The purpose of this study was to provide necessary educational information by using the
results of the International Comparison Studies of Achievement. An analysis of the trends in
high school students\' scientific literacy achievement was examined from the results of PISA
2003 and PISA 2006. The results of the analysis showed that korean students\' achievement of
PISA 2006 was significantly lower than that of PISA 2003. Particularly, high achieving students
declined the most among all the levels. Also, the results showed that boys attained higher
achievement than girls at PISA 2003; however, the boys did not show a significantly higher
level of achievement at PISA 2006. As a result, the boys showed an overall decline in
achievement, while the girls showed a decline at the higher level, and an increase at the lower
level. In comparison to other students from top-performing countries, Korean students
displayed the lowest level of performance in scientific explaining from a category of scientific
evidence, identification of scientific problems, and scientific explaining. Students performed
significantly lower at PISA 2006 than at PISA 2003 in content related to global warming;
however, students performed significantly higher at PISA 2006 than at PISA 2003 in content
related to wave. This result may have been due to the changes in the national curriculum,
which included a wave unit for middle school students. In science education, it is necessary to
increase scientific literacy of applying scientific knowledge to the real world.