University students perform poorly in basic science tests

Since science education outputs correlate with socioeconomic level, at least in the primary education, it is interesting to see what happens with students that reach the university. At least in a private, high-class university in Buenos Aires, Argentina, there is evidence that students do not meet the basic competences that define scientific literacy, as was studied by asking 20 year old students to answer the questions of the PISA test[@minzi2018Aprender competencias científicas en la Universidad: estudio sobre la incidencia de un curso cuatrimestral con enfoque en la indagación.].

In the experiment, there's a very big selection bias, since students of UDeSA belong to the highest socioeconomic levels of Argentina's society. And in any case, their performance is very poor. It must be taken into account that PISA tests are designed for 15 year old, meaning that either students lose knowledge over time (see cramming is not understanding), or may point to the idea that their level was never good to start with.

An open question, at least for me, is whether science education performance changes over time for the same cohorts. In the very small sample of [@minzi2018Aprender competencias científicas en la Universidad: estudio sobre la incidencia de un curso cuatrimestral con enfoque en la indagación.], what was the result of the PISA evaluation of the same students 5 years earlier? Was there any form of maturing, or forgetting?