Highlights

Measuring up: Canadian Resultsof the OECD PISA StudyThe Performance of Canada’s Youth inReading, Mathematics and Science2009 First Results for Canadians Aged 15

Council of Conseil desMinisters ministresof Education, de l’ÉducationCanada (Canada)

Statistics StatistiqueCanada Canada

Human Resources and Ressources humaines etSkills Development Canada Développement des compétences Canada

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for definitions), Canada wasoutperformed by six countries inReading Accessing and Retrieving, fourcountries in Reading Integrating andInterpreting and two countries inReading Reflecting and Evaluating.When analyzing results for the two text

Among the 65 countries thatparticipated in PISA 2009, only fourcountries outperformed Canada on theCombined Reading scale: Shanghai-China, Korea, Finland and Hong Kong-China. Across the three reading aspectsubscales (see text box ‘What is PISA’

Measuring up: Canadian Resultsof the OECD PISA StudyThe Performance of Canada’s Youth inReading, Mathematics and Science2009 First Findings for Canadians aged 15

formats, fourc o u n t r i e sp e r f o r m e dbetter thanCanada on bothcontinuous textsand non-c o n t i n u o u stexts.

At the provincial level, most 15-year-olds also performed well inreading. Students in nine of theCanadian provinces performed at orabove the OECD average on thecombined reading scale with onlyPrince Edward Island performing belowthe OECD mean. When comparingperformance on combined reading andthe reading subscales, provinces fellinto one of three groups: above, at orbelow the Canadian average. Ontarioperformed above the Canadian averagefor both the combined reading and allreading subscales and Alberta

What is PISA?The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) was initiated by the member countries of the Organisationfor Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to provide policy-oriented international indicators of theskills and knowledge that are essential for full participation in modern societies of 15-year-old students. It assessesyouth outcomes in three domains – reading, mathematics and science – focussing on what students can do withwhat they have learned in school, at home and in the community.

PISA was first implemented in 2000 and is repeated every three years with each cycle providing detailedassessment in one of the three domains and summary assessments in the other two. In PISA 2009, reading literacywas the major assessment domain and was defined as “understanding, using, reflecting on and engaging withwritten texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge and potential, and to participate insociety”. It included three aspect sub-domains and two text format sub-domains:

• Accessing and retrieving: Involves going to the information space provided and navigating in that spaceto locate and retrieve one or more distinct pieces of information.

• Integrating and interpreting: Involves processing what is read to make internal sense of a text.

• Reflecting and evaluating: Involves drawing upon knowledge, ideas or attitudes beyond the text in orderto relate the information provided within the text to one’s own conceptual and experiential frames ofreference.

• Continuous texts: Are formed by sentences organized into paragraphs. These include newspaper articles,essays, short stories, reviews or letters.

• Non-continuous texts: Are documents that combine several text elements such as lists, tables, graphs,diagrams, advertisements, schedules, catalogues, indexes or forms.

In addition to reading, mathematics and science were included in PISA 2009 as minor domains.

Sixty-five countries and economies participated in PISA 2009, including all 33 OECD countries. In Canada,about 23,000 15-year-old students from around 1,000 schools participated. A large sample was drawn in Canadaso that information could be provided at both the Canadian and provincial levels1.

The PISA 2009 included a direct assessment of students’ skills (paper-and pencil test), a student questionnaire,and a school questionnaire completed by principals. The school and student questionnaire were used to collectbackground and contextual information related to student performance.

1. No data were collected in the three territories or First Nations schools.

HighlightsCanadian students continue to performwell in reading in a global context

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Only students from Shanghai-China, Korea, Finland and HongKong-China outperformed Canada in reading

estimated average score in reading

Note : The OECD average is 496 with a standard error of 0.6.

300 450400350 500 600550

Shanghai-China

Ontario

Korea

QuebecCANADA

Above the Canadian averageHong Kong-China

Finland

SingaporeBritish Columbia

JapanNew Zealand

Netherlands

Nova Scotia

Newfoundland and Labrador

Australia

Belgium

Saskatchewan

ManitobaUnited Kingdom

Chinese TaipeiDenmark

Germany

Ireland

Liechtenstein

France

Sweden

PolandUnited States

Estonia

New Brunswick

Iceland

Hungary

SwitzerlandNorway

Austria

Israel

Estimated average score

95% Confidence interval

SpainCzech Republic

Slovenia

Latvia

Portugal

ItalyMacao-China

Prince Edward Island

Greece

Kyrgyzstan

Turkey

ChileDubai (UAE)

Lithuania

Luxembourg

MexicoUruguay

Serbia

IndonesiaArgentina

QatarAlbania

Peru

Kazakhstan

Panama

Azerbaijan

Jordan

Brazil

Tunisia

Montenegro

Colombia

Romania

Trinidad and TobagoThailand

Bulgaria

Russian Federation

Croatia

Below the Canadian average

At the Canadian average

Alberta

Slovak Republic

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performed above the Canadian averageon four of the five reading subscales.British Columbia performed at theCanadian average for both thecombined reading and all reading sub-scales and Quebec performed at theCanadian average for both thecombined reading and four readingsub-scales. Newfoundland andLabrador, Prince Edward Island, NovaScotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, andSaskatchewan performed below theCanadian average for both thecombined reading and all reading sub-scales.

Reading performance infive of the ten Canadianprovinces decreasedbetween 2000 and 2009

Canada’s overall mean performance inreading was not significantly differentbetween 2000 and 2009. However, theproportion on high achievers (Level 4and above) decreased from 45% in2000 to 40% in 2009. AdditionallyCanada’s relative performancedecreased. Among the countries thatparticipated in both the 2000 and 2009assessments, only one countryoutperformed Canada in reading in2000 while three countriesoutperformed Canada in 2009.

Across the provinces, readingperformance decreased significantly infive of the ten provinces – PrinceEdward Island, Quebec, Manitoba,Saskatchewan and Alberta. Eventhough reading performance decreasedin Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta,the average score in these provinceswas still above the OECD average inPISA 2009. As a result of its decreasein performance, Manitoba went fromperforming above the OECD averagein 2000 to performing at the OECDaverage in 2009, while Prince EdwardIsland went from performing above theOECD average in 2000 to performingbelow the OECD average in 2009.

The overall performanceof Canadian studentsremained unchanged inmathematics and sciencebut decreased in someprovinces

Canada continues to perform wellinternationally in both mathematicsand science, scoring well above theOECD average and being out-performed by seven countries inmathematics and six countries inscience. The performance of studentsin all provinces, with the exception ofPrince Edward Island, was at or abovethe OECD average in these twodomains.

Canada’s performance inmathematics and science remainedstable over time. However, across theprovinces, mathematics performancedecreased in six provinces –Newfoundland and Labrador, PrinceEdward Island, New BrunswickManitoba, Alberta and BritishColumbia and science performancedecreased in two provinces – PrinceEdward Island and Manitoba.

In most Canadianprovinces, students inminority-language schoolsystems had lower readingperformance than studentsin majority-languageschool systems

PISA 2009 also examined theperformance of students in English andFrench school systems for thoseCanadian provinces that sampled thesepopulation groups separately andwhere the sample was sufficiently largeto allow for separate reporting. Readingperformance was compared forstudents in the English-language schoolsystem and those in the French-language school system for NovaScotia, New Brunswick, Quebec,Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and BritishColumbia. In five provinces (NovaScotia, New Brunswick, Ontario,Alberta and British Columbia) studentsin the English-language school systemsoutperformed students in the French-language school systems by 38 pointsor more on the combined readingscale, while in two provinces (Quebecand Manitoba) there were nosignificant differences betweenstudents’ performance in the twosystems.

Females continue tooutperform males inreading

As with previous PISA cycles, femalescontinue to outperform males inreading across all participatingcountries including Canada and acrossthe provinces. In PISA 2009, Canadianfemales outperformed Canadian malesin reading by 34 points, which is similarto the average gap in OECD countriesat 33 points.

Canadian students performed well inmathematics and science but compared with

reading performance more countriesoutperformed Canada

Countries, economies Countries, economiesand provinces and provincesperforming significantly performing the samebetter than Canada as Canada

Mathematics Shanghai-China, Singapore, Switzerland, Japan, Alberta,Hong Kong-China, Korea, Netherlands, Ontario, Macao-China,Chinese Taipei, Quebec, British ColumbiaFinland, Liechtenstein

Science Shanghai-China, Finland, British Columbia, New Zealand,Hong Kong-China, Alberta, Ontario, Estonia, Australia, Quebec,Singapore, Japan, Korea Nova Scotia, Netherlands

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Conversely, in mathematics andscience, Canadian males outperformedCanadian females by 12 and 5 scorepoints respectively. Across theprovinces, males significantlyoutperformed females in mathematicsin five provinces and malesoutperformed females in science in twoprovinces.

Looking forward

The performance of Canadian 15-year-olds in international comparison meritsrecognition, yet also raises someconcerns. Overall, when compared totheir peers in other participatingcountries, Canadian students continueto do well on the PISA assessment.However, although Canadian resultsremained statistically similar between2000 and 2009, its relative rankingdeclined in all domains. This declineis attributable to improvements in other

Further Canadian results are available in the report, Measuring up: theperformance of Canada’s youth in reading, mathematics and science – PISA2009 OECD PISA Study – PISA 2009 first results for Canadians aged 15.This publication is available electronically without charge, through theinternet at:

www.pisa.gc.ca www.cmec.ca

www.statcan.gc.ca www.hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca

Summary of gender differences, Canada and the provinces

Females performed significantly Males performed significantly No significant differenceshigher than males higher than females between males and females

Reading Canadaall provinces

Mathematics Canada, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador,New Brunswick, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Ontario,Alberta, British Columbia Manitoba, Saskatchewan

Science Canada, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador,Quebec Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Ontario,

Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta,British Columbia

countries’ performance, theintroduction of high performingcountries new to PISA 2009 and adecrease in the proportion of highachievers in Canada between 2000 and2009. This suggests that in order tomaintain its’ competitive edge in thefuture, Canada will need to improve atthe rate of the top performing countries,rather than simply maintain its

competency level in reading,mathematics and science.

At the provincial level significantdifferences across the domainscontinue to exist and decrease inperformance was observed in fiveprovinces in reading, six provinces inmathematics and two provinces inscience.