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International Tests Results Underscore Urgency of Present Education Reform |
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Type: Education for a New Era Magazine Date: 9 January 2008
Students in Qatar are lagging behind the countries participating in PISA, according to the Qatar PISA National Report. The PISA study measures the proficiency of 15-year-olds students in three subjects: Mathematics, science and reading, focusing on their ability to apply learning in a real-world context. The 2006 study focused on science, while still testing all three subjects. PIRLS found that students in Qatar performed substantially better than those in the Arab states, and right below the Islamic, European and Asian countries participating in PIRLS. PIRLS is a major global assessments of reading literacy with forty-five countries (40 countries and 5 territories) participating. PIRLS findings are based on a survey of fourth grade students. The average reading scores were higher for students in independent schools and lower for students in the Ministry of Education and private Arabic schools. In addition to PISA and PIRLS, Qatar also participated in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS). Included in this edition of Education for a New Era are the summary findings from each report. Readers are encouraged to read the full reports online by visiting the SEC website at www.english.education.gov.qa
Summary and discussion of the PIRLS findings For this report, Qatar students performance was compared with four other countries, namely Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait and Morocco. Within this group of countries Qatar takes up the middle position. The Qatar average exceeds the averages of Kuwait and Morocco, although when compared to the average score on the reading achievement test across all countries, the average level for Qatar looks quite modest. In accordance with the international pattern girl students in Qatar clearly outperform the boys and the boy’s disadvantage in Qatar, however, is more than twice as large as the cross-national difference. In three of the four comparison countries the gender difference is similar to the international pattern, but Kuwait shows an even larger difference than all the rest. The disadvantage for boys in Kuwait is nearly four times as large as the average across all countries participating in PIRLS. Within Qatar substantial differences in achievement scores were found between school types. Considerably higher scores were found for the independent schools than for the Ministry of Education schools and the private schools. The descriptive analyses further revealed that the independent schools differ from the other two school types in a number of respects. Findings from the national QNEDS survey data used for the PIRLS National Report analyses showed that the percentages of teachers with limited language skills in Arabic are slightly larger for the independent schools, but with regard to the English language skills independent schools present a much more favourable picture. This holds also true for teacher computer skills. The PIRLS survey further revealed other respects in which independent schools clearly differ from the Ministry of Education schools and private Arabic schools. Principals of independent schools, e.g., reported a more favourable school climate, stronger home-school involvement and fewer problems with absenteeism. These principals also reported, on the one hand, much more often that their school’s capacity to provide instruction is affected by a shortage of school resources. This is a somewhat puzzling finding, as the actual availability of resources (such as number of books in the library and computers available for instruction) does not differ so strongly among the three school types. Perhaps this paradoxical finding is due to different views and expectations with regard to the amount and quality of facilities required for providing adequate education. On the other hand, principals’ responses with regard to the actual availability of both material resources (e.g. computers, books in the school library) and human resources (qualified teachers) suggest that lack of resources is not a very large problem in Qatar. Still, as was mentioned before, other school questionnaire data suggest otherwise. A relatively high percentage of principals feel that they have to cope with a shortage of school resources. Future research might reveal more precisely which resources are needed most and what kind of educational advances they are expected to realize. One clear difference between the situation in Qatar and the international picture relates to the work experience of the teachers. The average across all countries in PIRLS is 17 years of teaching experience, whereas the average in Qatar is 11 years. In independent schools the average teaching experience is even lower, namely 7 years. In most respects the antecedent conditions and “malleable” factors at the school level in Qatar do not differ that strongly from the general picture across all countries in PIRLS. Multilevel analysis indicates that the variation between schools in Qatar is smaller than the average across all countries. The percentage of 15.5% school level variance is a result that is usually reported in industrialized countries. The findings from the multilevel analysis into the effects of antecedent conditions and malleable factors on reading achievement also suggest that the most promising strategy for educational improvement would be to focus on instruction approaches that concentrate on enhancing a positive self-concept for students and fostering positive reading attitudes, as these factors show strong effects on reading achievement worldwide. Further research on the reciprocal relationship between student achievement and self- concept or attitudes in Qatar would be commendable in order to obtain a more precise indication of the gains that can be expected when student attitudes and self-concept are improved. The difference in reading achievement between boys and girls schools also deserves closer attention as the girls’ advantage in Qatar is substantially larger than the cross-national average. It is also considerably higher than in Indonesia, Iran and Morocco, but moderate in comparison to Kuwait. Some of the factors that were treated as “given” conditions in this report (e.g. parents’ attitudes toward reading, watching TV and early reading literacy skills) may still be prone to deliberate control. If schools succeed in improving the home-school involvement, this may lead to more positive attitudes toward reading among parents and make them more aware of the negative effects of excessive TV watching or computer gaming. Increasing parent awareness on the importance of early reading for the long-term development of their children may, in the long run, result in positive effects as well. An important finding is presented by the high level of reading scores attained by the students in independent schools. This supports the idea that allowing schools freedom in how to achieve the Qatar Curriculum Standards has an overall positive effect on student achievement. The advantage of independent school students over those from private schools remains significant when controlling for antecedent conditions at the student and class/school level
Summary of the results from PISA 2006 for Qatar Following is the summary of facts noted in the national report on PISA released by the Student Assessment Office of the Evaluation Institute: The data analyses have revealed several important and specific findings, which should be of paramount interest to decision makers, educators, the students themselves, and indeed all other members of society who are concerned with school quality and its significance for the long-term prosperity of Qatar as a nation. Average proficiencies in reading, mathematics and scientific literacy are among the lowest observed in the 56 countries that participated in the PISA 2006 assessment. Qatar’s 15-year-old students are, on average, somewhat ahead of their peers only when compared with the Kyrgyz Republic. The low average proficiencies observed in Qatar are, to a large extent, coincidental with the fact that the entire distributions of the proficiency scores are shifted left into the lower levels of the proficiency scales. This shift is observed for all three skill domains – reading, mathematics and science. Average proficiencies in all three skill domains are lowered further by the fact that relatively higher proportions of Qatari students have scores below the national average. The degree of positive skewness in the distribution of proficiency scores is particularly high in the mathematics and science domains. Finding ways of lifting the literacy proficiencies of the disproportionate high number of students at the tail end of the proficiency distribution should be a necessary element of any strategy to raise Qatar’s average scores. Other research suggests that distributions tend to be skewed when a high proportion of students do not attain the necessary reading skills during the primary grades that would enable them ‘read-to-learn’ during the later grades. Judged against the OECD distribution, average scores at key points along the proficiency distribution in Qatar are uniformly low. In relative terms, average Qatari scores at the 10th and 25th percentiles are significantly lower than comparable scores of their OECD peers. This finding applies to all three skill domains – reading, mathematics and science. The overwhelming majority of Qatari students are classified at the performance level Below Level 1. Very small percentages of Qatari students have skills that are sufficiently advanced, measured against OECD benchmarks, to place them at performance levels 3, 4, 5 or 6 in all three skill domains. These findings carry several important implications for current policy – not only education policy but also for those impacting family welfare, youth affairs, social work, culture, and, importantly, economic policies aimed at creating a Qatari environment amenable to sustainable development. First and foremost, the findings of the PISA study provide unequivocal support for Qatar’s “Education for a New Era” reform strategy and the concomitant new investments aimed at raising the quality of education in the country. Second, the very low levels of performance of today’s 15-year-old students, measured against OECD benchmarks, suggest that the education reforms instituted over the past few years have had only limited impact upon this cohort of Qatari students. This is particularly true with respect to reading literacy and performance in mathematics that are both much below the levels needed to support the efficient teaching and learning of science concepts and content. The on-going effort to afford high-quality early childhood education to all Qatari families should evidently be vigorously pursued, and measures now being implemented that are designed to improve learning at the early stages in primary schooling deserve centre stage. As stated earlier, it is important to realize that the 15-year-old students assessed in the PISA 2006 study for Qatar had, at best, only partially benefited from the initial stage of the reforms launched by the “Education for a New Era” initiatives. Hence any beneficial effects were realised during the last three years of their secondary education, a stage when the essential foundations of reading literacy and numeracy are normally already well established. This fact has profound implications for the interpretation of the findings presented in this report. The PISA 2006 estimates of the proficiency of Qatar’s 15-year-olds are best thought of as benchmarks for gauging future improvements, and as unequivocal confirmation that the current reform initiatives were indeed urgently needed Third, although the PISA 2006 findings will no doubt be interpreted by some educators and other members of Qatari society as discomforting, they should nevertheless be welcomed, not least because they offer objective confirmation that the “Education for a New Era” reform programme and the fact that it is already under way is essential to the future well being of the nation. They also provide strong support for continued standardised as well as classroom education assessment in the same sense that the critical condition of a patient has to be monitored, the more often the more critical that condition is. Particularly helpful would be the standardized assessment of reading, mathematics and science achievement at earlier ages, both to capture the effects of the recent reforms and to better understand what factors might play the greatest role in raising the performance of future cohorts of Qatari students. Further participation of Qatar in the Progress In Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) series, whose 2006 results were released on November 28th, would represent an important step in building the required knowledge base. Coincidentally, additional and innovative approaches to standardised testing in early grades, already planned, should now be implemented. Finally, the obligation of Qatari society to pursue social fairness in the long term dictates that the comparatively low performance of the presently measured PISA cohort of youth and young adolescents cannot be considered as an accidental situation in Qatar educational history, but as an objective that should be established for the country to consistently strengthen the provision of initial and/or remedial youth and adult education programming, so as to ensure that all those who have the motivation to upgrade their skills are afforded with adequate opportunities to do so. Moreover, steps should be taken for those lacking such motivation to develop it.
The findings also carry important future repercussions Second, as Qatar’s economy diversifies thanks to timely and recent decisions in favour of education, more and more Qatari adults will possess the levels of skills needed to participate in the tasks demanded in the global, knowledge-based economy, Nevertheless, this initiative needs to be complemented with a renewed effort to build an efficient system to educate and train adults. Because this will take time, however, the labour market in Qatar is likely to remain temporarily dependent on imported human capital, at least for some time. Third, while average skill levels are not high, the recent changes in education in Qatar should help prevent the generation of a notorious degree of variability in proficiency scores, to potentially create some inequality in important social and economic outcomes. High levels of inequality are a source of potential social instability, and they may constrain productivity growth, reduce the return on educational investments, and reduce levels of social cohesion and engagement. It is also worth noting that the findings presented carry implications for how to interpret the PISA results for Qatar. For instance, PISA proficiency in both reading and mathematics literacy of Qatar’s 15-year-old students is so low that it is reasonable to infer that the ability of these students to understand and respond to the PISA science items is seriously constrained. Finally, the fact that most students in Qatar showed low performance levels, and particularly at Below Level 1, means that their proficiency scores are less reliable than those estimated for countries in which the range of proficiency is more closely aligned with the distribution of item difficulties current for OECD countries. For this reason, PISA 2009 which is going to be field-trialled in 2008, in Qatar, includes a section of lower difficulty items for countries to include, if they want to improve reliability of measurement in lower portion of the distribution. |
In 2006, Qatar participated for the first time in two major international education assessments: the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS). International studies provide comparable data to the participating countries highlighting their education systems position at the global level, and identifying the weaknesses and strengths. This allows the participating countries to build on the shortcomings and hence building world-class education systems.
The report describes the main findings of the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS) for Qatar while the data collected in this study provide an extensive information base with regard to the reading literacy of grade 4 students. Contextual information was obtained through student, parent, teacher and school questionnaires. The report draws primarily on findings from PIRLS although additional information from Qatar, collected outside PIRLS (the QNEDS survey), was utilized as well.