Indicator Research for the National Report on Education

Indicator research provides a framework for several projects carried out by the institutions that account for the national report on education in Germany. These projects address the following problems: (a) fundamental questions in the fields of educational reporting and the indicator-based approach, (b) the further development of indicators and conceptualising new ones respectively, as well as (c) linkages between single indicators belonging to different dimensions.
At the DIPF, the following priorities in research on indicators are currently pursued in this context:

Criteria-driven analysis of the conception of

international educational reports:

For the further development of the concept of indicators underlying national educational reporting, and in order to assure that it meets the international standards, it is necessary to take international developments of educational monitoring into consideration in a systematic way. The OECD reports, reports by the European Commission as well as reports submitted by individual countries  (USA, Canada, Japan, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Austria) are analysed according to the following aspects: 1. allocation of educational reporting within the overarching system of educational monitoring; 2. design and structure of educational reports;  3. notion of indicators;  4. construction of the respective indicator system and the periodicity of single indicators; 5. process indicators; 6. indicators on outcomes;  7. indicators and text parts dedicated to social-communicative competencies; 8. indicators on dealing with disabilities;  9. criteria for data sources and quality; 10. dealing with research findings.

Study on the use of indicators for assessing the process quality of schooling and instruction:

German educational reports published so far do not represent any explicit findings on educational processes. If the table of indicators used in an educational report is to represent central governance aspects, it must take such mediating factors into account. Subject to agreement with the Institut zur Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen (Institute for Quality Development in Education, IQB), the educational standard survey of 2009 included several items on the quality of educational processes, which need to be represented in a comparison across educational institutions on the basis of indicators. In a first access, proven scales from student surveys and international comparative assessments such as PIRLS/IGLU or PISA (e.g. disciplines and freedom of governance in instruction, supportive behaviour of teachers) are analysed regarding their use as indicators for process quality in general education schools. The project is to provide the framework for generating a system for the existing scales and for assessing their respective construct validity and the validity of measurement.

Study on the use of indicators for the professionalisation of teachers in the school system:

Shaping educational processes at school and in lessons - and hence the quality development of school systems - is particularly marked by the individual professionalism of teachers. Owing to the deficits in the database, indicator-based information on teaching staff is limited to its composition in terms of age, gender, scope of occupation and teaching qualification so far. This research project investigates what aspects of teacher professionalisation can be operationalised within the total volume of teaching activity. Based on assessment instruments that were used in the educational standard survey conducted by IQB in 2009, the following three general aspects of teacher professionalisation are to be represented by indicators: 1. Institutional and informal re-training activities; 2. activities preparing teachers for taking on additional responsibilities within the school development framework and class and school management; and 3. counselling tasks and counselling competencies.

Analysis of individual unit records for indicators on school graduates:

Existing indicators on school graduates are based on school statistical summative data, i.e. highly aggregated, uni-variate tables that vary depending on the federal state and statistical publication series. Available data are therefore highly heterogeneous, depending on whether the unit of analysis relates to the system level, the local or institutional level. The Standing Conference of Ministers of Cultural Affairs (KMK) has agreed upon a core data set for school statistical individual data for the federal states. It will in the future deliver a large number of characteristics relating to students, teachers and institutions in terms of individual unit records that can be interlinked. This project aims to assess the opportunities and limitations of these statistics for indicators on school leaving certificates. Analysis of the interplay between personal, school-related and regional background features shall provide for the ascertainment of differentiated information on the acquisition of school leaving certificates.

Funding

This research conducted by the DIPF and its co-operation partners is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. A first account of findings has already been delivered for the funding years 2007–2008 ("Indikatorenentwicklung für den nationalen Bildungsbericht “Bildung in Deutschland“. Grundlagen, Ergebnisse, Perspektiven" [Development of indicators for the national report on education „Education in Germany“;  foundations, findings, perspectives], BMBF 2010).