The future of assessments

Uniting in their effort to achieve goals outlined in the UAE national agenda (Vision 2021), school principals in Dubai came together to discuss the future of international assessments at an event hosted by Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) in January.

In new data announced by KHDA, the performance of Dubai private schools among Grade 8 TIMSS was rated on par with schools in the 15th high performing countries.

Similarly, in PISA 2015, Dubai private schools have performed similar to schools in 20th high performing countries, in reading and in science.

Emirati students have improved across the board in TIMSS 2015 international assessments and the improvements were more pronounced in Grade 4, as compared with Grade 8, in both science and maths.

Speaking at the event, KHDa executive director of international assessments Dr Rabaa Al Sumaiti drew attention to the importance of the international assessments.

Addressing the principals gathered, she said: "What's the point of these international assessments? They are important tools that help us understand and evaluate if we are providing our students with what they need — are we helping them to reach their potential?

"Our results in TIMSS and PISA in 2015 show that principals have succeeded in doing this. You have worked so hard on providing students with better learning opportunities, making sure you exposed them to new types of knowledge. This is a great achievement. Without you working so hard on these national agenda targets, we wouldn't have reached these scores.

"It's important that we reflect on this achievement, and also think about what happens next, what lies ahead, what are the challenges we might face."

Al Sumaiti also noted the changes schools should expect during the next cycle of TIMSS and PISA assessments in 2018. Most notably, the TIMSS assessment will move from a paper-based test to a computer-based one.

"When you make this change, you have the opportunity to introduce new types of tests that are sometimes difficult to include on a paper-based assessment. So TIMSS is going to change from an assessment that measures student knowledge and understanding to cognitive abilities such as problem solving."

In 2018, PISA will focus on reading as the main domain. Commenting on the importance of reading and literacy programmes within schools, Al Sumaiti said: "If the 15-year olds who will take the TIMSS and PISA exams next year are not independent readers, if they're not exposed to diverse types of texts in their schools, where they can reflect on the meaning of what they're reading — they will find PISA challenging. Also students who don't enjoy reading or understand the importance of reading will also find PISA very challenging."

Al Sumaiti also encouraged schools to continue working together to help the UAE achieve its national agenda goals.

Dr Abdulla Al Karam, director general of KHDA, also noted the important role collaboration played in Dubai's TIMSS and PISA performance. He said: "School leaders have played a very important role in our journey to work towards achieving the UAE national agenda goals and the latest international assessment results are a reflection of their hard work. Together with the teachers, students and parents, we have to continue in this journey and make significant progress."

Al Karam also noted that the national agenda targets ensured that all schools began to work together to achieve a common goal, rather than individual targets. He said: "Schools never had a good reason to really come together — it was always nice to come together to talk or chat, or it was a school by school partnership. But the national agenda is not for any one school or curriculum — it's for the whole nation, and the schools really wanted to get together [to achieve this goal]."

Events such as the What Works forum, various lighthouse projects, and most recently, the Abundance Group project introduced by KHDA have all contributed to a more collaborative relationship between schools.

What Works founding member Rob Stokoe, managing director at Al Futtaim Education Foundation, commented: "It became a community thing, but the focus was on how do we support our students, make them confident, effective, flexible learners, rather than just lets crunch the test. So the success is an outcome of great learning — it wasn't just about passing a test; that was never our attitude. We want to grow performance all the time, and sustainability is really important to us."

Emirates International School principal David Hicks added: "One of the key things Rob suggested from the outset was that this was about context for learning. We are never going to be teaching to these tests. What we're looking at is raising the educational bar across Dubai. So we got groups of headteachers together to buy into this.

"It was about people working together, visiting each other's schools, whereas previously they were seen as competition. I think that was, for me, one of the main tipping points. If you put it down to anything, it was direction and collaboration."

While Dubai's private schools have shown a marked improvement in TIMSS and PISA scores from previous year, the UAE overall performed under global averages in both assessmenents.

When asked whether regulatory bodies across the country will be working together to share best practice, Al Karam said: "Since the result only came out a month ago, this dialogue will start happening, and only on a positive note — if something worked in Dubai, then it could work in other places.

Furthermore, confidence, a sense of belonging and an enjoyment of the subject have an impact on how well students perform in science, results from PISA show.

Students in Dubai's private schools who said they were happy while working on science topics scored an average of 504, which is 42 points higher than students who said the opposite. Likewise, students who said they felt a sense of belonging to their school scored 26 points higher than students who felt they did not belong.

Al Sumaiti said: "The close alignment between school inspection ratings and international assessment results means that we are able to have an annual, accurate measure of schools' progress with the UAE National Agenda targets. This alignment also gives international validation to Dubai school inspections, and provides parents, school leaders and investors with essential insight on school quality in Dubai."

Further evidence from PISA showed that students' self-confidence in science was linked to their test scores. Students who believed in their ability to achieve goals and complete tasks scored higher than students who had less confidence.

The latest cycle of PISA results aligned closely with findings from the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau (DSIB) and students attending schools rated Outstanding scored significantly higher than students at schools rated Acceptable or Weak.

Al Karam also believes that the results show schools in Dubai and across the UAE should continue to push themselves to outperform their targets.

Comparing the education sector to other segments of the UAE economy, he said: "Dubai has set the bar so high in everything — tourism, trade, construction — why not in education? Why should we only be in the top 15 or top 20 in education? So my message to you is I think we should push that.

"I think we have shown that we have what it takes to make the improvements we made only in the last cycle. And I think we will get there by working with each other."