Book excerpt: The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an important part of the OECD's Indicator Programme. It collects data and provides comparative indicators of education systems in OECD member and partner countries. PISA provides datasets of outstanding quality regarding samples, instruments and analyses. In addition to its important function for educational monitoring, the PISA datasets are the basis of a wide range of secondary analyses from a number of different scientific perspectives and disciplines. The aim of this book is to make some of the outstanding PISA related research results available for a wider audience. Specifically four research areas will be focused: (1) Content related research; (2) Methodological research; (3) Context related research; (4) Research on trends in PISA. Each part of the book is devoted to one of these areas and will start with an introduction from a leading expert in the field followed by chapters covering research conducted in this field.