MUHAMMAD HAZIQ BIN SAIFUL BAHARI

PISA & TIMSS

International Assessments
Use the given resources and answer the following questions:

1. What do you know about the types of International Assessments?

There are a few types of International Assessments such as Programme on
International Student Assessment (PISA) which is governed by the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in
International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) both are governed by
International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).

However, these three international assessments have their own specific

purposes. The PISA purposes is at evaluating education systems by assessing to
what extent students at the end of compulsory education can apply their
knowledge to real-life situations and be equipped for society. Meanwhile TIMSS
is specific for measuring trends in maths and science achievement at which it
describes specifically in educational context, including home support, students
attitudes, curriculum, teachers training, and classroom activities. Whereas,
PIRLS measures trends in reading comprehension and it aims at investigating
the experiences young children have at home and school in learning to read.

2. Name the 2 types of International Assessment Malaysia participates in?

The two types of International Assessment that Malaysia participates in are the
Programme on International Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in
International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

3. Using all these resources, evaluate Malaysia's performance on PISA and

TIMSS in 2012?

In TIMSS 2011, Malaysia came out at 26th place for Mathematics and 32nd for
Science when compared to 44 other countries at which placing us at below the
international average. Meanwhile in PISA 2012, Malaysia came out in 52nd
place for Mathematics, 53rd for Science and 59th for Reading among 65 other
nations at which placing us at the bottom-third.

By looking at this ranking, it points to the past emphasis on the knowledge

component of school-based evaluations such as UPSR and SPM as the cause of
Malaysias poor performance in recent international benchmarking exercises.
In depth, Malaysian students can always answer questions in the knowledge
domain, being raised in an environment that encourages memorisation and
regurgitation of knowledge. However, in terms of application, many of them
falter, especially when objective-type questions are not used

4. How can Malaysia perform better on PISA and TIMSS?

In order to perform better in the future, Malaysia should emphasize on Higher

Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) learning because higher order thinking skills was
generally lacking among students, in fact students were very good at
memorising facts, teachers have to now teach them how to probe and prompt.
Therefore, the Higher Order Thinking Skills initiative is the key factor to boost
Malaysia's achievement specifically in Science, Math and reading literacies.