ЧАСТЬ 2: СПЕЦИФИКАЦИЯ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
МАТЕМАТИЧЕСКОЙ ГРАМОТНОСТИ
Introduction
1. The assessment of mathematics has particular significance for PISA 2021, as mathematics is
again the major domain assessed. Although mathematics was assessed by PISA in 2000, 2003,
2006, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018, the domain was the main area of focus only in 2003 and 2012.
2. The return of mathematics as the major domain in PISA 2021 provides both the opportunity to
continue to make comparisons in student performance over time, and to re-examine what should
be assessed in light of changes that have occurred in the world, the field and in instructional
policies and practices.
3. Each country has a vision of mathematical competence and organises their schooling to achieve
it as an expected outcome. Mathematical competence historically encompassed performing basic
arithmetic skills or operations, including adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing whole
numbers, decimals, and fractions; computing percentages; and computing the area and volume of
simple geometric shapes. In recent times, the digitisation of many aspects of life, the ubiquity of
data for making personal decisions involving initially education and career planning, and, later in
life, health and investments, as well as major societal challenges to address areas such as climate
change, governmental debt, population growth, spread of pandemic diseases and the globalising
economy, have reshaped what it means to be mathematically competent and to be well equipped
to participate as a thoughtful, engaged, and reflective citizen in the 21st century.
4. The critical issues listed above as well as others that are facing societies throughout the world
all have a quantitative component to them. Understanding them, as well as addressing them, at
least in part, requires being mathematically literate and thinking mathematically. Such
mathematical thinking in more and more complex contexts is not driven by the reproduction of the
basic computational procedures mentioned earlier, but rather by reasoning
1
(both deductive and
inductive). The important role of reasoning needs greater emphasis in our understanding of what it
means for students to be mathematically literate. In addition to problem solving, this framework
argues that mathematical literacy in the 21st century includes mathematical reasoning and some
aspects of computational thinking.
5. Countries today face new opportunities and challenges in all areas of life, many of which stem
from the rapid deployment of computers and devices like robots, smartphones and networked
machines. For example, the vast majority of young adults and students who started university post
2015 have always considered phones to be mobile hand-held devices capable of sharing voice,
texts, and images and accessing the internet
– capabilities seen as science fiction by many of their
parents and certainly by all of their grandparents (Beloit College, 2017
[1]
). The recognition of the
growing contextual discontinuity between the last century and the future has prompted a
discussion around the development of 21st century skills in students (Ananiadou and Claro,
2009
[2]
; Fadel, Bialik and Trilling, 2015
[3]
; National Research Council, 2012
[4]
; Reimers and Chung,
2016
[5]
).
1
Throughout this framework, references to mathematical reasoning assume both mathematical (deductive)
and statistical (inductive) type reasoning.
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6. It is this discontinuity that also drives the need for education reform and the challenge of
achieving it. Periodically, educators, policy makers, and other stakeholders revisit public education
standards and policies. In the course of these deliberations new or revised responses to two
general questions are generated: 1) What do students need to learn, and 2) Which students need
to learn what? The most used argument in defence of mathematics education for all students is its
usefulness in various practical situations. However, this argument alone gets weaker with time
– a
lot of simple activities have been automated. Not so long ago waiters in restaurants would multiply
and add on paper to calculate the price to be paid. Today they just press buttons on hand-held
devices. Not so long ago people used printed timetables to plan travel
– it required a good
understanding of the time axis and inequalities as well as interpreting complex two-way tables.
Today we can just make a direct internet inquiry.
7. As to the question of “what to teach”, many restrictive understandings arise from the way
mathematics is conceived. Many people see mathematics as no more than a useful toolbox. A
clear trace of this approach can be found in the school curricula of many countries. These are
sometimes confined to a list of mathematics topics or procedures, with students asked to practice a
selected few, in predictable (often test) situations. This perspective on mathematics is far too
narrow for today’s world. It overlooks key features of mathematics that are growing in importance.
Notwithstanding the above remark, there are an increasing number of countries that emphasise
reasoning and the importance of relevant contexts in their curricula. Perhaps these countries cab
serve as helpful models to others.
8. Ultimately the answer to these questions is that every student should learn (and be given the
opportunity to learn) to think mathematically, using mathematical reasoning (both deductive and
inductive) in conjunction with a small set of fundamental mathematical concepts that support this
reasoning and which themselves are not necessarily taught explicitly but are made manifest and
reinforced throughout a student’s learning experiences. This equips students with a conceptual
framework through which to address the quantitative dimensions of life in the 21st century.
9. The PISA 2021 framework is designed to make the relevance of mathematics to 15-year-old
students clearer and more explicit, while ensuring that the items developed remain set in
meaningful and authentic contexts. The mathematical modelling cycle, used in earlier frameworks
(e.g. OECD (2004
[6]
; 2013
[7]
)) to describe the stages individuals go through in solving
contextualised problems, remains a key feature of the PISA 2021 framework. It is used to help
define the mathematical processes in which students engage as they solve problems
– processes
that together with mathematical reasoning (both deductive and inductive) will provide the primary
reporting dimensions.
10. For PISA 2021, computer-based assessment of mathematics (CBAM) will be the primary mode
of delivery for assessing mathematical literacy. However, paper-based assessment instruments will
be provided for countries choosing not to test their students by computer. The framework has been
updated to also reflect the change in delivery mode introduced in 2015, including a discussion of
the considerations that should inform the development of the CBAM items as this will be the first
major update to the mathematics framework since computer-based assessment was introduced in
PISA.
11. The development of the PISA 2021 framework takes into account the expectation of OECD that
there will be an increase in the participation in PISA of low- and middle-income countries. In
particular the PISA 2021 framework recognises the need to increase the resolution of the PISA
assessments at the lower end of the student performance distribution by drawing from the PISA for
Development (OECD, 2017
[8]
) framework when developing the assessment; the need to expand
the performance scale at the lower end; the importance of capturing a wider range of social and
economic contexts; and the anticipation of incorporating an assessment of out-of-school 14- to 16-
year-olds.
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12. The increasing and evolving role of computers and computing tools in both day-to-day life and
in mathematical literacy problem solving contexts is reflected in the recognition in the PISA 2021
framework that students should possess and be able to demonstrate computational thinking skills
as they apply to mathematics as part of their problem-solving practice. Computational thinking
skills include pattern recognition, designing and using abstraction, pattern decomposition,
determining which (if any) computing tools could be employed in analysing or solving a problem,
and defining algorithms as part of a detailed solution. By foregrounding the importance of
computational thinking as it applies to mathematics, the framework anticipates a reflection by
participating countries on the role of computational thinking in mathematics curricula and
pedagogy.
13. The PISA 2021 mathematics framework is organised into three major sections. The first
section, ‘Definition of Mathematical Literacy’, explains the theoretical underpinnings of the PISA
mathematics assessment, including the formal definition of the mathematical literacy construct.
The second section, ‘Organisation of the Domain’, describes four aspects: a) mathematical
reasoning and the three mathematical processes (of the modelling/problem solving cycle); b) the
way mathematical content knowledge is organised in the PISA 2021 framework, and the content
knowledge that is relevant to an assessment of 15-year-old students; c) the relationship between
mathematical literacy and the so-called 21st Century skills; and d) the contexts in which students
will face mathematical challenges. The third section, ‘Assessing Mathematical Literacy’, outlines
structural issues about the assessment, including a test blueprint and other technical information.
14. For the sake of ensuring the preservation of trend, the majority of the items in the PISA 2021
will be items that have been used in previous PISA assessments. A large collection of release
items based on the previous framework can be found at http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test. Annex A
provides seven illustrative items that attempt to illustrate the most important new elements of the
2021 framework.
15. The 2021 framework was written under the guidance of the 2021 mathematics expert group
(MEG), a body appointed by the PISA contractor for the mathematics framework (RTI
International), in consultation with the PISA Governing Board (PGB). The eight MEG members
included mathematicians, statisticians, mathematics educators, and experts in assessment,
technology, and education research from a range of countries. The MEG were further supported by
an extended MEG (eMEG) group, made up of ten experts acting as peer reviewers of the
framework version created by the MEG. The eMEG included experts with a range of mathematics
expertise from differing countries. Additional reviews were undertaken by experts on behalf of the
over 80 countries constituting the PISA Governing Board. RTI International, as contracted by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), conducted two further
research efforts: a face validity validation survey amongst educators, universities and employers;
and a cognitive laboratory with 15-year-olds in different countries to obtain student feedback on the
sample items presented in the framework. The work of the PISA 2021 MEG builds on previous
versions of the PISA Mathematics Framework and incorporates the recommendations of the
Mathematics Strategic Advisory Group convened by OECD in 2017.
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