Polish 15-year-olds have a high position in the world in terms of creative thinking skills. Such skills were tested as an additional part of the PISA 2022 survey. The Educational Research Institute, responsible for conducting this survey in Poland, published a national report on the survey results. The survey was conducted in March and April of 2022.
Creative thinking skills were measured for the first time in the history of PISA. 64 countries and regions participated in this part of the survey. Students solved specially designed tasks testing their skills in generating a variety of ideas, producing creative ideas, evaluating and improving ideas in four domains: graphic presentation, written expression, social problem solving and scientific problem solving. Each task took between five and 15 minutes to solve.
PISA and creative thinking in PISA 2022
PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is one of the most important educational research programmes and the largest international survey of student skills in the world, conducted every three years in dozens of countries and regions. It is organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Polish edition of the survey is conducted by the Educational Research Institute on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Science. The survey is financed from the state budget.
The aim of PISA is to test the ability to apply knowledge in practice and thus determine how prepared young people are to meet the challenges they will face in the future. PISA shows the level and diversity of the skills of 15-year-olds, which are developed during school education and outside school. In each edition of PISA, mathematics, reading and science knowledge and skills are measured. PISA 2022 additionally examined creative thinking and financial literacy.
PISA survey results – creative thinking
The average score of Polish students in creative thinking was 34 points. Polish 15-year-olds were among the countries with the highest scores. Poland’s score is similar to the results of 15-year-olds from Latvia, Belgium and Portugal. Among European Union countries, only students from Estonia, Finland and Denmark achieved better results than Polish students.
The highest results in the world were obtained by students from Singapore (41 points on average), South Korea and Canada (38 points), as well as Australia (37 points) and New Zealand (36 points). The lowest were from Albania, the Philippines and Uzbekistan.
Poland scored statistically significantly higher than the average for OECD countries in all three dimensions examined (generating a variety of ideas, generating creative ideas, evaluating and improving ideas), as well as in all four domains (graphic presentation, written expression, solving social problems and solving scientific problems).
Most countries that score higher on creative thinking also tend to score higher than average in the three main areas of PISA – reading, mathematics and science.
Skill level
The study distinguishes between six levels of students’ creative thinking skills. In Poland, approximately one-third of 15-year-olds are characterised by skills from the two highest levels (levels 5 and 6). The highest percentages of students at these levels were found in Singapore, South Korea and Canada (58%, 46% and 45% respectively). At the same time, only 4% of Polish students scored at or below the lowest level of 1. This means that a relatively small percentage of students in Poland have low creative thinking skills. In several countries participating in the survey, the percentage of students who do not reach level 1 skills is above 20% (Philippines, Albania and Morocco – 36%, 29% and 24% of students below level 1 respectively).
Differences between boys and girls
Girls show higher creative thinking skills on average than boys in all countries participating in the survey. In Poland, the average score for girls is 36 points and for boys 33 points. The difference is statistically significant and close to the average for OECD countries.
Differences depending on type of school
PISA makes it possible to infer the skill level of the population of 15-year-olds. In 2022, the survey in Poland included students from general secondary schools (representing 47% of the population of 15-year-olds), vocational secondary schools (40%), first stage sectoral vocational schools (12%) and a small percentage of students from primary schools (1%).
The differences in the creative thinking skills of pupils attending different types of school are large. The proportion of pupils in sectoral vocational schools who achieve scores at the two highest skill levels (5 and 6) is 4%, while 19% are assessed at below level 2. The situation is better in vocational secondary schools, with only 3% of pupils failing to reach level 2, and 24% of pupils at the two highest skill levels. The best performers in terms of creative thinking skills are students in general secondary schools, where there is a negligible proportion of 15-year-olds with skills below level 2, while skills at the two highest levels are presented by almost half of the students (48%). These differences are largely a result of the fact that pupils with relatively lower skills in the areas examined by PISA are placed in sectoral vocational schools compared to general secondary schools. In addition, there are significantly more girls than boys in general secondary schools, in contrast to sectoral vocational schools, where boys outnumber girls.
Creative thinking as measured in PISA is defined as the ability to generate, evaluate and improve ideas to solve a problem or express oneself creatively, which can lead to new knowledge, effective and original solutions, products or works of art.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest edition of the survey was postponed worldwide by one year and took place four years after the previous cycle. Poland was represented by 6011 students from 240 schools in the survey on the three core areas and creative thinking. The school survey was conducted from March 7 to April 29, 2022.
Survey reports as well as additional information about PISA are available from the websites of the Educational Research Institute (pisa.ibe.edu.pl) and OECD (www.oecd.org/pisa/).
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