How much time has gone into ensuring that there are as few culturally specific references as possible?
The ISA has been developed with the needs of students from very diverse cultural backgrounds in mind. We draw on our considerable experience in catering for multicultural populations within Australia, and more recently, on our experience in developing assessment instruments for students from about 60 countries in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). As with PISA, ISA’s philosophy in dealing with the issue of diversity is to present culturally diverse material in our assessments, rather than to attempt cultural neutrality. Regarding the issue of bilingualism: Although the ISA is being offered in English language only, we are very much aware of the fact that a large proportion of international school students are from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and are mindful of minimising the language loading of assessments in which language competence is NOT the focus of assessment (e.g. mathematical literacy). In the writing assessment, in which language competence
