Singapore students top PISA problem-solving test

SINGAPORE: Singapore students have topped an international assessment on problem solving.

This is based on results for the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

85,000 students worldwide took part in a computer-based problem-solving test.

And Singapore students beat other 15-year-olds from countries such as Japan, China and Finland.

Using a fictitious subway map, how do you get from “Diamond” to “Einstein” in the quickest way possible?

Or, plan how guests at a birthday party should be seated, based on a set of requirements.

These were some of the types of questions that students had to answer at the PISA problem-solving test.

Nearly three in 10 students from Singapore were top performers – which means Singapore has the highest proportion of top performers in problem solving.

The 1,394 students from Singapore come from 172 schools, and they were randomly selected by PISA for the assessment.

Out of the 172 schools, six are private schools, such as the Singapore American School, St Joseph’s Institution International and Alsagoff Arab School.

Andreas Schleicher, OECD’s Acting Director for Education Skills, said: “This data demonstrates that Singaporean students are not just spoon-fed. They are actually quite creative thinkers. They are actually able to engage with unfamiliar problems.”

Singapore educators consider the stellar results an affirmation of what they have been doing.

Madam Low Khah Gek, Ministry of Education’s Deputy Director-General, Education (Schools), said: “There is no specific subject called problem solving.

“Across the different subjects, the teachers take an approach where active learning opportunities are provided for students.

“So they may be involved in exploring, investigating, experimenting, and teachers give them opportunities to actually develop their ideas, come up with their own hypothesis.

“They can go test it out if things don’t turn out correct or the way they intended it to be. They can then go and modify their strategies.

“At the same time when the teachers provide students with opportunities to organise an event or work with community projects or work with their friends to do something together, it is a situation where it is unstructured, it is open-ended.

“So students have to go and find out…they have to come up with their own ideas. They have to develop a plan and can actually go and execute it.”

Mrs Ong Hong Peng, Principal of Xinmin Secondary, said: “We feel very heartened, because besides teaching in the various subject disciplines, I think our teachers are also teaching other skills that may not be tested in the exam in a very direct manner.

“That’s why we’ve come up with all these alternative programmes which will stretch students’ thinking and they’re not tested in exams.

“We have tried our very best to move away from just exam-focused type of programmes into applied learning and areas, even ICT, that are not in exams.

“All this takes a lot of commitment. That’s why we’re very heartened that these are recognised.”

One way schools encourage problem-solving is to give students real-life examples which test their application skills.

For example, by getting them to design games or to plan for a person’s retirement, based on three savings plans that offer different interest rates.

D Vinod, a Secondary 4 student from Temasek Secondary, said: “I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer in this kind of situation, because what we’re looking for is just the goal at the end, and it depends on the person’s personal expenditures.

“We have to be open-minded. We did this activity in a group and naturally in a group, we have different opinions. So, one thing about group activities is that we must all agree to disagree at one point of time and then slowly think about the best solution to the answer.

“That’s why we have to be very patient and analyse the problem very carefully to see which is the best plan to get us the best solution.”

The 2012 test is the second time PISA has included
problem-solving as an assessment area, and the first time it’s computer-based with interactive elements.

In future, it hopes to also test other areas, such as collaborative problem-solving and interpersonal skills.

OECD’s Andreas Schleicher said: “The idea of PISA is to reflect the type of skills that matters for the success of people in life and at work.

“We can see the kinds of things that are easy to teach and easy to test are also the kinds of things that are easy to digitise, automate and outsource.

“And we’re seeing, actually, big losses in employment, in tasks requiring routine cognitive skills. We’re seeing increases in tasks that require non-routine analytical skills, the capacity of students to extrapolate from what they know.

“The world economy no longer pays you for what you know. Google knows everything.

“The world economy pays you for what you can do with what you know, and that makes a very big difference.

“Innovation today is no longer about you having a great idea and being able to do it. Innovation is to do with how you can connect with the ideas of others, people who share other ways of thinking, other belief systems.

“Those are the skills of increasing importance for success. It is important for us to see to what extent they are developed in school and even out of school.”

Mr Schleicher added that in a fast-changing world, the skills that are required to be successful are also changing.

“This means that the education system needs to remain very, very active, and needs to be very sensitive to the needs of individual students and the kinds of skills that are valued by society,” he said.

Mr Schleicher added: “I think the reason why Singapore is doing well is because Singapore has very close eyes and ears of what’s happening in the world and the economy, and I think maintaining that is very critical.

“But education’s got to be a lot tougher in the future than now, because the kinds of things that are easy to teach, easy to test, are going to lose relevance. Other kinds of skills gain in prominence and relevance.

“And today’s all about innovative capacities of individuals. No country can be satisfied with its performance today.”

PISA will conduct its next round of tests next year.
 

Singapore students top PISA problem-solving test