The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses the extent to which 15 year old students near the end of their compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. The assessment does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines how well students can extrapolate from what they have learned and can apply that knowledge in unfamiliar settings, both in and outside of school. This approach reflects the fact that modern economies reward individuals not for what they know, but for what they can do with what they know.

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), now in its seventh cycle, seeks to determine what is important for citizens to know and be able to do. PISA assesses the extent to which 15‑year‑old students near the end of their compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies.

Reading is the major domain of assessment of the 2018 cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This chapter defines reading literacy as it is assessed in PISA 2018. It describes the types of processes and scenarios exhibited in the tasks that PISA uses to assess reading literacy. Moreover, it describes how the nature of reading literacy has changed over the past two decades, notably through the growing presence of digital texts. The chapter also explains how PISA assesses the ease and efficiency with which a student reads, and how it measures various metacognitive aspects of students’ reading practices. It then discusses how student performance in reading is measured and reported. Various sample items from the reading assessment are included at the end of this chapter.

This chapter defines “mathematical literacy” as assessed in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 and the competencies required for mathematical literacy. It explains the processes, content knowledge and contexts reflected in the tasks that PISA uses to measure scientific literacy, and how student performance in mathematics is measured and reported.

This chapter defines “scientific literacy” as assessed in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018. It describes the types of contexts, knowledge and competencies that are reflected in the tasks that PISA uses to measure scientific literacy. The chapter also discusses how student performance in science is measured and reported.

PISA 2018 offers an optional assessment of financial literacy for the third time. This section presents the framework of this assessment and is based on the framework developed for the 2012 exercise, which was the first large-scale international study to assess the financial literacy of young people. It defines financial literacy as it pertains to youth, and it is organised around the content, processes and contexts that are relevant for the assessment of 15‑year‑old students. These content areas, processes and contexts are illustrated with several items drawn from the PISA 2018 field trial and previous assessments. In addition, the framework discusses the relationship between financial literacy and non‑cognitive skills and between financial literacy and both reading and mathematics literacy.

Twenty-first century students live in an interconnected, diverse and rapidly changing world. Emerging economic, digital, cultural, demographic and environmental forces are shaping young people’s lives around the planet and increasing their intercultural encounters on a daily basis. This complex environment presents both an opportunity and a challenge. Young people today must not only learn to participate in a more interconnected world but also appreciate and benefit from cultural differences. Developing a global and intercultural outlook is a process – a lifelong process – that education can shape (Barrett et al., 2014[1]; Boix Mansilla and Jackson, 2011[2]; Deardorff, 2009[3]; UNESCO, 2013[4]; 2014[5]; 2016[6]). This section presents the framework for how the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) measures global competence, or students’ ability to interact with the wider world around them.

This document presents the framework for the background questionnaires for the 2018 cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). These questionnaires are, to a large extent, developed from ones that were used in previous cycles of PISA and, as such, permit the monitoring of trends in student-, school-, and system-level factors that may be related to student outcomes. A variety of constructs are discussed, including student background constructs, schooling constructs, and non-cognitive/metacognitive constructs. The document also makes explicit the link to reading literacy, which is the major domain of this cycle of PISA. The relevance of each of the constructs to policy issues and student outcomes is also highlighted.

This section presents the theoretical framework for the way in which the 2018 cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses student well-being. PISA was the first large-scale study to examine student well-being in its 2015 cycle. This framework discusses potential objective and subjective indicators of student well-being, grounding them in previous attempts from the literature. It also distinguishes between various dimensions of well-being, including life as a whole, self-related well-being, school-related well-being, and well-being out of school. Potential measurement issues are also presented. Potential composite indicators, combining responses to various questions into a single indicator, are suggested at the end.