OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Skills for Life? The link between PISA and LSAY

Without further follow-up of future educational and occupational outcomes of the students assessed in PISA it is not possible to say how relevant their skills at age 15 will be in later life; whether those skills and competencies identified by PISA as being important for student’s futures do have some bearing on their later outcomes. Australia is one of a number of participating countries who have elected to follow their PISA students in longitudinal studies to seek to address questions about the longer term outcomes for students at different levels of achievement. In this way, students who participate in PISA also have the opportunity to participate in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY).[1]

LSAY focuses on the progress of young Australians as they move from their mid-teens to their mid twenties, from their initial education to independent working life. Data from LSAY surveys provide descriptions of what young Australians are doing as they negotiate the transition from school, document changes as the group gets older, and enable comparisons with other groups when they were the same age. Issues investigated in LSAY include school completion, participation in vocational and university education, employment and wellbeing. More detailed investigations examine the links between social characteristics, education and training, and employment.

In 2003, the Australian PISA sample became a commencing cohort for LSAY, followed by cohorts drawn from PISA 2006 and PISA 2009. The link between LSAY and PISA will provide a basis for investigating the enduring effects of the skills and knowledge measured in PISA.

Follow-up studies of several successive cohorts of secondary students in LSAY have shown a consistent picture that those who have acquired sound mastery of literacy and numeracy skills by Year 9 are more likely to go to university, to find jobs and to earn higher incomes. Initial analyses of the 2003 PISA/LSAY cohort have shown a general pattern of increasing odds of completion of Year 12 with increasing proficiency levels (Hillman & Thomson, 2006).

There is also evidence from previous LSAY studies that psychological variables such as engagement with school life (assumed to reflect positive attitudes towards school) and self-concept of academic ability measured in Year 9 both contribute significantly, over and above socio-demographic factors, to whether students complete their secondary schooling (Fullarton, 2002; Marks, Fleming, Long & McMillan, 2000). Focusing on later outcomes, measures of student motivation have also be found to significant influences on positive life outcomes at age19 for students who did not perform at high levels in the PISA 2003 mathematics assessments (Thomson & Hillman, 2010).

[1] LSAY is a program of longitudinal surveys that follows the progress of young people from their mid-teens to their mid-twenties and is managed by the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).