Data

Average learning outcomes

See all data and research on:

What you should know about this indicator

Harmonized test scores from major international student achievement testing programs. They are measured in TIMSS-equivalent units, where 300 is minimal attainment and 625 is advanced attainment.

World Bank variable id: HD.HCI.HLO

Original source: Patrinos and Angrist (2018). http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/390321538076747773/Global-Dataset-on-Education-Quality-A-Review-and-Update-2000-2017

Average learning outcomes
Average learning outcomes correspond to test scores across standardized, psychometrically-robust international and regional student achievement tests.
Source
World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
November 4, 2024
Next expected update
November 2025
Date range
2010–2020
Unit
score

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The World Bank EdStats database offers a comprehensive array of over 8,000 internationally comparable indicators related to education access, progression, completion, literacy, teachers, demographics, and expenditures. It covers the education cycle from pre-primary to vocational and tertiary education, including data on learning outcomes from assessments like PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS, equity data from household surveys, and educational projections up to 2050.

Retrieved on
November 4, 2024
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Bank Education Statistics (EdStats), World Bank, 2023. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Average learning outcomes”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Natasha Ahuja, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from World Bank. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-harmonized-learning-outcome-scores [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Average learning outcomes” [dataset]. World Bank, “World Bank Education Statistics (EdStats)” [original data]. Retrieved December 11, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-harmonized-learning-outcome-scores