These results indicate that the school climate and the well-being of the students in Spain are among the best among the participating countries thanks to the low percentages of bullying and the high sense of belonging to the center of the students.
86.8% of Spanish students declare that they like other students, 86.5% feel integrated and around 81% make friends easily in their center, data that place Spain in the first position of the index sense of belonging to the center of PISA. This provides students with a sense of security, identity and community that positively helps their academic, psychological and social development.
This well-being is also related to harassment, which in Spain affects 17% of students. This figure is six points below the average of the OECD, although since 2015 it has increased two points. The index of exposure to harassment in our country is also among the lowest in the series and, on the contrary, the sensitivity to this situation is higher than that of the OECD average.
In addition, the Spanish students who took this test declare themselves mostly satisfied with their lives (74% versus 67% of the OECD average). This satisfaction is greater among children, advanced students and nonimmigrants.
Decrease in scores and stable results
In this edition of PISA the performance in mathematics, science and reading has been evaluated (the results of Spain in the latter have not been made public by decision of the OECD). All the autonomous communities have participated with an expanded sample.
Ministry of Education and Vocational TrainingIn mathematics, the results remain stable since 2009 with slight differences in the last four cycles. Spain, with 481 points (five less than in 2015), is below the OECD average (489), which experiences a slight but continuous decline, and at the same level as Italy, the United States and Hungary. As in each new edition, girls improve their math performance and the difference with their male partners falls to six points, with a cumulative decline of 19 points since 2009, the largest of all.
In science, Spain (483) obtains six points less than the OECD average (489) and 10 points less than in 2015, being above Italy, Luxembourg and Iceland, among others. Boys and girls score similarly in this test which, despite the decline registered compared to the previous edition of 2015, maintains a line of stability, according to the OECD.
Socio-economic status is a strong predictor of results in mathematics and science in all countries, and explains 12% of the variation in results in mathematics and 10% in science in Spain. On the other hand, students with an immigration background get worse results than immigrants in both tests.
As for the segregation of students, the levels in Spain are very similar to those of the OECD average but with striking differences between autonomous communities. While Cantabria, La Rioja, Aragón, Castilla y León and Galicia have low rates, comparable to those of the Scandinavian countries, the Community of Madrid, Ceuta and Melilla have higher values.
In this seventh edition of PISA, more than 1,000 educational centers and more than 35,000 students participated in its main study, in a large representative sample of the total population of 15-year-old students in all autonomous communities. The majority of students were in the 4th year of the ESO.