Slides for a course session on international comparative surveys and assessments, such as PISA, TIMSS, etc.

1. International Comparative
Surveys
Tryggvi Thayer
University of Iceland
October, 2016

2. Today on
As the World Learns
The kind and caring
grandmother,
The return of the long-
lost twin,
The evil, rich egomaniac,
And the slow and painful death of
common sense.

3. Our discussion here today
• What is the theory underlying the current
wave of international comparative survey (ICS)
projects?
• How are the outcomes of these projects being
used?
• What is the impact of these projects?

4. The purpose of ICSs
• To provide comprehensive and comparable
data on educational inputs and outcomes at
the national level to encourage discourse,
reflection and improvement.
– What works in education?
– What are barriers to educational attainment?
– How do national educational systems rate in
comparison to others?

5. What do we want from ICSs?
• Provide high quality data for educational
research
• Gauge for evaluating national systems
• Compass for seeking out best practice

6. A brief history of ICSs
• 1950s-60s – Explanatory research
– IEA: Effects of various personal and social factors on education
– International approach creates “controls” to determine what mix works
• 1970s – Massive data
– Several large studies in various subjects
– Humongous data processing centers
– Emphasis is still on explanatory research – what’s the secret sauce?!?
• 1980s – Diminishing interest
• 1990s – Descriptive research
– TIMSS – ICSs’ big comeback
– Emphasis on “what is” rather than “what works”
– Explanatory research left up to others
• 2000s – Benchmarking
– OECD’s PISA
– Introduction of concept of “literacy”
– Equality takes center stage
– ICSs are policy tools – and not just educational policy
• 2010s – Academia on the warpath!

7. What do we get out of ICSs?
Sophisticated comparative analyses

8. What do we get out of ICSs?
Rankings

9. ICSs in contemporary discourse
• Educational systems influence
countries’/nations’/regions’ competitive status
within the global marketplace
– Educational system co-opted by the economic system
(Shift from Bourdieu’s autonomous to heteronomous pole)
– A good educational system increases national
competitiveness
(Steiner-Khamsi, et al., 2006)
Concept of the “best” educational system is born.

10. GERM!
Global Education Reform Movement
• Pasi Sahlberg (2011)
– GERM starts to emerge in the late 1980s
– Promotes:
• Standardised education
• Focus on traditional core subjects
• Minimal risk in pursuit of learning outcomes
• Corporate management models
• Test-based accountability

11. Policy borrowing: Shopping in the
educational policy marketplace?
Attention shoppers: Today’s blue light special is
Finnish educational policy in aisle 10!

12. Phillips & Ochs, 2003Stage III:
Implementation
Policy borrowing
in practice

13. How’s all this working out?
“Perhaps most important, participation in international programs also
increases awareness of the methods, strategies, and policies employed
by other countries and education systems.”
(Tamassia & Adams, 2009, p. 213)
“[If I were a conspiracy theorist], I could say that PISA is a plot to
disrupt all Eastern Asian countries’ serious efforts to develop an
education system that cultivates confident, creative, diverse, and
happy students.”
(Yong Zhao, 2014)
http://zhaolearning.com/2014/04/12/how-does-pisa-put-the-world-at-risk-part-5-racing-to-the-past/