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Week 51: Assessing civics and citizenship
What makes for a civic society and what are the attributes of good citizenship? If the answers to those questions are complex, it’s no surprise to learn that conducting international and even national assessments of civics and citizenship is no less complex.
Countries have varying conceptions of civics and citizenship as a result of their specific historical backgrounds, as well as differing curriculum approaches. ‘That makes civics and citizenship education (CCE) quite different from, say, mathematics,’ explains Wolfram Schulz, Research Director of ACER’s International Surveys program. ‘In some countries, CCE is a discrete subject; in others it’s integrated into social studies or history; in yet others it’s addressed using a cross-curricular approach.’
Given such variation, the work of ACER’s International Surveys team on the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) addresses fundamental and generic aspects of CCE across countries.
‘ICCS addresses common aspects of civics and citizenship, which involves a process of consultation and agreement across nations,’ says Wolfram. ‘In an international study it is not possible to assess students’ knowledge about their national political system, but it has been possible to assess region-specific aspects of CCE through three regional ICCS modules for East Asia, Europe and Latin America. ‘In the European module, for example, there was an opportunity to assess students’ knowledge of institutions of the European Union and their relationship with sovereign European institutions.’
Wolfram and other colleagues like Suzanne Mellor, Julian Fraillon and John Ainley have worked on the ICCS as well as the National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship (NAP-CC), which has been conducted by ACER in 2004, 2007 and 2010, and is currently in its fourth cycle with an online data collection in 2013. ACER staff members have contributed to civics-related studies since the late 1990s when Wolfram worked as Associate International Coordinator on the IEA Civic Education Study (CIVED 1999) at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, while Suzanne managed the national participation of Australia from ACER in Melbourne.
‘The work by ACER researchers on CIVED and later on ICCS, as well as NAP-CC, has been characterised by a combination of strong expertise in test development, questionnaire development and psychometric rigour and methodological knowledge across different programs in our organisation,’ Wolfram points out.
‘Assessments like ICCS and NAP-CC provide an opportunity to measure the level of students’ knowledge about civics and citizenship internationally and nationally, but they also enable us to better understand what factors influence the engagement of young people in society. One of the important findings of our research is the positive impact of knowledge about society on students’ disposition for civic engagement in the future.’
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Week 52: State of the art psychometric and statistical analysis
Week 50: International research into teaching and learning
Week 49: Supporting high-quality education across the world
GOAL 1
Learners and their needs
every learner engaged in challenging learning opportunities appropriate to their readiness and needs
GOAL 2
The Learning Profession
every learning professional highly skilled, knowledgeable and engaged in excellent practice
GOAL 3
Places of learning
every learning community well resourced and passionately committed to improving outcomes for all learners
GOAL 4
A Learning Society
a society in which every learner experiences success and has an opportunity to achieve their potential
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