Latvian Students’ Understanding of Global Problems and Readiness to Get Involved in Solving Them in OECD PISA 2018 Comparison

Abstract

Students’ life in the modern globalized world gives them many new possibilities and at the same time also creates new serious challenges putting forward also new requirements. Students’ understanding of the global problems (climate changes and global warming, global health (including pandemics), migration, international conflicts, famine or insufficient food, the causes of poverty, etc.) become more and more important. The aim of the study is to analyze the results of Latvia’s fifteen years old students in the OECD PISA 2018 in the aspect of the global competence paying a more detailed attention to the students’ understanding of the global problems and their readiness to take action for collective well-being. The research questions are follows: 1) What is Latvian students’ global competence in the international comparison and what is its relation to the characteristics of students, their families and school; 2) What is Latvian students’ understanding of the global problems and readiness to get involved in their solution? The descriptive statistical analysis employs the data from surveys/questionnaires (66 countries) and tests (27 countries) included in PISA 2018 international data basis. Latvian students’ performance in the cognitive test of the global competence is considerably higher than the average of the participating countries, and as regards the OECD countries we are on the average level. In Latvia, students of capital Riga schools have the highest level of global understanding, it is lower in other cities and even lower in rural schools. Latvian students have a slightly lower readiness to get involved in solving the global phenomena and participation in concrete activities than the average in OECD countries.