PISA 2012 Results: Ready to Learn (Volume III)

This third volume of PISA 2012 results explores students’ engagement with and at school, their drive and motivation to succeed, and the beliefs they hold about themselves as mathematics learners. The volume identifies the students who are at particular risk of having low levels of engagement in, and holding negative dispositions towards, school in general and mathematics in particular, and how engagement, drive, motivation and self-beliefs are related to mathematics performance. The volume identifies the roles schools can play in shaping the well-being of students and the role parents can play in promoting their children’s engagement with and dispositions towards learning. Changes in students’ engagement, drive, motivation and self-beliefs between 2003 and 2012, and how those dispositions have changed during the period among particular subgroups of students, notably socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students, boys and girls, and students at different levels of mathematics proficiency, are examined when comparable data are available. Throughout the volume, case studies examine in greater detail the policy reforms adopted by countries that have improved in PISA.