Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)
This study examined International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) and Middle Years Programme (MYP) student performance on the International Schools’ Assessment (ISA) compared with non-IB students from the same ISA cohorts. The ISA is an assessment created for students in international schools (grades 3 through 10), in the areas of Reading, Mathematical literacy, Narrative writing, Expository writing and Scientific literacy. The study also investigated how grade 9 and 10 MYP students’ ISA results compared with Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) means. Findings showed that PYP and MYP students performed significantly better than students from non-IB schools in the ISA assessment areas at a number of grade levels. Additionally, ISA mean scores for MYP students were significantly higher than the PISA mean scores in all three domains (Mathematical literacy, Reading and Scientific literacy). Consistent with previous research (Tan, Bibby 2010; Tan, Bibby 2012), these findings provide strong evidence that PYP and MYP students in international schools perform well academically, even when compared to a similarly high-achieving group of students.
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