PISA 2025 Results (Volume I)

What should citizens know and be able to do? In response to that question and to the need for internationally comparable evidence on student performance, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000.

PISA is a regularly-conducted survey of 15-year-old students around the world that assesses the extent to which they have acquired key knowledge and skills essential for full participation in social and economic life. PISA assessments do not just measure whether students near the end of their compulsory education can reproduce what they have learned; they also assess how well students can extrapolate from what they have learned, both in and outside of school, and apply it to real-life problems.

PISA is unique because of its:

• Policy orientation, which links data on student learning outcomes – including students’ attitudes towards learning – with data on students’ backgrounds and key aspects that shape their learning, in and outside of school; by doing so, PISA can highlight differences in learning outcomes and identify the characteristics of students, schools and education systems that perform well.

• Innovative concept of student competency, which refers to students’ capacity to apply their knowledge and skills in key areas, and to analyse, reason and communicate effectively as they identify, interpret and solve problems in a variety of situations.

• Relevance to lifelong learning, as PISA asks students to report on their motivation to learn, their beliefs about themselves, and their learning strategies.

• Regularity, which enables countries to monitor their progress in meeting key learning objectives.

• Breadth of coverage, which, in PISA 2025, encompassed 38 OECD countries and 53 partner countries and economies. 

PISA is used as an assessment tool in many regions around the world, participated in by: 

• 43 countries and economies in the first assessment (32 in 2000 and 11 in 2002).

• 41 in the second assessment (2003).

• 57 in the third assessment (2006).

• 75 in the fourth assessment (65 in 2009 and 10 in 2010).

• 65 in the fifth assessment (2012).

• 72 in the sixth assessment (2015).

• 79 in the seventh assessment (2018).

• 81 in the eighth assessment (2022).1

• 91 in the ninth assessment (2025).

First-time participants in PISA 2025 include Armenia, Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Ecuador, Kenya, Kurdistan Region (Iraq), Rwanda and Zambia.2

The PISA 2025 assessment focused on science, along with reading, mathematics and computational problem solving.3 In each round of PISA, one subject is tested in detail among the core subjects of science, reading and mathematics. The main subject in 2025 was science, as it was in 2006 and 2015. Reading was the main subject in 2000, 2009 and 2018. Mathematics was the main subject in 2003, 2012 and 2022.  

With this alternating schedule, a thorough analysis of achievement in each of the three core subjects is presented every 9 (or 10) years; and an analysis of trends is offered every 3 (or 4) years.4  

Learning in the digital world was assessed for the first time in PISA 2025. 

The PISA 2025 Assessment and Analytical Framework (OECD, 2026[1]) presents definitions and more detailed descriptions of the subjects assessed in PISA 2025:  

• Science proficiency is defined as students’ capacity to engage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen, and to use them for informed decision making.  

• Mathematics proficiency is defined as students’ capacity to reason mathematically and to formulate, employ and interpret mathematics to solve problems in a variety of real-world contexts. 

• Reading proficiency is defined as students’ capacity to understand, use, evaluate, reflect on and engage with texts in order to achieve goals, develop knowledge and potential, and participate in society.  

• Learning in the digital world (LDW) proficiency is defined as students’ capacity to engage in an iterative and self-regulated process of knowledge building and problem solving using computational tools and practices. 

For the first time, as part of PISA 2025, 22 countries and economies measured their students’ foreign language competence in English, through an assessment that was administered to a separate representative sample of students who study or have studied English as a foreign language in school. This optional assessment was aimed at countries and economies with an interest in the topic and where English is not the main language of instruction. The assessment allowed for the generation of comparable data on students’ foreign language proficiency and invaluable insights into best practices for teaching and learning a foreign language.

See Annex C for examples of PISA test questions.  

Over 760 000 students completed the assessment in 2025, representing about 33 million 15-year-olds in the schools of the 91 participating countries and economies.

PISA students are aged between 15 years 3 months and 16 years 2 months at the time of the assessment, and they have completed at least 6 years of formal schooling. Using this age across countries and over time allows PISA to consistently compare the knowledge and skills of individuals born in the same year who are still in school at age 15, despite the diversity of their education histories in and outside of school. They can be enrolled in any type of institution, participate in full-time or part-time education, in academic or vocational programmes, and attend public or private schools or foreign schools within the country.

The population of PISA-participating students is defined by the 2025 PISA Technical Standards (link), as are the students who are excluded from participating. The overall exclusion rate within a country is required to be below 5% to ensure that, under reasonable assumptions, any distortions in national mean scores would remain within plus or minus five score points, i.e. typically within the order of magnitude of two standard errors of sampling. Exclusion could take place either through the schools that participated or the students who participated within schools. There are several reasons why a school or a student could be excluded from PISA. Schools might be excluded because they are situated in remote regions and are inaccessible, because they are very small, or because of organisational or operational factors that precluded participation. Students might be excluded because of intellectual disability or limited proficiency in the language of the assessment. See Annex A2 and the PISA 2025 Technical Report (OECD, forthcoming[2]) for details.  

As was done in 2015, 2018 and 2022, computer-based tests were used in most countries and economies in PISA 2025, with assessments lasting a total of two hours for each student. In science, mathematics and reading, a multi‑stage adaptive approach was applied in computer-based tests whereby students were assigned a block of test items based on their performance in the preceding blocks.

Test items were a mixture of multiple-choice questions and questions requiring students to construct their own responses. The items were organised in groups based on a passage setting out a real-life situation. Examples of PISA test items can be found in Annex C. More than 11 hours of test items for science, reading, mathematics and learning in the digital world were covered, with different students taking different combinations of test items. See the PISA 2025 Technical Report (OECD, forthcoming[2]) for details.

In addition, PISA 2025 retained a paper-based version of the assessment that included only trend items for science, reading and mathematics. This paper-based assessment was implemented in six countries and economies: Cambodia, Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Kurdistan Region (Iraq), Mauritius, Rwanda and Zambia. 

Students answered a background questionnaire, which took about 35 minutes to complete. The questionnaire sought information about the students’ attitudes, dispositions and beliefs, their homes, and their school and learning experiences. School principals completed a questionnaire that covered school management and organisation, and the learning environment. Countries/economies could also choose to add an optional questionnaire for students: a questionnaire about students’ familiarity with computers. While the core student questionnaire covers basic questions on students’ use of digital devices and AI, the optional questionnaire includes more granular questions.

Some countries/economies also distributed additional questionnaires to elicit more information. These included: a questionnaire for teachers asking about themselves and their teaching practices; and a questionnaire for parents asking them to provide information about their perceptions of and involvement in their child’s school and learning.5 

The initial PISA 2025 results are released in three volumes:

• Volume I: Future-ready Students (OECD, 2026[3]) examines whether young people are prepared to thrive – and eventually lead – in a rapidly changing and interconnected world where lifelong learning beyond formal education is essential. Taking a multi-dimensional view of learning shaped by cognitive, emotional and social aspects, the volume analyses 15-year-old students’ proficiency in science, reading, mathematics and computational problem solving (learning in the digital world), alongside engagement-related attitudes and dispositions reported by the students, such as curiosity, perseverance and learner agency. Students’ outcomes are considered within their broader contexts, including safe and fair learning environments and the support provided by families and schools. The volume concludes with an assessment of students’ readiness to respond to environmental challenges.

• Volume II: Connected through English (OECD, forthcoming[4]) examines students’ proficiency in reading, listening and speaking in English as a foreign language in the 22 countries and economies that participated in this optional assessment. The volume explores how proficiency in each of these skills relates with proficiency in the others and how it varies across socio-demographic factors. It also offers an overview on where and how 15-year-olds learn and practice English, and on what role they perceive English having in their present and future. In addition, it explores which school factors are related to differences in English-language performance between schools and provides insights for policy and practice informed by the data.

• Volume III: Effective Learners in the Digital World (OECD, forthcoming[5]) examines how students self-regulate their learning and problem solving using computational tools. The volume makes extensive use of student response process data to shed light on how students managed their task engagement, the strategies they used to make progress on the test, and whether they engaged in self-evaluation and reflection. It highlights how self-regulated learning processes support performance outcomes and unpacks differences in learning and problem-solving approaches across countries and economies, student groups and task types.

[1] OECD (2026), PISA 2025 Assessment and Analytical Framework, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/86c36975-en.

[3] OECD (2026), PISA 2025 Results (Volume I): Future-Ready Students, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/73451bc5-en.

[5] OECD (forthcoming), PISA 2025 Results (Volume III): Effective Learners in the Digital World.

[2] OECD (forthcoming), PISA 2025 Technical Report, OECD Publishing, Paris.

[4] OECD (forthcoming), PISA 2025Results (Volume II): Connected through English.