A Methodological Critique of the PISA Evaluations

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.