School Education Quality Assessment Project (SEQAP)

Project description

School Education Quality Assessment Project (SEQAP) aims at helping developing countries that have insufficient capacity of experts to master use of the assessment technologies through development and adaptation of tools. The developed technology becomes country’s own. It then can be used by state authorities and school administration for educational assessment in the situation where large-scale international comparative research is not conducted. The project also promotes tools for day-by-day school assessment by teachers. SEQAP covers targets 4.1 and 4C of the SGD 4^th and targets 17.6 of the SDG 17^th.

The initiative is operated by the Center for International Cooperation in Education Development (CICED) and managed by agreements between CICED and organizations participating in the project from four countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

CICED is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Together with the World Bank CICED implements Russia Education Aid for Development (READ) Program. The SEQAP is a partnership that formed under the READ Program when CICED introduced promising tools for education quality assessment that could be adapted and used in a different cultural context and language. The cornerstone development of the Project is the Student Achievements’ Monitoring (SAM) student’s academic achievements assessment instrument which also incorporates a set of tools based on its taxonomy.

CICED cooperates with the leading Russian experts who work on the design of the assessment methodologies and tools. CICED promotes the development of tools including organization of piloting, clinical approbations and research conducting. The important role in tools development is a regular international review and validity studies which confirm that the tools and methodologies are reliable and developed in accordance with international standards.

Project implementation

The project is carried out through annual meetings, training, scientific seminars and other joint educational events.

All assessment methodologies were originally created in Russian language for the use in Russian educational environment, so they underwent the international validity review in order to prove efficiency. The next step and main requirement for the methodology’s transfer to participating countries is proper translation and adaptation of all materials (test books, questionnaires, instructions, etc.) to their languages and cultural contexts. Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have a lot in common concerning approach to education which is determined by the common soviet legacy in the sphere and a lot of similar cultural traditions.

The comparison of the monitoring results between countries participating in the project is also common concern. To help developers of such cross-cultural studies, CICED in partnership with SEQAP countries created guidelines and recommendations “Localization and adaptation framework” based on American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education (AERA/APA/NCME) standards, following which enables to achieve maximum equivalence in target populations. After application of this methodology of adaptation participating country receives a version of the test in another language, which is based on the same theoretical model as in the original version that takes into account cultural characteristics of the country of localization.

The adaptation methodology includes following steps:

1. Determination of target population and comparison analysis of the educational programs, performed by local specialists who passed advanced training from test items authors.
2. Translation and adaptation of test items which are common for Russia and the country of adaptation. This part is done through “learning by doing” approach by local bilingual specialists, under supervision of the test developers.
3. Development of new test items. This part is executed using “learning by doing” approach by local bilingual specialists, under supervision of the test developers.
4. Expert review by Russian experts.
5. Small pilot and clinical approbation of translated version. These researches are organized at the country of adaptation by the team of local specialists that underwent special training.
6. Psychometric validity research of the results of clinical approbation. Usually done jointly by country teams and Russian specialists.
7. Discussion of results, development of dissemination strategy and public presentation.