Program for International Student Assessment 2025 (PISA 2025) Main Study
Revision of a currently approved collection
No
Regular
Approved with change
04/07/2025
01/17/2025
TERMS OF CLEARANCE
As of today's date, the National Center for Education Statistics is unable to assure confidentiality for the Program for International Student Assessment 2025 Main Study (PISA 2025) under the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA, 44 U.S.C. §§ 3561-3583). However, its additional confidentiality assurances remain, including the Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA, 20 U.S.C. §9573). NCES/ED made necessary revisions to the PISA 2025 information collection request after the 30-day Federal Register Notice, as required under the Paperwork Reduction Act, due to recent staffing changes at the Department of Education.
Therefore, OMB approves this request through September 30, 2026 (end of FY26) with the following terms of clearance:
(1) NCES will ensure that its confidentiality assurances have been updated (as described above) in all pertinent documents, including in all respondent-facing materials.
(2) To be in compliance with OMB's Statistical Policy Directive No. 4, OMB requires that NCES publicly announce the changes to the planned data collection, e.g., the removal of CIPSEA protections. OMB requires that this announcement be placed alongside information about PISA 2025 on NCESâs website through the duration of the PISA 2025 data lifecycle and, if possible, to provide a Notice of this change in the Federal Register.
table that charts list comparision
Inventory as of this Action
Requested
Previously Approved
09/30/2026
36 Months From Approved
09/30/2026
59,087
0
58,672
19,041
0
18,903
0
0
0
The Program for International Student Assessments (PISA) is an international assessment of 15-year-olds which focuses on assessing studentsâ reading, mathematics, and science literacy. PISA was first administered in 2000 and is conducted every three years. The ninth cycle of the study, PISA 2025, is being administered at a time when interest is increasing, both worldwide and in the United States, in how well schools are preparing students to meet the challenges of the future, and how the students perform compared with their peers in other education systems of the world. Approximately 85 education systems, including the U.S., are expected to participate in 2025. The U.S. has participated in all previous cycles and is participating in 2025 in order to track trends and to compare the performance of U.S. students with that in other education systems. PISA 2025 is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In the U.S., PISA 2025 is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education. PISA is a collaboration among the participating countries, the OECD, and a group of international organizations each under contract to the OECD (hereafter referred to as the PISA International Consortium).
In each administration of PISA, one of the subject areas (reading, mathematics, or science literacy) is the major domain and has the broadest content coverage, while the other two subjects are the minor domains. Science literacy will be the major domain in PISA 2025. Other areas may also be assessed, such as, in the case of PISA 2025, Learning in a Digital World (LDW), which will be an innovative domain in 2025. PISA assesses studentsâ knowledge and skills gained both in and out of school environments. The focus on the âyieldâ of education in and out of school makes it different from other international assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which are closely tied to school curriculum frameworks and assess younger and grade-based populations.
Like previous rounds of PISA in 2015, 2018, and 2022, in PISA 2025 the entire assessment and the questionnaires will be administered on computer. In addition to the cognitive assessments, PISA 2025 will include questionnaires administered to school principals and assessed students. The school questionnaire will be delivered online. The school and student questionnaires are core components of PISA and as such are required for all participating countries. The teacher questionnaire, which is optional and was administered in previous rounds (2015 and 2018), will not be administered in 2025 because the U.S. has deemed the resulting data inadequate for analyses due to the lack of weights for the teacher data.
To prepare for the main study in 2025, PISA countries conducted a field test in the spring of 2024, primarily to evaluate newly developed assessment and questionnaire items but also to test the assessment operations. The PISA 2025 field test data collection occurred in the U.S.A. March-April 2024 and the main study data collection will take place September-November 2025. This submission requests approval for all final materials associated with recruitment and data collection activities related to the PISA 2025 main study and is accompanied by a notice published in the Federal Register allowing a 30-day public comment period on the final details of the PISA 2025 main study data collection. In order to conduct the main study by March 2025, we are submitting this 30D revision with the final main study student video (Appendix A-2) and final school and student questionnaires (Appendix C-2), as well as refined details about changes to the design and procedures for the main study (Parts A & B).
US Code:
20 USC 9573
Name of Law: Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002
The apparent increase in burden from last approval is due to the fact that the last request was to conduct the PISA 2022 main study, while this request is for all burden associated with the PISA 2025 field test and main study.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Program for International Student Assessment 2025 (PISA 2025) Main Study