The use of the Spanish PISA results on scientific publications

Abstract

In the last decade, interest in PISA results has grown, both in public debate and in the use of its data for research. The aim of this study is to analyse the use of the Spanish PISA results by the scientific community. A bibliometric analysis of 119 scientific articles included in the Scopus, Eric EBSCOHost and Web of Science databases was carried out between 2002 and 2019 using frequency analysis, MDS analysis and binary logistic regressions. Results reflect a growing interest in the Spanish PISA results from 2005 to the present within university research in the field of Education, to which most of the authors of our sample pool belong. With regard to the use of PISA information, the majority of studies use data for generating knowledge, with socio-economic issues such as the family and equity being the ones with the greatest presence alongside student performance. We conclude that, despite the fact that PISA has been slow to have an impact among the Spanish academic community, its results are increasingly being used as primary source of information for carrying out detailed studies on a wide range of subjects. However, PISA is used generically as an indicator of the quality of the education system, without authors going into detail into the contextualised analysis of performance for the competences under study.