Education Policy Analysis Archives

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

Gabriel Cipriano — 2024-04-02

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.

Perspectives and discourses on diversity and inclusion in the university community

María Naranjo-Crespo — 2024-05-27

The lines of research on diversity and inclusion have increased markedly in recent years. However, few studies integrate the perspective of different agents, and even more scarce are those developed within the epistemological and methodological framework of critical pedagogy. In this sense, the aim of the research has been to analyse the perspectives and discourses on diversity and inclusion in the Faculty of Education of the Complutense University of Madrid from the voices of the university community within three discursive lines or paradigms: integrative, inclusive-canonical, and inclusive-transformative. Forty-seven people from different groups in the university community took part in the study, which used interviews as the data production technique. The results, obtained by coordinating an open and axial coding system, are presented according to three codes: concept of diversity, attitudes towards inclusion, and institutional concept of diversity and inclusion. The conclusions allow us to identify the permanence of a hegemonic model of a banking nature, despite evidence of a positive evolution in the perspectives and discourses on diversity and inclusion.

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

Pablo Rivera-Vargas — 2023-12-12

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.

Equality and equity in the design of education policies: A case study of the Brazilian National Fund for Education Development (FNDE)

Yasmim Marques de Melo — 2024-05-21

This article presents the definitions and concepts associated to meritocracy, equality and equity, and a methodological proposal that allows an empirical application to analyze if and how public policies seek to correct social inequalities. A classification of eight education programs carried out by the Fundo Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educação was chosen to be analyzed, observing changes that took place across 25 years (1995-2020). The results show that these programs, initially, adopted the principle of equality in their institutional design and, later, an equity principle. However, the introduction of equity principles did not eliminate the equality principles. On the contrary, they were additional criteria adopted incrementally throughout different governments. Principles of meritocracy to allocate this federal fund to subnational governments were not identified.

Statewide standardized exams and the shaping of education policies for assessment: A comparative analysis of Paebes (Brazil) and Exeims-BC (Mexico)

Kézia Alves Moreira Dutra — 2024-05-07

This article comparatively analyzes the evaluation policies that establish the creation, organization, implementation, and continuity of the Paebes/Estado Espírito Santo standardized state exams (Brazil) and Exeims-BC/Baja California (Mexico). Specifically, we seek to understand, based on these contexts and the federal organization of the countries, how these assessments and their results influence the creation of new evaluative policies and materialize the impacts of such policies for the individuals involved in this process. It is characterized as a qualitative exploratory research, assuming the comparative method as a theoretical-methodological approach. The sources explored include official government documents, exam papers, and information obtained from competent authorities' websites. The results indicate that the exams are similar regarding the state, national, and international contexts; however, the rise of the private sector in Espírito Santo is more evident through Paebes. It is observed that there is a trend towards the centralization of high-stakes policies with the intensification of accountability, both in Espírito Santo and Baja California. It is evident that this type of assessment influences not only the context of the creation of educational policies but also budget allocation and the creation of new contexts of disputes and the pursuit of school performance.

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

Susan Bush-Mecenas — 2024-04-09

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.

Socioeconomic adversity and higher education: Is the Quota Law a potential bridge to social mobility in Brazil?

Fernanda Maria de Almeida — 2024-05-27

This article aims to contribute to the debate on the role of the Quota Law regarding the potential social mobility of students with high socioeconomic adversity, using administrative data from a federal university in Brazil. We used Confirmatory Factor Analysis technique to construct an adversity index, composed of variables that may negatively affect access to higher education, such as students' socioeconomic background, parental education, and ethnicity. We classified courses by expected earnings and assessed how background is associated with course choice. Then, we used regression models estimated by the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to identify the relative importance of the interaction between quota categories with the adversity index and the score on the admission exam (National High School Examination – Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio - ENEM) to predict course choice and consequent possibility of social mobility. The results showed that quotas can reduce the negative effects of socioeconomic adversity on social mobility. However, they are not completely sufficient to “break” the effects of the low quality of secondary education in relation to ENEM performance and, consequently, social mobility.

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

Lincon Rodrigues Dias Simões — 2024-02-27

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

Julie W. Dallavis — 2024-02-13

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

Argelia Ramírez — 2023-11-21

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.