Developing PISA-Like

Mathematics Tasks
OBJECTIVES

At the end of the session, the teacher-

participants will be able to:

• describe the components of the PISA

Mathematics Framework;
• develop PISA-like mathematical tasks
(output)
Mathematical Literacy (PISA 2021)

Mathematical literacy is an individual’s

capacity to reason mathematically and to
formulate, employ, and interpret
mathematics to solve problems in a
variety of real- world contexts. It
includes concepts, procedures, facts and
tools to describe, explain and predict
phenomena. It assists individuals to know
the role that mathematics plays in the
world and to make the well-founded
judgments and decisions needed by
constructive, engaged and reflective 21st
century citizens.
PISA Mathematics Framework

Space and Change and

CONTENT Shape Relationship
Quantity Uncertainty

CONTEXT Personal Occupational Societal Scientific

PROCESS Formulate Employ Interpret

Mathematics Content Areas

• Space & Shape – recognizing and understanding geometric patterns and

identifying such patterns in abstract and real-world representations;

• Change & Relationships – recognizing relationships between variables and

thinking in terms of and about relationships in a variety of forms including symbolic,
algebraic, graphical, tabular, and geometric;

• Quantity – understanding relative size, recognizing numerical patterns and using

numbers to represent quantities and quantifiable attributes of real-world objects;

• Uncertainty – solving problems relating to data and chance, which correspond to

statistics and probability in school mathematics curricula, respectively.
PISA Mathematics Framework

Space and Change and

CONTENT Shape Relationship
Quantity Uncertainty

CONTEXT Personal Occupational Societal Scientific

PROCESS Formulate Employ Interpret

Context: Personal

• Focus on activities of one’s self, one’s family or one’s

peer group.
• The kinds of contexts that may be considered personal
include (but are not limited to) those involving food
preparation, shopping, games, personal health,
personal transportation, recreation, sports, travel,
personal scheduling and personal finance.
Context: Occupational

• Problems classified in the occupational context category are centred

on the world of work.
• May involve (but are not limited to) such things as measuring, costing
and ordering materials for building, payroll/accounting, quality control,
scheduling/inventory, design/architecture and job-related decision
making either with or without appropriate technology.
• Occupational contexts may relate to any level of the workforce, from
unskilled work to the highest levels of professional work, although items
in the PISA survey must be accessible to 15-year-old students.
Context: Societal

• Focus on one’s community (whether local, national or

global).
• May involve (but are not limited to) such things as voting
systems, public transport, government, public policies,
demographics, advertising, health, entertainment, national
statistics and economics.
• Although individuals are involved in all of these things in a
personal way, in the societal context category, the focus of
problems is on the community perspective.
Context: Scientific

• Relate to the application of mathematics to the natural

world and issues and topics related to science and
technology.
• Include (but are not limited to) such areas as weather
or climate, ecology, medicine, space science, genetics,
measurement and the world of mathematics itself. Items
that are intra-mathematical, where all the elements
involved belong in the world of mathematics, fall within
the scientific context.
PISA Mathematics Framework

Space and Change and

CONTENT Shape Relationship
Quantity Uncertainty

CONTEXT Personal Occupational Societal Scientific

PROCESS Formulate Employ Interpret

Process: Formulating situations mathematically

• determine where they can extract the essential mathematics

to analyze, set up and solve the problem.
• translate from a real-world setting to the domain of
mathematics and
• provide the real-world problem with mathematical structure,
representations and specificity.
• reason about and make sense of constraints and
assumptions in the problem.
 Process: Employing mathematical concepts, facts,
procedures and reasoning

• apply mathematical concepts, facts, procedures and reasoning to

solve mathematically formulated problems to obtain
mathematical conclusions
• perform the mathematical procedures needed to derive results
and find a mathematical solution
• work on a model of the problem situation, establish regularities,
identify connections between mathematical entities and create
mathematical arguments
Process: Interpreting, applying and evaluating
mathematical outcomes

• reflect upon mathematical solutions, results or conclusions

and
• interpret them in the context of real-life problems.
• construct and communicate explanations and arguments in
the context of the problem, reflecting on both the
modelling process and its results.
This involves translating mathematical solutions or reasoning back
into the context of a problem and determining whether the results
are reasonable and make sense in the context of the problem.
PISA Mathematics Framework

Space and Change and

CONTENT Shape Relationship
Quantity Uncertainty

CONTEXT Personal Occupational Societal Scientific

PROCESS Formulate Employ Interpret

Figure 2.
PISA 2021: the relationship between mathematical reasoning, the problem
solving (modelling) cycle, mathematical contents, context and selected 21st
century skills.
Test Item Types
• Traditional multiple-choice items, in which the student selects a response from
among several alternatives
• Complex multiple-choice items, in which the student chooses responses for a
series of items (e.g., true/false statements)
• Closed-constructed response items, in which the answer is given in numeric or
other form, and can be scored against precisely-defined criteria
• Short-response items, in which the student writes a brief answer to a question.
Unlike closed-constructed response items, there may be a range of possible
correct responses
• Open-constructed response items, in which the student provides a longer written
response. There is usually a broad range of possible correct responses. Unlike
other item types, the scoring of these questions typically requires significant
judgement on the part of trained markers
Summary of Categories
Content ☐ Change and relationships ☐ Space and shape ☐ Quantity
☐Uncertainty and data

Context ☐ Personal ☐ Occupational ☐ Societal ☐ Scientific

Process ☐ Formulating situations mathematically

☐ Employing mathematical concepts, facts, procedures, and
reasoning
☐ Interpreting, applying, and evaluating mathematical outcomes

Item ☐Open constructed-response ☐Closed constructed-response ☐

Format Selected-response (Multiple choice) ☐ Short-response type
Sample PISA Item
Scenario/ Situation: (PISA Math Framework, 2022)
Ninety-five percent of world trade is moved by sea, by roughly 50,000 tankers,
bulk carriers and container ships. Most of these ships use diesel fuel.
Engineers are planning to develop wind power support for ships. Their
proposal is to attach kite sails to ships and use the wind’s power to help reduce
diesel consumption and the fuel’s impact on the environment.

Question 1:
One advantage of using a kite sail is that it flies at a height of 150 m. There, the wind speed is approximately 25%
higher than down on the deck of the ship. At what approximate speed does the wind blow into a kite sail when a
wind speed of 24 km/h is measured on the deck of the ship?
SCORING GUIDE:
A. 6 km/h B. 18 km/h C. 25 km/h D. 30 km/h E. 49 km/h
• Full Credit: D. 30 km/h
• No Credit: Other responses. Missing.
Question 2:
Approximately what is the length of the rope for the kite sail, in order to
pull the ship at an angle of 450 and be at a vertical height of 150 m, as
shown in the opposite diagram?
A. 173 m
B. 212 m
C. 285 m
D. 300 m

SCORING GUIDE:
• Full Credit: B. 212 m
• No Credit: Other responses. Missing.