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The gap between decision-making and school improvement in the use of data at school level
Romuald Normand's abstract for the international seminar "What are the strategic challenges behind the implementation of accountability in education policies?"
Romuald Normand
UMR Éducation & Politiques (INRP, Université Lumière Lyon2)
As suggested by the findings of international research, schools should be considered complex organizations in which data use by teachers (or principals) often depends on their professional knowledge and practices closely related to their cognitive environment. That’s why assessment instruments such as indicators, scores to national tests have little chance to improve students’ achievement. It is mostly due to the nature and quality of data produced. Although these tools are of great epistemological and methodological quality, they can be quite remote from teaching and learning conditions or appear too abstract, which is detrimental to their regular and effective use in schools and classrooms. Teachers and principals are often expected to perform specific tasks with these data but are not regarded as possible resource providers, although they could produce and share problem-solving knowledge. Finally, assessment instruments do not always cover the different fields of action of schools and thus harm the mobilisation of resources and the construction of collective projects. The paper based on the comparison of the French situation with New Zealand and Scottish policies will illustrate some aspects of the gap between the data available and decision-making within secondary schools and suggest a few solutions to better integrate this dimension of assessment to the benefit of student success.
UMR Éducation & Politiques (INRP, Université Lumière Lyon2)
As suggested by the findings of international research, schools should be considered complex organizations in which data use by teachers (or principals) often depends on their professional knowledge and practices closely related to their cognitive environment. That’s why assessment instruments such as indicators, scores to national tests have little chance to improve students’ achievement. It is mostly due to the nature and quality of data produced. Although these tools are of great epistemological and methodological quality, they can be quite remote from teaching and learning conditions or appear too abstract, which is detrimental to their regular and effective use in schools and classrooms. Teachers and principals are often expected to perform specific tasks with these data but are not regarded as possible resource providers, although they could produce and share problem-solving knowledge. Finally, assessment instruments do not always cover the different fields of action of schools and thus harm the mobilisation of resources and the construction of collective projects. The paper based on the comparison of the French situation with New Zealand and Scottish policies will illustrate some aspects of the gap between the data available and decision-making within secondary schools and suggest a few solutions to better integrate this dimension of assessment to the benefit of student success.
