International Workshop
Educational assessment in developing countries: the case of Mozambique

ILU, Uppsala University, April 26-28, 2000
Seminar rooms 1219 (Wednesday 26 through Friday 28)
and 3122 (Thursday 27, morning session)

<http://www.skeptron.uu.se/broady/sec/erdc-0004.htm>

Arranged by the Network for educational research in developing countries at ILU, Uppsala University
 <http://www.skeptron.uu.se/broady/sec/n-erdc.htm>

More information from:
Mikael Palme <mikael.palme@lhs.se>
Carol Benson <carol.benson@biling.su.se>
Donald Broady <broady@nada.kth.se>

Background

Educational assessment and pedagogical measuring potentially uphold important functions in education development in developing countries. Ideally, results from educational assessment would inform curriculum development and the design of teacher pre- and in-service training on pedagogical challenges that need to be addressed. They would also provide information to educational planners, politicians and the civil society on the performance of the education system generally, for example as regards gender inequalities and regional unbalance. For the individual teacher, an adequate evaluation of learning outcomes would be one of the means necessary for handling the discrepancy between curriculum demands and actual learning that often haunts primary teaching. Further, in education systems where few students reach higher levels, it is important that assessment instruments used for student selection are reasonably adequate.

In developed countries, educational assessment at a larger scale is a difficult and complex enterprise that often is subject to harsh criticism. For a number of reasons, large-scale educational assessment in developing countries is normally even more complex and risky. Often, little is known of the target population and to what extent it can be assumed to representative in specific respects. Since pupils are likely often to have different L1 and the local culture determining learning may be substantially different between regions, both the formulation of test items and the interpretation of test results may be particularly difficult. If test results are seen as indicators of complex learning processes that are determined by likewise complex cultural contexts of which often too little is known, the analysis of these results runs the constant risk of simplification and misinterpretation. Moreover, the organisational and economic conditions for schooling may differ between regions far more than what is normally the case in developed countries. An often poorly developed infra-structure in terms of transport and means of communication, in combination with an absence of traditions and skills for handling the administrative machinery required by large-scale assessment, also challenges attempts to develop national assessment programs.

At an international level, the IEA programme (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) has since the 60’s carried through assessment tests in various countries for a comparative purpose.[1] As a continuation of the IEA studies, the TIMSS programme (The Third International Mathematics and Science Study) initiated in 1994-95 the carrying through of assessment tests at international level in mathematics and science.[2] As yet another extension of the IEA programme, the SACMEQ project (Southern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality), linked to the Unesco institution IEPP, has in the 90’s monitored assessment test in various countries n Southern Africa.[3] The experiences from these internationally organised assessments of educational achievement have obviously been mixed. On the one hand, forms for transnational organisation of assessment programs have been developed and experiences have been gained on many of the difficulties related to the making and administration of tests in different national contexts and under varying conditions. On the other hand, tests have been criticised for not sufficiently reflecting the specific national, historic and cultural dimensions of the learning outcomes that have been measured and, hence, of being inadequate for the development of strategies for quality improvement in national contexts.[4]

In Mozambique, both the prior IEA and following-up SACMEQ tests have been administered. However, in 1997, the Ministry of Education initiated, through the national Institute for Education development (INDE), a properly national programme for educational assessment, funded by Finnish Finnida. In currently 3 provinces of the country, in a sample of schools, assessment tests in Portuguese, Mathematics and, more recently Science, have been administered and analysed by a group of researchers. In order to establish links with potential for giving a feedback to teacher education, test are worked out, administered and analysed in collaboration with Teacher Training Colleges. So far, the programme has produced two major reports on the first national assessment tests in the above mentioned subjects, including the proper tests, the presentation of test results and an analysis.

Most of the active members of the Network for educational research in developing countries at ILU, Uppsala University, have been actively engaged for many years in various kinds of research in Mozambique. This research includes an evaluation of teaching materials, assessment studies, studies of concept formation among pupils and teachers, as well as sociological analyses of schools, teachers and pupils in various parts of the country. This body of knowledge of Mozambican primary education represents an asset for the now ongoing national assessment project. It also represents a challenge, in the sense that it provides insights and an analysis of cultural and sociological aspects of teaching and learning, as well as of gender issues and region and social differences in the education system, that constitute an alternative basis for identifying and understanding the nature of problems related to the quality of primary education in the country. In other words, for the purpose of an in-depth analysis of problems related to educational assessment and pedagogical measuring in developing countries, a promising possibility exists to systematically and in detail relate this body of knowledge on Mozambican primary education to the design, carrying through and results of the on-going national assessment project. The arrangement of a workshop/conference with this objective has been made possible because of the willingness of the Finnida-funded assessment project in Mozambique to finance the participation both of the Mozambican experts working in the project and of the Finnish/Swedish consultants connected to it. The following application for funding regards the invitation of other African researchers and specialists in the area, as well as of Swedish researchers.

Aim

The workshop aims at discussing pertinent aspects of educational assessment and pedagogical measuring in developing countries, taking Mozambique as a case-study. The advantage of this approach is expected to be that penetrating into all the technical details of this projects, from sampling questions to the construction of specific items and the interpretation of results, and considering the theoretical dimensions of the questions dealt with, an in-depth approach to educational assessment and pedagogical measuring in a development context will be possible, as opposed to a discussion based on contributions from differing national contexts. However, through the participation by specialists with vast experience from other international assessment programmes (such as the SACMEQ programme or European programmes), the Mozambican project will contrasted to other similar assessment programmes. Further, the participation of researchers with various other research approaches to Mozambican primary education (linguistic, sociology and anthropology, didactics, conceptual studies, etc.) is expected to create the conditions for examining the role and contribution of educational assessment and testing to the understanding of the realities of primary education in the country.

discussion themes and agenda

Discussion themes

The workshop will address issues such as the following: 

1.      What different needs and demands does the assessment correspond to and what needs and demands could it realistically satisfy? Are these needs and demands potentially in conflict? What are the political uses of assessment? What trends and factors influence how assessment is shaped and how results are used? What would be the impact of the assessment administered by international organisations?

2.      What types of assessment tests are included and what are their differing objectives? To what extent can these objectives be combined and to what extent are they conflicting?

3.      The “operationalisation” of assessment: handling and administering the system from the national level to the local one; collecting the information on schools, teachers and the socio-cultural embedment of teaching; doing the tests and doing something with the them; working with reference groups; creating mechanisms for and feed-back from the teacher education system; the perception and role of assessment in the education system and in the local society.

4.      Over all dimensions of what is measured and should be taken into account in the selection and construction of test items: What should be measured and what can be measured? What are the gender-related dimensions of learning and skills and how can they be addressed and handled in assessment and measuring? What are the implications of the normally bi- or multilingual dimension of testing handled? How can skills and process-related abilities, as opposed to purely cognitive ones, be measured? What skills and abilities would that be? What are the implications for testing of the normally predominately oral culture to which the tested the target groups pertain? These aspects will be addressed in more detail in relation to the discussion of each one of the main subject areas.

5.      Sampling: relevant social, cultural and linguistic differences that potentially should be reflected; identification and use of indicators; classification of school-types; taking account of gender-related and regional differences.

6.      Assessment and measurement of primary mathematics: test items and test results analysis.

7.      Assessment and measurement of primary Portuguese learning: test items and test results analysis; the impact on bi- and multilingualism on language learning and language testing

8.      Science and skills testing: how can stages in cognitive development and skills be tested? What is the impact of the varying local regional cultures on children’s conceptual and skills’ development and how dependent is this development on the L1?

9.      Future staff development for the Mozambican group. International networking. Future collaboration with and links to Scandinavian educational research.

Agenda

Participants

From Sweden:

From other Scandiniavian countries:

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Last updated 11 Aug 2011 

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