Education Policy Analysis Archives

Introducing technologies into national large-scale testing: Are we ready?

2024-03-01T15:17:54-08:00

In recent decades, the potential benefits of introducing technologies into large-scale tests have been much discussed. Yet the path to effective technology use on large-scale testing has fallen short of expectations, especially when these tests have medium or high stakes for students. After a temporary cancelation of external assessment of learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portuguese government is taking a step forward. With a gradual implementation until 2025, the reintroduction of external assessment of learning in the Portuguese education system foresees all national assessment tests and all national examinations in digital format with the implementation of the External Assessment Dematerialization Project (DAVE). However, assessment reforms, such as DAVE, raise concerns within school communities. To identify and analyze these concerns, we conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with head teachers from mainland Portugal. To understand to what extent these concerns were considered and covered in DAVE’s design and implementation, a supplementary interview was conducted with the president of the Portuguese institute responsible for DAVE. In addition, a survey with 2 673 teachers was carried out to find out their degree of agreement with the implementation of DAVE. Results show that DAVE raises many concerns among head teachers, and it is not fully accepted by the teachers.

Digital education platforms and schooling: New challenges and alternatives towards educational equity and children’s rights

2023-11-27T16:28:53-08:00

This article introduces the special issue, which explores and analyses the impact of the development, distribution, and use of digital platforms in educational contexts. Organised in three sections for a comprehensive understanding, the first part outlines the concerns that motivated the guest editors, presenting the conceptual and social framework, historical and current, and focusing on the debate about equity and digital inclusion in education, in a context dominated by large technological corporations. The second section details the eight articles, distributed along two axes: theoretical review and empirical. Finally, the third part synthesises considerations derived from the materials presented, with contributions from diverse geographies and traditions. This collection highlights the tension between digital innovation and social inclusion in education, underlining the need for initiatives that favour the use of digital platforms focused on data governance by educational communities, the protection of users’ privacy and diversity of access to information, and alternatives towards education equity and children’s rights.

Research, interrupted: Addressing practical and methodological challenges under turbulent conditions

2023-12-01T09:35:22-08:00

The COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous upheaval in schooling. In addition to devasting effects on students, these disruptions had consequences for researchers conducting studies on education programs and policies. Given the likelihood of future large-scale disruptions, it is important for researchers to plan resilient studies and think critically about adaptations when such turbulence arises. In this article, we utilize qualitative analysis of interviews with research study leaders to illuminate practical and methodological challenges, as well as promising practices that arose during the pandemic period. We find that researchers made pivots to address practical challenges and protect the feasibility of their studies. We also find that researchers took precautions, where possible, to understand and bolster internal validity. However, these pivots frequently surfaced additional threats to construct and external validity. We conclude with recommendations for future studies conducted in times of prolonged unplanned school closures or other large-scale disruptions.

Variation in co-authorship networks for publications on student aid, based on the terms used in the research

2023-11-30T10:35:14-08:00

This study investigated the variation in the structure of co-authorship networks for publications on student aid, based on the use of different terms, as well as the variation in the content of these publications. The analysis used the VOSviewer (version 1.6.18) and Ucinet software, to map the relationships between authors, and the Voyant Tools software to analyze the texts of the abstracts. The results revealed that the policies to support students take a variety of forms, to which various terms and expressions correspond, and that the range of results of sociometric studies on student aid varies significantly according to the terms used in the search. Due to this variety, a joint search covering several terms results in many asymmetries among the networks. We conclude that building a panoramic view of co-authorship networks on student aid requires the adoption of several searches using different filters, mainly by country.

Examining school sector and mission in a landscape of parental choice

2023-10-11T13:26:26-07:00

Researchers have considered how school choice policies affect student achievement, but less inquiry explores how the organization of schools may change in the presence of choice. This descriptive and exploratory paper analyzes a state representative sample of school mission statements at two time points: before the enactment of choice policies in Indiana, namely the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program, and again six years into the policy. Using structural topic modeling, this paper examines whether and how school mission statements topics have changed over this period. Descriptive findings suggest mission statement topics differ significantly between sectors but show few changes over time. The most striking shift is that Catholic and other private religious schools appear to be clarifying the religious aspects of their mission in the presence of robust choice policies.

An approach to school experiences of returning migrant students at the undergraduate level

2023-10-02T15:46:16-07:00

This article presents the first results of a research being carried out on the experiences of returning migrant students at the Universidad Veracruzana (UV). The aim was to know the students’ own versions of the challenges they faced during their returns. The authors conducted interviews where the students recounted their integration into Mexican society and the educational system. For this exploratory and descriptive study, data were analyzed from a deductive perspective based on Vargas (2018), who proposed migrant students face three types of barriers when returning to the country: structural (economic and administrative), cultural, and social. Some characteristics of these barriers were reported by students during the interviews. We presented suggestions made by students for improved educational attention at the university. As a pioneering study conducted at the UV, it represents the first approach to this particular group of students. The study also spurred institutional actions at the UV aimed to raise awareness of and provide comprehensive care to these students.

Racial conflict in a higher education policy vacuum

2023-12-04T11:50:12-08:00

This study explored how 14 higher education and student affairs (HESA) professionals navigated institutional policy vacuums to address interpersonal racial conflict between students. Grounded in perspectives of policy vacuums, findings revealed that HESA professionals learned about racial conflict by referring to their own personal, professional, and academic training. Additionally, they employed strategies that were often self-generated and informal to address racial conflict. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings, specifically highlighting that relying on HESA professionals’ dispositions is an insufficient way to address racial conflict and that more institutional support is necessary to train racially responsive HESA professionals.

Evolution of Chilean higher education from a governance equaliser perspective

2023-06-28T14:48:51-07:00

This article examines the evolution of Chile's higher education system governance over the last 50 years. It considers the New Public Management (NPM) narrative as a conceptual framework and applies the governance equalizer as an analytical model to study changes in different periods characterized by different political contexts. The results show that after 50 years, the governance of the Chilean higher education system has shifted from a regime of academic self-governance to a hybrid system with a predominance of coordination through state regulation, competition, and managerial government. The results of previous studies are reviewed through the lens of the governance equalizer applied to the higher education systems of Italy, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, and Ethiopia. A common trend towards the configuration of hybrid governance models is found, and the limitations of ideal governance regimes to represent the current complexity of national higher education systems are noted.

The reverse side of high school reform in the São Paulo State Network

2023-12-19T12:22:39-08:00

The changes brought about by Law 13.415/2017 in the LDB/1996 section referring to high school changed the conception of this teaching stage and redirected its purposes. This article presents data from an action-research, involving bibliographical and documentary analysis and interventions in educational practices, within seven schools following the implementation of the New High School in the São Paulo state. The objective is to analyze the repercussions of the curricular organization of the Education Department on teaching and learning processes, and how these schools are building critical and creative curricular proposals through autonomy and democratic participation. Research results show that the curricular organization based on 276 components, linked to 11 formation itineraries, fragmented school contents and made the pedagogical work organization favorable to student learning and formation unfeasible. The organization of the contents of the components and Inova Educação disciplines articulated to the common base disciplines, carried out by the research. However, the lack of guarantee that this content is taught by expert professors compromises the potential of the proposal to minimize negative effects and consequences of the reform in high school education.

Physical education in the educational policies of the last decades in Uruguay: Continuities and ruptures between the progressive and the conservative

2024-01-12T11:49:59-08:00

This article addresses the main continuities and ruptures between the progressive and conservative era in educational policies in the field of physical education in Uruguay (2005-2021). Using Pêcheux's (1990) discourse analysis, a documentary corpus composed of laws and decrees, study plans and programs and national curricular frameworks was selected. In the progressive era, the expansion of public access to physical education was promoted, which played a key role in educational inclusion programs and showed great potential for the revaluation of work in the territory and the intersectoral and interinstitutional approach. Teacher participation processes were promoted to carry out these changes. These dimensions were reduced in the current conservative educational project as a result of public spending cuts, the elimination of some roles with emphasis on the territorial aspect and changes in the modes of participation. Although the incorporation of the discourse of competencies and socioemotional skills began at the end of the progressive era, in the current government it acquires greater strength and the latter is used to support physical education.