Alignment of a high-ranked PISA mathematics curriculum and the Parallel Curriculum for gifted students: Is a high PISA Mathematics ranking indicative of curricular suitability for gifted learners?

ABSTRACT

Quebec students have generally excelled in international mathematics comparisons and 22% performed in the top category, Level 6, on PISA in 2012. Several countries with more extensive gifted programs scored and ranked considerably lower and had smaller proportions achieving Level 6. Does this mean a general mathematics curriculum with such indices of success could sufficiently serve gifted students? The US NAGC’s Parallel Curriculum model served as a template to explore Quebec’s ninth-grade mathematics curriculum for components of the four Parallel Curriculum strands: core, connections, practice, and identity. The Quebec curriculum included a strong core, but fewer elements of the three other Parallels. The anomaly remains: A strong core curriculum was associated with high PISA scores and rankings, yet did not meet all the criteria for gifted programming. At the same time, even though the literature reports that formal gifted programming is sometimes associated with higher proportions of learners achieving at PISA’s level 6, such provision is not as well related to overall high PISA averages or rankings.

KEYWORDS:

• alignment study
• curriculum
• gifted
• mathematics
• Parallel Curriculum Model
• PISA
• Quebec

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julie Anne Irving

Julie Anne Irving has a BA with a major in Psychology, and an MA and PhD in Counselling Psychology from McGill University. She volunteered and worked privately as a mathematics tutor at the secondary level and participated in the research of the High Ability and Inquiry Research Group. She has worked as a child care educator for Batshaw Youth and Family Centers, as a research assistant at the McGill International Centre for Youth Gambling and High Risk Behaviours, and as a Counselling Psychology intern at Princeton University’s student counseling center. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Ernestina Oppong

Ernestina Oppong has a BA in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Concordia University and a Master of Education in Educational Psychology from McGill University. She has tutored and taught different subjects both locally in various settings including after-school programs, Sun Youth, Vanier College, as well as internationally in Mexico and Ghana. She is currently a special education teacher with the English Montreal School Board’s campus located within the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Bruce M. Shore

Bruce M. Shore, once a secondary mathematics teacher, is Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology at McGill University. He previously served as Chair of the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and as Dean of Students. His research has been on cognitive and social qualities associated with high ability and on the nature and importance of inquiry-based learning and teaching for all students at all levels and for gifted learners in particular. He is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and, with past graduate students, has shared six American Mensa Education and Research Foundation Awards for Excellence for Research on Human Intelligence and Intellectual Giftedness.