Average scores of 15-year-old students in PISA on science literacy scale, by country: 2009

Average is higher than the U.S. average

Average is not measurably different from the U.S. average

Average is lower than the U.S. average

NOTE: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average is the average of the national averages of the OECD member countries, with each country weighted equally. Because the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is principally an OECD study, the results for non-OECD countries are displayed separately from those of the OECD countries and are not included in the OECD average. Countries are ordered on the basis of average scores, from highest to lowest within the OECD countries and non-OECD countries. Scores are reported on a scale from 0 to 1,000. Score differences as noted between the United States and other countries (as well as between the United States and the OECD average) are significantly different at the .05 level of statistical significance. Standard error is noted by s.e. In the country column, italics indicate non-national entities. UAE refers to United Arab Emirates.

SOURCE: Fleischman, H.L., Hopstock, P. J., Pelczar, M.P, and Shelly, B.E. (2010). Highlights From PISA 2009: Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy in an International Context (NCES 2011-004), supplemental table S1. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

(191 KB)

Table B.1.63.

Average scores of 15-year-old students in PISA on science literacy scale, by country: 2009

Country	Score	s.e.	Country	Score	s.e.
OECD average	501	0.5	*Non-OECD countries*
			Shanghai-China	575	2.3
*OECD countries*			Hong Kong-China	549	2.8
Finland	554	2.3	Singapore	542	1.4
Japan	539	3.4	Chinese Taipei	520	2.6
Korea, Republic of	538	3.4	Liechtenstein	520	3.4
New Zealand	532	2.6	Macao-China	511	1.0
Canada	529	1.6	Latvia	494	3.1
Estonia	528	2.7	Lithuania	491	2.9
Australia	527	2.5	Croatia	486	2.8
Netherlands	522	5.4	Russian Federation	478	3.3
Germany	520	2.8	Dubai-UAE	466	1.2
Switzerland	517	2.8	Serbia, Republic of	443	2.4
United Kingdom	514	2.5	Bulgaria	439	5.9
Slovenia	512	1.1	Romania	428	3.4
Poland	508	2.4	Uruguay	427	2.6
Ireland	508	3.3	Thailand	425	3.0
Belgium	507	2.5	Jordan	415	3.5
Hungary	503	3.1	Trinidad and Tobago	410	1.2
United States	502	*3.6*	Brazil	405	2.4
Czech Republic	500	3.0	Colombia	402	3.6
Norway	500	2.6	Montenegro, Republic of	401	2.0
Denmark	499	2.5	Argentina	401	4.6
France	498	3.6	Tunisia	401	2.7
Iceland	496	1.4	Kazakhstan	400	3.1
Sweden	495	2.7	Albania	391	3.9
Austria	494	3.2	Indonesia	383	3.8
Portugal	493	2.9	Qatar	379	0.9
Slovak Republic	490	3.0	Panama	376	5.7
Italy	489	1.8	Azerbaijan	373	3.1
Spain	488	2.1	Peru	369	3.5
Luxembourg	484	1.2	Kyrgyz Republic	330	2.9
Greece	470	4.0
Israel	455	3.1
Turkey	454	3.6
Chile	447	2.9
Mexico	416	1.8