Learning from Successful Examples: From Local Testing to International Assessments

Abstract

Abstract This research paper tries to look into the issues of achievement gaps in education in Gulf countries. The paper sets forth an idea that the international projects such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science (TIMSS), and Progress in Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) could serve not only as means of setting and checking quality standards in education but also as mediators in closing achievement gaps and in helping increase the accountability of schools toward the wider public. The paper also makes an attempt to look at the relative standing of Arab Gulf countries in the international projects such as TIMSS, PISA, and PIRLS. The research assumes that the large-scale international data might appear useful for benchmarking the progress made in any individual country. The paper suggests that the arrows of influence move and operate in both directions, implying that while setting global standards, international projects base their judgments on identified local challenges in education systems of individual countries. Most importantly, they could be used in influencing national policies to make education systems more transparent and comparable to international standards. First, the paper states that in order to carry out the benchmarking process efficiently and obtain meaningful results for policy making on an international level, assessment procedures such as testing and questionnaire reporting should be conducted on a local level prior to moving to international level. The paper draws experiences from high-performing countries such as Chinese Taipei, South Korea, and Japan. These countries go through intensive local testing practices at early schooling stages before moving on to participating in TIMSS, PISA, and PIRLS projects. Consequently, school children, schools, school districts, and entire countries show high academic readiness and performance at the fourth and eighth grades on an international level. Second, the paper hypothesizes that discrepancies between teaching methodologies of items covered by individual country curricula, a variety of approaches toward explanation and delivery of various concepts to students, and teacher-specific implementation of theory and practice balance during classes could all potentially contribute to wide gaps and discrepancies between TIMSS, PISA, and PIRLS scores of separate countries no matter how similar their national curricula might look. Strategies for narrowing down examination and questionnaire issues to the items covered in the curricula of all countries have been offered on several occasions; however, this procedure causes oversimplification of teaching and items, and leads to considerable lowering of standards. Therefore, this issue has been presenting a substantial dilemma in TIMSS, PISA, and PIRLS projects’ success across countries.