We invite you to the first School Field Seminar in the new academic year. This time, Dr. Špela Arhar Hold and Dr. Iztok Kosem from the Institute for Applied Slovenian Studies Trojina kindly responded to our invitation, who conducted an analysis of reading comprehension texts in the international PISA survey for the Pedagogical Institute from March to August 2012.
The report presents a linguistic analysis of the PISA 2009 reading literacy test. Unlike other studies that seek the causes of the non-performance of Slovenian students in external circumstances, the study focuses on the question of whether the causes of certain student failures can be linked to the test itself. Are the texts presented in the test syntactically too demanding, do they contain too much vocabulary for fifteen-year-olds to understand? To what extent does the fact that the test is translated and not in the original affect the solution – are Slovenian students a priori in a disadvantaged position due to the translation?
The PISA 2009 test was analyzed using modern linguistic statistical procedures, and the research attempts to explain the success or failure of Slovenian students in answering individual questions based on the results obtained.
We are convinced that this is a topic that is interesting from various aspects of educational research and modern social sciences and humanities in general. The introduction will, as usual, be followed by a discussion in which we will ask questions and seek answers together with the guests.
I therefore kindly invite you to join us on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. in room 026 at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva pl. 16, Ljubljana. The seminar is organized in cooperation with the Pedagogical Institute and the SLODRE association
Analysis of vocabulary and syntax in texts of the PISA 2009 reading literacy test