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The nation’s Ministry of Education is enthusiastic about the changes they are promoting and confirms that improvements should be evident in next year’s standardized tests. At least in terms of literacy. However, the diagnosis shows that the road ahead will be difficult in math. According to a report released today Argentine Observatory for EducationBased only on data from the last PISA test taken in 2022 One in four 15-year-old students can solve the simple rule of three exercises,
The data is generated from the analysis of the problems that were taken in those evaluations. In recent times, some models were released and this allowed experts to analyze What are the areas in which Argentina performed better or worse?. The aim is to be able to refocus teaching priorities based on the results. At a general level, Seven out of ten Argentine students did not reach the expected level in that subject.This is despite the fact that 79.2% of the content assessed is part of nationally established content.
These figures come from the report “Opening the box: what does PISA assess in mathematics?” Written by Nicolas Buchbinder (University of Colorado Boulder) and Martin Nistal and Eugenia Orlicky (both from the Argentino por la Educación Observatory). Experts suggest so It is important to understand what PISA assesses to know what students are learning. In this test, 72.7% of 15-year-old students did not reach the expected level in mathematics. This figure represents a deterioration compared to the country’s results in previous editions: in 2018, 69.1% did not achieve the minimum level, while the proportion was 66.5% in 2012; 63.6% in 2009 and 64.1% in 2006.
The PISA test is an international assessment that has been taking place since 2000 Every three years a sample of 15-year-old students attend the study in countries that choose to participate. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which evaluates each application, The knowledge and skills considered necessary to fully participate in modern societies are measured. It seeks to evaluate not just the reproduction of certain knowledge, but its application in new situations, both in school and in life outside the establishment. The focus in the 2022 edition was mathematics.
In the case of Argentina, the test was made of a sample 457 schools and 12,000 students throughout the national territory. For the first time in the country, PISA test was conducted on computer.
The maths section is in total 234 exercises Available (although students receive a maximum of 30) distributed across 99 units. These have different levels of difficulty and are divided into three equivalent and mutually exclusive sets, each containing 78 exercises. The allocation system is adaptive and computer distributed: They are allotted on the basis of performance in previous blocks, and are conducted in three stages, which allows for accurate and personalized assessment according to the student’s performance. Depending on their performance in the first phase, in the second they are assigned a set of exercises of higher or lower difficulty..The third step further adjusts the difficulty of the exercise sets.
This can be deduced by analysing the type of response Argentina agreed to 36% had a high probability of responding correctly to the first item. This is more than Brazil (30%) and less than Chile (57%) and Uruguay (47%). For Exercise 2 of the same unit, 20% of Argentine students found themselves above the required degree of difficulty.
To find out how it works, the OECD published ten exercises (they were called “continued exercises”) along with their degree and level of difficulty. The report shows some of them, which evaluate calculation of ratios in literal and abstract situations, the simple rule of three, and simple equations.
In Argentina, the results show this Only one in four 15-year-old students (27%) can solve a simple rule of three exercises. Only 36% reach the performance needed to solve the ratio problem at what they call “level of difficulty 1A” (below the minimum required in PISA), while 20% can solve level 2 (the minimum expected, depending on the test parameters).
“Although the results are usually presented in aggregate form, it is important to understand what PISA evaluates to have a better understanding of the knowledge being acquired by students,” the Observatory report states. The report shows two units and 5 exercises that have the lowest degree of difficulty. The exercises evaluate knowledge of simple equations, the simple rule of three, calculation of size ratios in literal and abstract situations. In Argentina, only 36% of students achieve the necessary performance to solve an exercise using ratios explicitly that has a level of difficulty of 1a (below the level required in PISA), while 20% can do so using ratios in implicit situations that have a level of difficulty of 2. In turn, 27% are able to solve the exercise of the simple rule of three
“To conduct PISA tests, national curricula are first analyzed to understand what is taught in each country. This content is then compared to the PISA assessment to identify similarities and differences. With this information, culturally relevant assessment practices are developed and adapted and aligned with local curriculum objectives. The practices are then validated and adapted to ensure equivalence across all participating countries. Finally, the results are contextualized considering curricular differences, allowing for more accurate interpretation and fairer comparisons between countries,” the report explains.
Despite the low results, the report shows that there is a close relationship between the assessed content and the national mathematics curriculum: 79.2% of the content of the PISA test is included in Argentina’s curriculum design, while 17.8% appears on some resumes and 3% is absent. In other countries of the region, the proportion of assessed content that is planned to be taught in the national curriculum is even higher: in Uruguay it rises to 84.1%; in Chile 98.1%; and in Brazil 99.6%.
“This report allows us to analyze the performance of students in some specific items”Apunta Bookbinder. And he adds: “In general, results reports use ‘performance levels’ and it is difficult to give a concrete idea of what skills and knowledge are related to those levels. Here we can Estimate what percentage of students might respond to each exercise in the assessment and this is what we try to do with the examples released from PISA,
Ines Zerboni, graduate in Psychopedagogy and Neuropsychology, says: “The data is worrying. The current approach to teaching maths is not working well. To reverse this we need the commitment of the whole of society, as is being achieved with the agreements for literacy and reading comprehension; It is important that today’s students develop mathematical skills not only for their academic and professional lives but also to face the challenges of everyday life.,
“this report This is another proof of the Argentine crisis. “This shows once again that in mathematics we are far behind even Chile and Uruguay, not to mention two neighbouring and comparable countries,” he points out. Andrés Riznik, Doctor in Physics, Popular and Professor at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella. Marcela Svarc, professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of San Andrés and researcher at CONICET, believes: “The results do not surprise those of us who work in universities And we take responsibility for interacting with the middle level in critical areas.
“We are very, very bad. What we are talking about today is that only 37.5% of 15-year-olds in Argentina solve a problem like this. A simple rule of three (which we did not teach 30 years ago because it was an easy-to-remember linear rule) and we used to say that if 16 triangles are 100%, then 6 are x, x= 6. 100 : 16 = 37.5. The most disappointing thing is that we have not even taught children the tool through which they can realize that there are fewer blue triangles than red triangles and that therefore the correct answer is 37.5% without having to calculate, because it is the only one less than 50%. Disappointing, ”says Gustavo Zorzoli, former director of the National School of Buenos Aires.
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