on the country level. Focus on quality rather than quantity…

21. Total reading, math and science learning time per week (PISA 2009)

22. Also in 2009 the best results are mostly achieved with relatively low student variation.

23. Variance components: Between School Variation (2009)
This area is empty!
Scandinavian (comprehensive school) model,
Asian model,
Central European model.

25. 2009 Finnish pupils believe that school is quite interesting and useful.
Among the more positive of those countries that get highest results.

26. What is so special about Finnish schools?

27. The Finnish Education System
Basic education still mostly divided to two separate entities of grades 1–6 and grades 7-9
Girls outperform boys in most subject on most levels
Girls outnumber boys in general upper secondary education and in tertiary education except for technical areas
Vocational/professional education strongly divided into “male” and “female” fields
PISA assessment
point/position

28. No streaming or ability grouping
Yet, the choice of first foreign language at grade 3 (and a possible second one at grade 5) can affect class formation in some schools
The same goes for a specific emphasis on music education from grade 1 on and some other “special emphasis” classes (math, science, art) in grades 7-9
Remedial teaching and special education
Closely integrated into normal teaching; growing emphasis on inclusion
Free school meal as a fixed part of the school day
Emphasis on student welfare: health and dental care, student welfare team, school psychologists, career counsellors (grades 7-9)

29. All schools create their own curricula based on the national core curriculum and lesson hour distribution
No inspection of schools but mandatory self-evaluation of schools by the municipalities and the schools themselves
No national examinations or testing during (or in the end of) basic education (grades 1-9)
Sample-based assessment in key subjects at grade 9 by the National Board of Education with results published only at the system level (school-level results only given to the schools themselves for internal use)
Pedagogy geared for the teaching of heterogeneous groups with stress on the weaker students

30. EDUCATIONAL EQUITY ACCOUNT as a way to look for [any] educational and schooling related results from the point-of-view of the educational theory and policy, when repeated and abundant data are available.The amount of data make it increasingly difficult to summarize and draw conclusions [of national gaps].

31. Educational Equity Account
The most essential educational equity factors or factors that have been shown to impede educational equity or the equal realisation of individual educability are gender, parents’ socio-economic or educational status, immigration status, home- and schooling language and, of course, schools.
There are also other factors that could be taken into account in estimating national educational equity account in specific areas like in Nordic countries, in Europe, in world.

32. Educational Equity Account in Finland (PISA 2006, Hautamäki & al, 2008)
Factor
Level
Balance
Interpretation
Regional
No difference
Small difference
only in one region of 6
Regional balance is achieved
Urban/rural
Urban M > rural M
Urban >0, rural < 0
Real, but so far small differences, monitoring in needed
Parents’ education
Higher means for students with better educated parents
Debates and further analyses still needed; a complex issue!
Finnish/Swedish
Finnish > Swedish
Need to be analysed even if the diffs were same in PISA 00 and 03
Immigrants
Natives > immigrants
Native = 0, immigrants > 0
Need to be monitored reading habits?
Gender
Girls > boys
Boys < 0, girls > 0
Level diff is modest; balance diff is large

33. What is so special about Finnish schools?
Teaching every subject well...
… to everybody…
... independently of home background...
... in every school,
... while making every available hour count,
…and keeping the atmosphere work oriented (= serious, but pleasant).
This is not possible…
without…

34. This is not possible without:
Respect for teaching as a profession…
A nationally coordinated core curriculum
-> makes requirements explicit
-> provides basis for teacher education
-> and learning material.
Masters level for all…
High quality of teacher education…
Many applicants -> Possibility of selection…
Breadth and quality of educational research…
Combined with research based teacher education and research litteracy in schools
-> Potential for self directed change.

35. Russia vs Finland PISA 2009
Some comparative data

36. mean read is a mean of 15 plausible values for reading
mean math is a mean of 5 plausible values for math
mean science is a mean of 5 plausible values for science
I have calculated two values for certain analysis
level 3 is the 1st principal component of reading, math and science scores
balance is the 2nd principal component which tell the tilting of the profile, positive values meaning reading score > math score, and negative values mean that reading score of an individual is lower than his/her math score

37. Descriptive Statistics FINLAND
N Min Max Mean SD
mean read
mean math
mean science
Level ,52 3,04 ,73 ,80
Balance ,82 4,38 ,09 ,94
Descriptive Statistics RUSSIA
N Min Max Mean SD
mean read
mean math
mean science
Level ,09 3,12 ,03 ,83
Balance ,22 3,89 ,12 ,94

38. Regional differences in Finland and Russia, PISA 2009 data
Anova, SPSS
Finland, F (11/5809)= ,6 %
Russia, F (44/5307) = 15,7 11,6 %
If rounded, in Russia the regional differences are 4 times larger (3 vs 12) than in Finland

40. Stratum
Level
Adygeya
-,288
Bashkortostan
-,138
Dagestan
-,455
Karelia
,174
Komi
,169
Marij El
-,357
Sakha (Yakutia)
-,522
Tatarstan
,170
Udmurtian
,063
Chuvashi
,103
Altai territory
-,038
Krasnodar
-,145
Krasnoyarsk
,104
Primorie territory
,111
Stavropol
-,301
Astrakhan region
-,044
Vladimir region
,226
Volgograd region
-,003
Vologda region
-,011
Voronezh region
-,185
Kaluga region
-,252
Kemerovo region
-,015
Kursk region
-,062
Moscow region
,005
Nizhnij Novgorod
-,159
Novosibirsk
,301
Omsk region
,255
Orenburg region
-,185
Perm territory
-,145
Rostov region
-,149
Ryazan region
-,054
Samara region
,249
Saratov region
,031
Sakhalin region
,059
Sverdlovsk region
-,258
Tambov region
,024
Tomsk region
,162
Tula region
,208
Tyumen region
,341
Ulyanovsk region
-,266
Chelyabinsk region
,279
Chita region
-,467
City Moscow
,742
Saint-Petersburg
,472
Khanty-Mansijsk
-,090

43. Home Language /Russian Data

44. A possible end?

45. 9th
Vantaa
2010
Region
School
Classes
Pupils

46. L2L Competence (3rd, 6th and 9th graders), 2010, N for each c. 2000

47. L2L Beliefs (3rd, 6th and 9th) 2010, N 2000 for each

48. L2L competence and GPA, 9th graders
Students have been divided into 25 % groups according to L2L cognitive test results and then GPA has been estimated for students and results are presented by schools. The results show that there are between school differences in giving schools marks, refering to a possible threat to educational equity

49. Developing national education using causal information
Hautamäki, J., Harjunen, E., Hautamäki, A., Karjalainen, T., Kupiainen, S., Laaksonen, S., Lavonen, J., Pehkonen, E., Rantanen, P. & Scheinin, P. with Halinen, I. and Jakku-Sihvonen, R. (2008). PISA 06 Finland. Analyses, reflections and explanations. Ministry of Education Publications 2008:44. Helsinki: Ministry of Education. (
Available also PISA06e.pdf

53. Formal (Piagetian) Thinking
GPA in relation to Formal Operational Thinking,
Given no gender difference in formal operational thinking,
9th graders, Learning to Learn Studies in Finland

55. basic data: all pupils (N c. 1900) of a bigger city
Learning-to-Learn A developmental approach Centre for Educational Assessment University of Helsinki, Finland
longitudinal data
aged 12, 15, 17
basic data: all pupils (N c. 1900) of a bigger city
presented figures are based on students participating in all 3 measurements (attrition rate high), (n c. 600)
y-axis: % of the max points

56. Deductive reasoning
Varia=vocational education, 6th form
2001, 2004, 2006 (long. data, ‘backward’ grouping

57. Formal operational reasoning
Varia=vocational education, 6th form
2001, 2004, 2006 (long. data, ‘backward’ grouping

58. Thinking self-concept
Gender (girls, boys)
2001, 2004, 2006 (long. data)

59. L2 or Learning to Learn Scales
Theoretical model is a combination of several theories of educational psychology
the competence scales are criterion-scaled in relation to the theory of reflective abstraction
the belief scales comprise a comprehensive set (more than 30 scales) to cover motivations, self-efficacy, subject related self-conceptions, self-esteem, socio-moral duty, ...