PISA: A Comparison between Students’ Performance of Albania and Serbia Based on Gender Ratio

Besara Mema

(Department of Mathematics, “Luigj Gurakuqi” University, Shkoder, Albania)

Abstract: PISA (Program of International Students Assessment) is one of the international tests that values 15 years old students’ performance. It is presented in 2000, with reading literacy as mainly in focus. It assesses students in three domains: reading literacy, mathematics literacy and scientific literacy, where each of them is in focus every three year and the two others secondly in focus. This research keeps in focus the results of PISA 2009 and PISA 2012, because in these two years Serbia and Albania took part in this assessment simultaneously. It is done a comparison between their students’ performance based on the gender ration on the three domains; to see in which country boys or girls perform better in reading literacy, mathematic literacy and scientific literacy. There is also a short overview on the engagement, drive and self-beliefs of the students in school for both of the countries. Why Serbian students perform better than the Albanian one? Is this fact related to their self-beliefs about school or their engagement? 

Key words: students’ performance, PISA assessment, comparison study, gender ratio