Predictors of Cognitive Skills Underlying Global Competences of Filipino Students in PISA 2018: A Machine-Learning Approach

Global competences are important capacities that students should develop to effectively function in the 21st century. There is a need to understand the factors associated with the components of global competence in specific educational systems. In this study, we use data from 15-year-old Filipino students in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to explore predictors of three cognitive skills underlying global competence: perspective taking, cognitive flexibility/adaptability, and intercultural communication ability. Machine learning approaches were used to model the three cognitive skills, with XGBoost outperforming the other techniques across the target outcomes. The XGBoost models showed moderate predictive performance, with training R2 values ranging from 0.4953 to 0.5394 and test R2 values ranging from 0.3896 to 0.4469. Shapley Additive Explanations approach was used to identify variables that had the most impact on the model of each cognitive skill index. The results suggest that perspective taking could be a skill that underlies all three cognitive skills, but that intercultural communication ability seems to be the cognitive skill that is more strongly associated with intercultural and global knowledge and experiences than the other two. The results are discussed in terms of how the cognitive components of global competence might be a disjoint set of factors that are beginning to show connections in the cognitive repertoire of Filipino learners.