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Performance and levels of contextualization in a selection of OECD countries in PISA 2006
Author(s) -
Nentwig Peter,
Roennebeck Silke,
Schoeps Katrin,
Rumann Stefan,
Carstensen Claus
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/tea.20338
Subject(s) - contextualization , german , psychology , science education , selection (genetic algorithm) , stimulus (psychology) , mathematics education , cognitive psychology , pedagogy , computer science , artificial intelligence , geography , archaeology , interpretation (philosophy) , programming language
Correct responses to the unitized items of PISA 2006 rely to differing extents on the contextual stimulus supplied. This difference is referred to in this study as the degree of contextualization. A selection of science items from PISA 2006 has been assigned to two categories, not by competencies as in the framework for the PISA survey, but by the degree to which the item requires the ability to extract and apply information from the contextual stimulus provided. The article explores how students in Germany and in other selected OECD countries perform in solving these two types of items. The results show that German students' performance is satisfactory when solving items which require knowledge to be recalled and applied but that they are also quite capable of extracting and using information from the item stimuli. Somewhat different distributions are observed in other selected OECD countries. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 897–908, 2009