Value-added measures for schools in England: looking inside the ‘black box’ of complex metrics
Value-added measures for schools in England: looking inside the ‘black box’ of complex metrics
Value-added measures can be used to allocate funding to schools, to identify those institutions in need of special attention and to underpin government guidance on targets. In England, there has been a tendency to include in these measures an ever-greater number of contextualising variables and to develop ever-more complex models that encourage (or ‘impose’) in schools a single uniform method of analysing data, but whose intricacies are not fully understood by practitioners. The competing claims of robustness, usability and accessibility remain unresolved because it is unclear whether the purpose of the measurement is teacher accountability, pupil predictability or school improvement.
This paper discusses the provenance and shortcomings of value-added measurement in England (and the Pupil Level Annual Schools Census that informs it) including the fact that although the metrics are essential for School Effectiveness Research, they fail to capture in its entirety the differential effectiveness of schools across the prior attainment range and across sub-groups of students and subjects.
181-198
Kelly, Anthony
1facbd39-0f75-49ee-9d58-d56b74c6debd
Downey, Christopher
bb95b259-2e31-401b-8edf-78e8d76bfb8c
28 May 2010
Kelly, Anthony
1facbd39-0f75-49ee-9d58-d56b74c6debd
Downey, Christopher
bb95b259-2e31-401b-8edf-78e8d76bfb8c
Kelly, Anthony and Downey, Christopher
(2010)
Value-added measures for schools in England: looking inside the ‘black box’ of complex metrics.
Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 22 (3), .
(doi:10.1007/s11092-010-9100-4).
Abstract
Value-added measures can be used to allocate funding to schools, to identify those institutions in need of special attention and to underpin government guidance on targets. In England, there has been a tendency to include in these measures an ever-greater number of contextualising variables and to develop ever-more complex models that encourage (or ‘impose’) in schools a single uniform method of analysing data, but whose intricacies are not fully understood by practitioners. The competing claims of robustness, usability and accessibility remain unresolved because it is unclear whether the purpose of the measurement is teacher accountability, pupil predictability or school improvement.
This paper discusses the provenance and shortcomings of value-added measurement in England (and the Pupil Level Annual Schools Census that informs it) including the fact that although the metrics are essential for School Effectiveness Research, they fail to capture in its entirety the differential effectiveness of schools across the prior attainment range and across sub-groups of students and subjects.
Text
Kelly_&_Downey_(2010)_Value-added_measures_for_schools_in_England_EAEA.pdf
- Accepted Manuscript
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Published date: 28 May 2010
Organisations:
Leadership School Improve &Effectiveness
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Local EPrints ID: 147593
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/147593
ISSN: 0920-525X
PURE UUID: b5f04c2b-9b1c-40ef-aee6-a059c349edaa
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Date deposited: 26 Apr 2010 09:04
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:51
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