PISA for Development: enhancement of the contextual questionnaires

PISA contextual questionnaires highlight the variation that exists among students and schools in a country and how this relates to performance. Current PISA questionnaires may not always capture the relevant variation for middle- and low-income countries – as indicated, for instance, by the fact that questions about school infrastructure and teaching and learning materials are strongly related to student performance in high-income countries, but are often unrelated to differences in performance in middle-income countries. PISA for Development (PISA-D) enhances the contextual questionnaires to better measure factors that are more strongly related to student performance in middle- and low-income countries while maintaining comparability with PISA on a set of core indicators. The PISA-D questionnaires increase the quantity of relevant information collected on students, teachers and schools in middle- and low-income contexts, emphasising inclusive environments, quality instruction, learning time and family and community support while also extending the PISA measure of students’ socioeconomic status.