The Finnish education system is based on an equal and equitable basic education. The education system offers all students an equal opportunity to receive education irrespective of students’ background. Moreover, in basic education (Grades 1‒9), the goal of the National Core Curriculum (NCC) is to ensure an equal and fair access to upper secondary education. Both general and vocational upper secondary education provide eligibility for higher education. In addition, vocational education provides qualification for certain blue-collar vacancies. In this sense, the Finnish school system does not have dead ends. However, it is still generally acknowledged that, of these two education, general upper secondary education provides better opportunities for higher education and further higher professions. Mainly, upper secondary schools select students based on students’ grade point average in the basic education certificate. Thus, students are aware of their possibilities of success in the application process. Usually, the better grade point average a student has, the more likely he or she will choose general upper secondary education. The grades in the basic education certificate describe the level of proficiency students have when exiting basic education. Grades are not based on systematic high stakes testing, but teachers’ evaluation of students’ abilities according to the evaluation guidelines in National Core Curriculum.

Earlier studies have shown that, for example, gender and parents’ educational level or socioeconomic status are also related to educational choices and transition (e.g. Andres, Adamuti-Trache, Yoon, Pidgeon, & Thomsen, 2007; Gil-Flores, Padilla-Carmona, & Suárez-Ortega, 2011; Mocetti, 2012). In Finland, for example, it is more common to girls to select general upper secondary education, whereas vocational education is more common to boys. In addition to school performance and demographic variables, students’ skills can explain educational transition. Some studies (e.g. Bertschy, Cattaneo, & Wolter, 2009; Murdoch, Kamanzi, & Doray, 2011) have investigated the relationship between PISA proficiency scores and the transition to further education. Bertschy et al. (2009) examined Swiss PISA 2000 students’ transition to the vocational training and the labour market. According to their study, higher scores in reading influenced the probability of getting into more intellectually demanding vocational training. Murdoch et al. (2011), instead, studied Canadian PISA 2000 students’ transition to higher education and graduation or dropping out within higher education. They found that PISA literacy scores influenced the access to higher education independently of previous schooling and social factors, such as gender or the occupation and level of education of each parent. In addition, their study showed that PISA scores had a greater impact on access to education than on persistence within higher education.

PISA assesses 15-year-old students’ performance in science, reading, and mathematics. The aim is to assess key knowledge and skills that are essential for participation in modern society (OECD, 2016). Hence, the performance in PISA test could be supposed to predict the transition to further studies. In this study, we focus on the relationship between Finnish students’ performance in the PISA test and their educational choice at the end of basic education. We examine how well PISA proficiency levels in science predict students’ choice for upper secondary education. We are also interested in how gender and a family background (i.e. parents’ educational level and occupational status) are related to students’ educational choice.

In this study, we used the Finnish PISA 2015 data combined with national joint application register data. This unique data enabled us to link students’ performance in the PISA test and information about their choices on application to the upper secondary education. In Finland, the most of the PISA students are ninth-graders, i.e. they are at the last grade level of basic education. Our data include those PISA students (N = 5015, covering 85% of all Finnish PISA 2015 students) who were in Grade 9 and applied to upper secondary education through the joint application system in the spring of 2015. As a dependent variable, we used information about the student’s first educational choice in the joint application. This variable is drawn from the national joint application register data and has two categories, describing a student’s choice between general and vocational upper secondary education. The independent variables of this study come from the PISA data. We used the PISA science proficiency levels to describe students’ performance. Of all three domains in PISA test, science was selected for the analysis because it was the major domain assessed in PISA 2015. Test scores in science have been divided into seven proficiency levels (the highest is Level 6 and the lowest is Level 1a; see OECD, 2016). In this study, we have combined Levels 5 and 6 into the same category and Levels 1a and 1b into the same category. Thus, five proficiency levels have been used in the analysis. In addition to PISA proficiency levels, gender, parents’ level of education (ISCED) and occupational status (ISEI) were used as independent variables in the analysis. In this study, we used binary logistic regression to analyze the influence of PISA performance in science as well as gender, parents’ educational level and occupational status on students’ educational choice. PISA sample weights and 10 plausible values are used in the analysis.

In model 1, the educational choice was predicted by PISA science proficiency levels. The results showed that the probability of choosing general upper secondary education increased when proficiency level increased. Gender was included in model 2. Boys were less likely to choose general upper secondary education than girls. The effect of proficiency levels remained similar although gender was controlled for. Moreover, after controlling for parents’ educational level and occupational status (model 3), PISA proficiency levels and gender predicted the educational choice. Parents’ education and occupational status had effect on students’ educational choice. Students whose mother or father has tertiary or post-graduate education (ISCED 5B, 5A or 6) were more likely to choose general upper secondary education than students whose mother or father does not have tertiary level education (ISCED 4 or lower). The higher parents’ occupational status, the more likely a student selected general upper secondary education. Taken together, students’ educational choice at the end of basic education can be predicted by PISA performance. However, gender and the family background also have influence on students’ educational choice. Thus, this study supports the results of earlier studies.

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