International Large-Scale Assessments (LSA) allow comparisons of education systems’ effectiveness in promoting student learning in specific domains, such as reading, mathematics, and science. However, it has been argued that students’ scores in International LSAs mostly reflect general cognitive ability (g). This study examines the extent to which students’ scores in reading, mathematics, science, and a Raven’s Progressive Matrices test reflect general ability g and domain-specific abilities [...]

The finding that students’ responses to PISA test items reflect general ability rather than domain-specific abilities, if replicated to other countries, could have important implications for the design of large-scale assessments and the interpretation of analyses of large-scale assessment data.