what can social science contribute to educational policy? peter tymms durham uk

What can Social Science Contribute to Educational

Policy?

Peter Tymms

Durham

UK

Overview

• Effectiveness of policies & cost

• How can research help

• Where the action lies

• Two interventions

• What is needed

Impact of UK Policy Initiatives: One example

40

50

60

70

80

90

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Perc

ent l

evel

4 and

abov

e

KS2 maths

KS2 English

2000

KS2 Percent With Level 4+

Independent data from:

• Thirteen independent studies

• Two thirds of a million assessments

40

50

60

70

80

9019

95

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

MathsEnglish

What really happened

Summary

• Reading improvements were “largely illusory”

• Maths improvements were modest

Why the issue is important

• Cost: £500,0000 on the NLS

• “Large scale reform is not only possible but can be achieved quickly”

Michael Barber Education Week 15/11/00

• National Audit Office in Modern Policy

Took the NLS to draw lessons about successful policy making.

The pendulum swings and ..

• History is littered with educational initiatives that have had no impact.

• USA: Billions of dollars have been spent on reading with no impact.

How can research help?

• Providing an overview – Low level generalisations (Scriven)

• For practitioners• For policy makers

• Providing feedback through– Monitoring – Evaluation

• Researching– What works– NB Unit of Investigation

What is most important?

• For the progress and attitudes of students – The district– The school– The principal – The teacher

The Newcastle Commission

A political promise

Data Sources

• Several national datasets including

– ASPECTS, PIPS, MidYIS & YELLIS – plus KS1, KS2, KS3 & GCSE

• Looked a value-added using 3 level multilevel models

English Official Assessments

• A level

• GCSE

• End of KS3

• End of KS2

• End of KS1

• FSP

ALIS

YELLIS

MIDYIS

PIPS

ASPECTS

Pupil raw Pupil value-added

School raw

School value added

LEA raw LEA value added

-3.00

-2.00

-1.00

0.00

1.00

2.00

Learning

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

District School Principal Teacher

Two example of research into what works

But what should the unit of investigation be?

First Intervention

• Teachers rate pupils aged 5 on their ADHD symptoms.

• High scoring pupils fall behind for years to come

Interventions

• Randomly assign to schools

Identification No Identification

Booklet

No Booklet

Interventions

• Randomly assigned to LEAs

Nothing Information packs

Conference & packs

Numbers

• 24 Authorities

• 2040 schools

• 60,000 pupils

• Over 2 years

Results

• LEA Interventions – No impact on any of the outcome measures

For booklet– Higher Y2 reading scores across all pupils– Better behaviour for pupils with ADHD characteristics– More positive teachers

• Identification– No impact

• Interaction– Negative and puzzling

Second Intervention: Peer Tutoring

We know that ..

Peer Learning enhances learning

But

Can a whole Authority change?

Compare• Fife-in-the-future with Fife-in-the-past• Cross-age with same-age• Separate and mixed approaches?• Intensive and selective approaches?

And

• The schools have agreed to be randomly assigned to interventions.

Where do we go?

• Get and retain good teachers• Use the methods of science to

– Monitor– Evaluate– Investigate using RCTs at the school & LEA levels

• And in the future– Use diagnostic computer adaptive assessments– Create simulations– Reforms as experiments (Campbell)

what can social science contribute to educational policy? peter tymms durham uk

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