Guide to measuring information and ... - unesdoc - Unesco

vi) formulating value judgments to determine where students from participating countries have
demonstrated some strengths or weaknesses with regard to the assessed domains;
vii) providing a first global answer to initial questions of policymakers on how their respective
education systems are performing; and
viii) conducting secondary analyses using explanatory indicators to investigate further the
reasons behind the observed weaknesses.
The latter step is referred to as the diagnosis phase. This phase is difficult to realize. The
assessments are designed as one-shot operations where primary and secondary indicators
need to be measured at the same point in time, but the investigation questions to be addressed
in the secondary analyses are not obvious in advance. Moreover, the set of potentially relevant
indicators often needs to be restricted due to constraints, such as the time available for
administering tests and questionnaires, or the costs associated with developing and piloting new
indicators.
The level of sophistication of the tools required for a sample-based assessment presents a
number of challenges. These include the rigor of the methodological approach, which could be
biased towards perceptions of experts, cost (in terms of time or resources), and cultural and
language constraints.
One of the first sample-based assessments aiming at measuring the use of ICT in education
was the Second Information Technology in Education Studies (SITES). Initiated in 1997, SITES
is a research programme focused on comparative assessment of ICT use in education across
many countries. Case studies of innovative pedagogical practices were also undertaken. SITES
2006 is the third project in the series. Countries covered by the various rounds of SITES
include:
SITES M1 (1999): Belgium (Francophone), Bulgaria, Canada, China (Taipei), Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, Iceland,
Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, New Zealand, Russian
Federation, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Thailand.
SITES M2 (2001): Australia, Canada, Chile, China (Taipei), Czech Republic,
Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of
China, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines,
Portugal, Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain (Catalonia),
Thailand, the United States.
SITES M3 (2006): Australia, Canada (Alberta and Ontario), Chile, China (Taipei),
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of
China, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Russian Federation (Moscow),
Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain (Catalonia), Thailand.
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