How we use your data

As well as measuring pupils’ achievement in in mathematics, science and reading, PISA also collects contextual information through questionnaires completed by pupils, parents/guardians, teachers, and principals.

The information collected through these questionnaires is used to provide a more complete picture of the experiences of pupils in the Irish education system. For example, it allows us to answer questions such as ‘do fifteen year old students who say that they enjoy their mathematics lessons in school tend to have higher scores in mathematics?’ The confidentiality and anonymity of participants is very important, and information on an individual school will only ever be provided to that school and will never be released to other schools or individuals. Information on individual teachers, students and parents will never be released.

More information on how the data for each questionnaire are processed (including details about confidentiality and the retention of data) can be found in the links below. All information collected as part of PISA in Ireland is done so in accordance with the Data Protection and Statistics Acts and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

DATA PROTECTION DECLARATION for parents/guardians and students

DATA PROTECTION DECLARATION for teachers / science coordinators

DATA PROTECTION DECLARATION for principals

For more information on the ERC’s data protection policy, please click here.