Our top four takeaways from PISA 2022 findings
Over the past couple of days, headlines have rightly covered the decline in attainment in mathematics, reading, and science across the UK and internationally in the latest findings from OECD’s PISA report. Although performance in mathematics in England has decreased to a lesser extent than in some other countries, the pandemic’s impact on young people’s educational outcomes is ever-present.
We at Speakers for Schools often see that the young people most at risk come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and indeed, the gap between the highest and lowest performance in England has significantly increased from PISA 2018. Maths, reading, and science have seen significant shifts in performance from previous years.
We also looked at the PISA 2022 findings that offer insights into the accessibility of future career and educational opportunities, aspirations, growth mindset and life satisfaction. Exploration of these factors may suggest that in addition to pandemic-related inequalities in performance, young people in England are not receiving sufficient support to take the necessary steps to achieve successful outcomes after leaving school.
Career Guidance
In the DfE’s analysis, headteachers of all school types in England reported that 95% of pupils had timetabled career guidance, a hopeful figure compared to the OECD average of 69%. Further, 96% of pupils received information about internships, markedly greater than other OECD countries at 68%. Over 98% of pupils were offered information about future careers and educational opportunities, standing young people in good stead to make decisions concerning their futures. These figures are much higher than national averages reported by the Careers and Enterprise Company. However, the data sample from PISA includes all school types and phases and is a smaller sample than the CEC’s data.
Although the career-curriculum integration looks promising, participation and impact are unclear. Indeed, inconsistent delegation of staff responsibility to provide career support suggests pupils are not receiving the support required to make informed decisions.
53% of pupils in England attend schools where in-house career advisors are employed to deliver specific support, higher than the OECD average of 48%. 30% of pupils in England receive career guidance from specified teachers, who facilitate career support alongside other duties, which is also the case for the OECD average. If only half of pupils in England are receiving support from career specialists, pressure is on teachers to provide support in addition to their teaching responsibilities.
Educational aspirations
Findings show that 92% of pupils in England expect to complete GCSEs at the time of data collection, with 3% of pupils not expecting to complete GCSEs, and 6% unsure. PISA 2018 painted a different picture – 99% of pupils expected to leave school with a minimum GCSE qualification. The drop in GCSE expectations is unsurprising given the negative impact on education during the pandemic, which hit disadvantaged students the hardest.
Aspirations to attend university have slightly shifted in England since 2018, with 55% of pupils anticipating a university degree as their highest qualification, compared to 57% in 2022 expecting to complete a bachelor’s. The increase in university aspiration is synonymous with findings from the Wave 1 COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities (COSMO) Study, which saw a significant jump in students planning to apply for university in the 20/21 GCSE cohort. In fact, two-thirds of pupils in Wave 1 COSMO reported their educational plans changing because of the pandemic, suggesting resultant uncertainty around future pathways. This could be a similar trend seen in the 29% of pupils who did not know if they would apply for university in PISA 2022.
Growth Mindset
Pupils’ beliefs of a growth mindset, a theory favoured in schools as a means of conceptualising development through resilience in learning, was captured through asking pupils if intelligence or creativity could be changed by oneself. Further statements posed that some people are not good at maths or English, irrespective of effort. Alarmingly, over half of the pupils believed that creativity, maths ability and English ability were unchangeable.
One could link this finding to quality career guidance in English systems. An approach to overcoming the barriers to a growth mindset could be the facilitation of aspirational and enrichment activities, providing new contexts for pupils to develop within.
Life satisfaction
The average self-reported life satisfaction from pupils in England was 6.01, lower than the OECD average at 6.75. About 48% of pupils in England reported a life satisfaction of 7 or above, compared to the OECD average of 61%, presenting a critical issue that has the propensity to impact other aspects of young people’s lives.
Deeper analysis will be undertaken in due course, to produce conclusive outputs and make evidence-based suggestions for practice. The data collected in PISA 2022 will hopefully generate excellent insight into the lives of young people and underpin the essential work needed to support social mobility.
Therefore, action needs to be taken to improve young people’s lives, particularly as they embark on their journeys into the working world.
Access the PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education report here.
Access the PISA 2022: National Report for England report here.
Access COSMO: Future plans and aspirations report here.