PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS)

The PISA ESCS is a composite score built by the indicators parental education (PARED), highest parental occupation (HISEI), and home possessions (HOMEPOS) including books in the home via principal component analysis (PCA). (See description of these three variables above). The rationale for using these three components was that socio-economic status has usually been seen as based on education, occupational status and income. As no direct income measure has been available from the PISA data, the existence of household items has been used as a proxy for family wealth.

Constructs Being Measured
Primary: 
Physical well-being
Secondary: 
Economic well-being
How to Access and Cite

To access the resource, visit https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/CY7_201710_QST_MS_STQ_NoNotes_final.pdf.

Outcome Families
Well-being
Connectedness
Awareness
Agency
Mastery
Programmatic Purpose
Classroom-level data and feedback
Program-level monitoring and evaluation
Instrument Characteristics
Type of items: 

Scale index based on student questionnaire

Original target population: 

15 year olds

Format: 
Questionnaire
Applicable Grade Levels
Pre-primary
Primary
Secondary
Post-secondary
Supporting Research

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Bradshaw, Hoelscher & Richardson, 2007
Hauser, 1994; McMillan, et al., 1995
Ganzeboom & Treiman, 2003

Rationale

This resource provides guidance on what components are taken into account when developing an index of economic, social and cultural status, which can be used as a standized metric for physical and economic well-being.

Points to Consider

For more guidance on measuring student learning and best practices in adapting measurement tools to your contexts, check out the Portal page on Monitoring and Evaluation. You can also contact Alvin Vista (Knowledge Lead, Student Outcomes) and Robbie Dean (Director of Research) for specific questions.