Monitoring educational achievement / T. N. Postlethwaite

Contents
Introduction
I. Why do countries undertake national assessments or participate in international assessments?
Main reasons
First questions that ministries need to ask
Second questions that ministries need to ask

II. A quick look at two national studies
The Vietnam study
The Kenya study

III. Some international studies
SACMEQ
PISA
IEA

IV. Criticisms of assessment studies and responses to criticisms
If tests are based on a curriculum that is general to all countries, will this not result in the international studies imposing an international curriculum on all countries?
Have all competencies been measured in the international tests? Do these also include measure of children's self-esteem or of learning to live together?
Could some countries downgrade the emphasis on such outcomes if international studies focus on literacy and numeracy?
Are students that are not used to multiple-choice questions at a disadvantage in tests that include multiple-choice format items?
In education systems where there is a lot of grade repetition, is testing age rather than grade fair?
What happens if the results of a national study and tests given as part of an international study vary significantly?
What is the cost of such studies?
How often should there be a national survey of a particular grade of age group?
How much influence do such studies have on decision-making on education?
V. Technical standards for sample survey work in monitoring educational achievement have the aims of the study been stated explicitly?
Was the defined target population appropriate and comparable?
Was the sampling well conducted?
Were the tests well conducted and pre-tested?
In cross-national studies involving translation from a central language to others, were verifications of the translations carried out?
Was the data collection well conducted?
Were the data recording, data cleaning, test scoring and sample weighting well conducted?
Were the data analyses well conducted?
Were the reports well written?
Vi. Conclusions and some implications for educational planners

References
Appendices
Includes bibliographical references. Fundamentals of Educational Planning ; 81