Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

The literature and studies that have been reviewed are connected to the topic of this study

and offer valuable insights. They provide relevant information that will be discussed in this

research.

RELATED LITERATURE

Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launched the

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 1997 (OECD, 2015). The effort is

governed by the PISA Governing Board, which reports to the OECD Directorate for Education.

The PISA Governing Board supervises a consortium that is in charge of preparing, developing,

evaluating, and reporting the tests and questionnaires used in the research. The PISA program is

administered worldwide, with authorized national centers in each participating country to

administer tests, evaluate outcomes, and prepare reports. This effort measures the academic

performance of 15-year-old students and rates educational systems accordingly (OECD, 2016).

PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) is an international research that

began in 2000. The OECD is conducting a global study to examine the academic performance of

15-year-old pupils from a variety of countries. PISA assesses students’ ability to apply math,

reading, and science skills in real-world circumstances. It seeks to find educational policies and

practices while also providing governments with information on how their education systems

compare to those of other countries. The numerous limits to which municipal or national

governments may be subject provide a decent estimate of their latitude. PISA assessments are
conducted every three years, and the results are used to improve educational programs in

participating countries (Atkinson, M. et al., 2017). PISA results are used as a benchmark by

participating countries to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their educational systems in

comparison to other countries. It enables policymakers to identify areas for improvement and adopt

policies to improve educational outcomes.

PISA 2018 involved 79 participating nations and economies, with 660,000 students

representing around 32 million taking the 2-hour exam. Furthermore, 690,000 15-year-old children

took the test in 2022, out of 29 million students in schools across the 81 participating nations and

economies. The OECD average PISA 2018 for maths is 489 points, reading is 487 points, and

science is 489 points. The OECD average for PISA 2022 is 472 points for math, 476 points for

reading, and 485 points for science. According to the OECD, there is no obvious difference in the

average PISA 2018 and 2022 scores for any given subject (OECD 2018). Meanwhile, in the

Philippines, 7,233 students from 187 schools completed the evaluation in 2018, accounting for

1,400,584 children, or 68% of all 15-year-olds. Furthermore, 7,193 pupils from 188 schools took

the PISA 2022 exam in mathematics, reading, and science, accounting for around 1,782 900 15-

year-old students (OECD, 2023).

The Philippines took part in PISA for the first time in 2018, and the findings revealed

considerable issues in the educational system. Among 79 participating nations, Filipino pupils

ranked the lowest in reading and the second lowest in math’s and science. The 2022 PISA results

indicated just minimal improvements, with the Philippines placing sixth lowest in reading and

math’s and third lowest in science among 81 nations (OECD, 2023). These ratings are significantly

lower than the OECD average, demonstrating ongoing inadequacies in basic educational

competencies.
PISA’s Impact on Educational Policy and Practice

System leaders are increasingly accepting the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development’s (OECD) Programme of International Student Achievement (PISA) as the global

benchmark for school system performance and long-term progress. PISA, which was first

introduced in 2000 (see OECD, 2000), has become practically ubiquitous in public and policy

discussions regarding educational quality. PISA is a three-year international comparative

examination of student learning outcomes in reading, math’s, and science. With over 60 systems

usually participating in the study, the release of the PISA worldwide performance league table

garners significant attention from both the media and policymakers, and has occasionally sparked

large-scale reform. PISA is becoming recognized as a proxy for school system performance, and

PISA high-performing countries are often commonly referred to in policy circles as simply high-

performing school systems (Breakspear & Centre for Strategic Education, 2014).

According to Angel Gurria, the OECD’s secretary-general, PISA is reliable in recognizing

students’ talents and skills and is a tool for identifying areas for improvement in educational

practices. PISA has been highlighted to shed light on challenges in education such as educational

quality, unfairness, and disparity in school resource allocation among schools and nations

(Lockheed et al., 2015).

In a globalized world, public policy in education is increasingly measured by the

performance of the most effective education systems around the world, rather than just national

goals or standards. International comparisons can be an effective tool for policy reform and

transformative change because they allow education systems to evaluate themselves in light of

policies that have been designed, implemented, and attained elsewhere. They can demonstrate

what is achievable in education in terms of quality, equity, and efficiency of educational services,
as well as create a greater knowledge of how different education systems approach similar

problems. Most crucially, they offer the potential for policymakers and practitioners to look

beyond the experiences evident in their own systems, implying the possibility of transformation.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) demonstrates that statistics can be

more influential than administrative control or financial subsidies, which have traditionally shaped

education policy and practice (Schleicher and Zoido, 2016).

RELATED STUDIES

Student’s Achievement in PISA

In 2018, the Philippines began participating in PISA (Program for International Student

Assessment). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducted

a global survey in member and non-member countries to evaluate educational systems by

measuring 15-year-old schoolchildren’s academic performance in mathematics, science, and

reading. The Philippines’ 2018 PISA results were ranked the lowest out of 79 nations, scoring 340

in reading and second to the lowest, scoring 357 and 353 in science and mathematics, respectively

(Gonzalez et al., 2022).

According to the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

assessment, the Philippines ranks among the lowest in Mathematics, Science, and Reading

Comprehension among 79 participating nations. The country also performed poorly in other

evaluation programs such as TIMSS, SEA-PLM, and NAT. Despite educational changes aimed at

improving the Philippine education system, the Philippines continues to fall well behind its

neighboring countries in terms of educational quality (Ignacio et al., 2022).

learning that plays an important role in global basic education reform. Few studies have used

PISA’s transnational academic achievements as evidence to systematically describe the major

rationale for PISA’s participation in global decision-making, as well as the core concerns

concerning PISA’s impact on education reform. The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and

Scopus databases were searched for English-language empirical research on basic education, using

search phrases such as PISA, educational reform, and policy. The evaluation comprised 85 research

that were methodically synthesized to estimate PISA’s impact on global basic education reform.

PISA supports policy discussions about education quality and equity by focusing on educational

quality, data-driven comparative analysis, and evidence-based research methodologies. PISA’s

impact has gone well beyond its basic goal of measuring educational quality across countries, and

it now has a significant impact on global education governance through "soft governance of the

education system.” We provide a particular mechanism model of PISA’s impact on education

policy development that highlights the two-way interaction between PISA and education reform,

serving as a theoretical reference for future academic research on PISA-related education reform

(Li et al., 2025).