The Effects of PISA in Taiwan: Contemporary Assessment Reform

Taiwan has always been one of the top ranked countries in PISA, so initially interest in PISA was mainly concerned with standards monitoring, with some analysis of how instruction could be improved. However, from 2012, PISA became a major public phenomenon as it became linked with proposed new school assessment and competitive entrance to desirable schools. Students, along with their parents and teachers, worried about the ability to solve PISA-like problems and private educational providers offered additional tutoring. This chapter reports and explains these dramatic effects. Increasingly, the PISA concept of mathematical literacy has been used, along with other frameworks, as the theoretical background for thinking about future directions for teaching and assessment in schools. This is seen as part of an endeavour to change the strong emphasis on memorisation and repetitive practice in Taiwanese schools.