Counting and comparing school performance: an analysis of media coverage of PISA in Australia, 2000–2014

Abstract

This paper empirically documents media portrayals of Australia's performance on the Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000-2014. We analyse newspaper articles from two national and eight metropolitan newspapers. This analysis demonstrates increased media coverage of PISA over the period in question. Our research data were analysed using 'framing theory' (Entman, 1993), documenting how the media frames stories about Australia's performance on PISA. Three frames were identified: counts and comparisons; criticisms; and contexts. Most of the media coverage (41%) was concerned with the first frame, counts and comparisons, which analysed PISA data to provide 'evidence' that was then used to comparatively position Australia against other countries, reference societies, which do better, with particular emphasis on Finland and also Shanghai after the 2009 PISA. The other two frames dealt with criticisms and contextual issues. This paper only focuses on the first frame.The analysis demonstrates the ways in which media coverage of Australia's PISA performance has had policy impact.

Nasjonale prøver i norske riks- og regionaviser – en historisk tekstanalyse av redaksjonelle framstillinger av nasjonale prøver

“…Internasjonalt foreligger det flere studier med dels ulike tilnaerminger til hvordan standardiserte prøver framstilles i media. Noen av disse studiene retter søkelyset mot hvordan internasjonale storskalaundersøkelser som PISA presenteres i mediene i de respektive landene der undersøkelsene er foretatt (Baroutsis & Lingard, 2017;Stack, 2006;Waldow, Takayama & Sung, 2014). Andre studier kaster lys over hvordan nasjonale standardiserte prøver framstilles i media (Mockler, 2013), eller hvilken rolle media påtar seg mer eller mindre bevisst i spillet om utforming av utdanningsreformer (Blackmore & Thorpe, 2003;Lingard & Rawolle, 2004).…”

The politics of PISA: The media, policy and public responses in Norway and England

“…One of the more recent publications that included a country analysis of PISA and the media is the article by Baroutsis and Lingard (), which analyses empirically the media portrayals of Australia's performance on the PISA test from 2000 to 2014. Most of the media coverage focused on comparisons (41%) for which PISA data were used as ‘evidence’ to position Australia against other countries, particularly those that performed better, such as Finland and Shanghai.…”

The marketisation of education in Australia: Does investment in private schooling improve post‐school outcomes?

“…Despite increased levels of both government and private expenditure on schooling, Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results suggest that, over time, Australian students have not improved against national and international benchmarks (Baroutsis & Lingard ). Therefore, increasing investment is not necessarily associated with improved outcomes, in terms of meeting or exceeding national or international benchmarks, in secondary school.…”