As Time Goes By: A Comparative Analysis of International Trends in Assessment Policy

• In Event: Looking Backward to See Beyond: Recent Developments in the Study of Worldwide Trends in Educational Reform

Abstract

Since the turn of the century, the number of countries conducting large-scale learning assessments (LSAs) has been rising steadily - to the point that today LSAs are perceived as a fixture of modern education systems. This trend has been extensively analyzed within comparative education circles, with a prolific literature devoted to the uptake of LSAs across countries, and the drivers behind the globalization of such policy instruments (Benavot & Koseleci, 2015; Furuta, 2022). Particularly since LSAs became a core component of the “school accountability toolkit”, these instruments have been generating growing interest and concern among educational communities.

The seemingly unstoppable entrenchment of LSAs within education systems should not lead us to assume that such policies have remained fixed entities or that they unfold in a predictable way. Far from having a static nature, LSAs in many countries are continuously adjusted and recalibrated, and even put at the service of political agendas different from those that motivated their adoption. On occasion, LSAs have evolved following a “bottom-up” pattern through unexpected uses by local actors, the emergence of instrument constituencies interested in LSAs survival, or their mix with other policies (Sewering et al., 2022; Simons & Voß, 2018).

It follows from the above that, far from being linear, the policy trajectories experimented by LSAs are complex and vary significantly across countries. Over the last few years, and with COVID-19 operating as a catalyzer, LSAs have regained salience across multiple countries, and have been the object of different reforms oriented at adjusting this policy instrument to a changing social context and new educational and political demands. Yet the evolution of LSAs has not been systematically examined from a cross-country perspective, with much research focusing on the origins of assessment systems but leaving unaddressed their renegotiation over time. Limited empirical engagement with the evolving nature of LSAs might inadvertently lead to an unproductive reification of this policy instrument within CIE circles.

In light of this, this paper aims at mapping the recent evolution of LSAs - including their design (frequency, scope, coverage) but also their uses (i.e. the nature of the purposes and stakes associated with them and their combined use with other policy instruments), as well as to examine the drivers and enablers of such changes. Drawing on the results of a systematic literature review combining academic sources and gray literature, we rely on recent advances in policy feedback theory to make sense of the change and continuity in the instrumentation of LSAs (Sewerin et al., 2020). Specifically, we pay attention both to self-reinforcing mechanisms leading to the perpetuation of LSA policies, and to self-undermining mechanisms behind the revision or even termination of some features (Jacobs & Weaver, 2015), and identify those social, political and educational conditions conducive to their activation. In so doing, our paper contributes to a refined understanding of the diverging trajectories of the LSA program, and sheds light on the potential of those analytical perspectives going beyond early logics of instrument choice, and engaging with policy development over time.

Authors

• Clara Fontdevila, University of Glasgow

• Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona