Italian students� performance in the PISA digital test

Pasqualino Montanaro () and Paolo Sestito
Additional contact information
Pasqualino Montanaro: Bank of Italy

No 267, Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: PISA 2012 included an optional computer-based assessment (CBA) focusing on mathematics, reading skills and problem solving. Italian students performed better in the CBA than in the paper-based assessment (PBA). This was not due to any specific features of the student samples in Italy and in the other countries included in the comparison. One of the reasons seems to be that Italian students are less determined in their approach to paper-based tests, during which they often fail to read all the questions and have trouble in finishing in the allotted time. Furthermore, this study finds that students� competencies as revealed by the CBA are, other things being equal, strongly correlated with those in the paper-based tests, especially in mathematics, and that the pattern of results is almost the same for both kinds of test. Competencies in problem solving are in turn positively associated with a greater familiarity with digital tests. Nevertheless, being excellent in the PBA is not strictly necessary to obtain an excellent result in the CBA as well, since the latter test probably shows talents which are not revealed in paper-based tests, more similar to traditional school exams.

Keywords: school; surveys of students� proficiency; digital skills JEL Classification: I20; I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-eur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2015-0267/QEF_267.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_267_15

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().