Using data to improve student performance

GL Education's CAT4 (Cognitive Abilities Test) assessment has now become mandatory for Dubai's private schools as part of the annual school inspections conducted by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority's Dubai School Inspection Bureau.

While the CAT4 might be part of the official National Agenda Parameters from this year, GL Education's assessment tools have been used by several schools previously.

"I've been working in the UAE now for four years — the schools that we were working with originally tended to be some of the more innovative or forward thinking schools. Some were British curriculum, some were IB. And they wanted to understand more about their students to be able to really improve teaching and learning. CAT4 data allows schools to understand who their learners are, how they learn, and what their potential is," says GL Education international director James Neill.

"It gives the teachers the power to personalise and differentiate in the classroom and it gives the school leadership some information about what will a certain cohort be like in a few years' time, what kind of resources should they be thinking about, what can they do differently to really get the best out of their students."

GL Education currently offers three assessment tools for schools: the CAT4, which tests students' ability, the Progress Test Series, which look at student attainment, and PASS (Pupil Attitudes to Self and School), which addresses barriers to learning.

The CAT4 assesses a student's ability to reason with and manipulate different types of material through a series of verbal, non-verbal, quantitative, and spatial reasoning tasks. Together, these four tests provide teachers with a comprehensive profile of a student's reasoning abilities.

While some schools may have experience with these tests, the majority of schools are adopting them for the first time. To help schools with the process, GL Education has been hosting several training and peer observation sessions in Dubai.

During the last week of September alone, the team spoke to nearly 100 schools who attended their workshops.

"Different schools come in with different levels of understanding. So first we make sure that they understand the concept of what the CAT4 does and how it fits in with educational pedagogy.

"We then give them some insight into what you can do with the data. We do lots of examples with practice data. So as a group, we look at practice data, sample students, scenarios where we ask if this was a child in your class what would you do. As a principal, if this was your cohort, how would you get your staff to use this data. And then schools are able to bring their own data that they've been doing with their students, and then we actually work with them on using their own data. And the buzz in the room when the teachers understand the data and they understand who the students are, they really get this deep insight about their learners, and the motivation is quite something," Neill says.

Additionally, in every session, GL Education invites schools who have been using data to talk about their experience.

"Every school is different. So even though we can give some examples of how CAT data can be used, there will be different challenges in different schools. All of this can be determined by analysing the CAT4 data. What we say is the most important thing in every session we've done is — it's not just the numbers in the data and the assessment, it's what you're going to do with it. What you're going to use the data for, how you're going to change how you teach, how you're going to change how you view your students, what impact will it have, and what interventions will you be doing. So we're very much focusing on what does it mean; the "so what" factor — what are you going to do with this data to make a difference," Neill explains.

The feedback from these sessions has been "really positive", Neill says. During any one session, schools offering a variety of curricula — including the IB, British, Indian, or American — will share best practices and feedback.

"Recently, for example, we had schools for three or four hours doing a hands on session. There may be some teachers who may ask why they're having to do it. But when they understand the power of the data and when they start looking at the data of the students that they teach, they're seeing their students in a different light. They're beginning to see students that they may have been teaching and they've kind of known there may be something holding them back, whether it's their attitude or something that isn't right with their students.

"But when they do the CAT data, they can begin to see they're probably frustrated because they're actually very able, very gifted, but their language skills, for instance, is probably holding them back. So therefore they can now work on those skills. So it allows teachers to reflect on their own teaching and most teachers want to do the best for students, that's why we go into teaching, so it really motivates teachers to do better for their students.

Neill is also quick to point out that the assessments are curriculum neutral, which makes them easily adoptable for any school.

"The CAT4 is completely curriculum neutral – it has no links to any curriculum in the content of the test so it doesn't matter whether the school is following a British, American, IB, Indian, or any other curriculum. What we've been able to do is do some correlations between CAT data and eventual attainment data through exams like GCSEs or IB, and now CBSE. So even though the data is very rich without it, for many of these curriculums we now have an extra report that allows them to look at their indicators.

"Schools can use this to really motivate and engage students to achieve their potential. So CAT4 is almost like helping students to raise their potential and what they want to achieve and by changing the way you teach, giving students the power and knowledge of how they learn, everyone can benefit," he enthuses.