Australia’s 15-year-old students are the second-highest achieving creative thinkers in the OECD, new research shows.
The report, published by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), is based on data from more than 13,430 Australian students, and principals and teachers who took part in the latest OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
The PISA creative thinking assessment, introduced for the first time in 2022, measured students’ abilities to generate original and diverse ideas, evaluate ideas and improve ideas.
ACER’s analysis found Australia’s proportion of high performers was significantly higher than the OECD average of 27% across every state and territory – ranging from 34% to 49%. It also identified the performance levels of different demographic groups.
The proportion of Australia’s students meeting the national proficient standard (88%) was 10 percentage points higher than the OECD average, with 91% of students in the ACT achieving this standard.
“The OECD’s report in June named Singapore, Korea, Australia, Canada, Finland and New Zealand as the most successful education systems in developing students’ capacity to engage in creative thinking,” lead author of ACER’s report Lisa De Bortoli said.
“Our findings provide insight into how imaginative, adventurous, confident and capable Australia’s 15-year-olds are in their creative thinking and how it is being fostered in classrooms across the country.”
De Bortoli said these insights are crucial because of the important role that critical thinking will play in young peoples’ futures.
“Creative thinking skills are fundamental to helping people develop innovative and effective responses to issues and problems – in their personal and professional lives, within communities, and as global citizens.”